オーストラリアの地理の教科書が韓国と日本の章に私の写真を使ってくれました。銀座農園の写真です。とても良い教科書です。もちろん、世界の中心はオーストラリアになっています。 I was very flattered that one of Australia’s top geography textbooks, published by Wiley, included my photograph of Ginza Farm in their “Japan and Korea” page. My father in law was confused by the idea of the two countries together. I’d like to think it’s a hopeful gesture. Of course, since it’s an Australian […]
On November 1, Ginza Farm celebrated the rice harvest. The event began at 9 am on a Sunday morning and drew a crowd including children, parents, bloggers, an actress in an upcoming movie about farming, and the carpenter Hisano who built the beautiful tanbo, tables and benches. Above entrepreneur Iimura san helps the kids hang […]
On the first day of October, I visited Ginza Farm, and saw the rice is almost ready to be harvested. San Francisco Chronicle’s transportation reporter asked to interview me about Tokyo Green Space, and I thought there was no better public place to meet than Ginza Farm. The reporter’s interpreter told us that one sign […]
Yesterday I stopped by Ginza Farm to check on the rice. As you can see in the photo above, the rice seeds are already forming. Despite the challenges of growing rice in a high rise-district, as Iimura-san explained last month, the plants are thriving. In fifteen minutes, I saw fifteen visitors, plus the attention of […]
Last week I sat down with Iimura Kazuki (飯村一樹) at Ginza Farm, with a translator, and learned much more about his ideas for Ginza Farm, his background and his next project. Iimura-san told me that he is very interested in urban farming in Japan and worldwide. His background has given him unique skills for pulling […]
On a side street in Ginza, I noticed a rice farm and met Ginza Farm‘s CEO Iimura Kazuki (飯村一樹) and his assistant who were tending the rice and two cute ducklings. Shop clerks and construction clerks stopped by to admire the rice in its mid-summer glory. The rice farm occupies an empty lot. At the […]
「Lotus』というイタリアの雑誌に私の東京の農園の写真が二つでました。パソナのロビーの田んぼと銀座農園の空き地の田んぼの写真が選ばれました。「Lotus』には素敵な建築のプロジェクットがたくさんのっています。四角いかたちです。もっと東京のグリーンスペースを雑誌に紹介したいです。 Lotus Editorial kindly sent me a copy of Lotus 149, titled Lotus in the Field, which explores the relations with the countryside. Lotus is a beautifully designed, Italian-English bilingual architecture quarterly from Milan. Lotus 149 includes two of my urban agriculture photographs: one of Pasona’s corporate lobby rice field, the other an outdoor, temporary […]
Walking in Tokyo always provides new discoveries. In Ginza, where global brands are housed in tall ultra-contemporary mid-rises, there are still small alleys and two story buildings. I was astounded to stumble upon this bakery housed in what seems the perfect simulation of the French countryside. When Japanese set out to evoke a foreign scene, […]
On the first of September, Iimura Kazuki (飯村一樹) opened Omotesando Farm (表参道彩園), a roof-top garden rental space in a central upscale commercial and residential district. He is offering sixteen small plots at rents ranging from $170 to $250 per month (15,750 to 23,100 yen). Although community gardens exist in outer neighborhoods of Tokyo, Omotesando Farm […]
Last week the Ginza Honey Bee Project (銀座ミツバチプロジェクト) founders Takayasu Kazuo (高安和夫) and Tanaka Atsuo (田中淳夫) talked with me about their successful four year old honey-making project in the middle of Ginza, and showed me their rooftop hives. We met in a unremarkable conference room in a nondescript office building behind Matsuya department store. A […]
Woman’s Day published a “Magnificent Urban Gardens” feature for Earth Day. The ten photos include two from Tokyo Green Space: Ginza Farm’s rice field and the sidewalk pansies photo that is the project icon. I am amazed that these photos are in the context of famous and not so famous world city gardens, including Patric […]
日本語 LiVES.jp, Tokyo Green Space (日本語)２０１４年７月。 Suumo.jp, 「水辺と緑という癒しのある芝浦から」２０１３年８月。 Shibaura House の２０１２年報に、私のプロフィールが紹介されました。 Limno, 「東京フルーツ・レイアー」76 Libbre e XVI Soldi (76 Pounds and XVI Coins)。ベネチア、イタリア。２０１２。 Greenz.jp, 「あんなところにフルーツが！果物を通じて”おいしい街”TOKYOを再発見する「東京ローカルフルーツ」２０１２年７月３０日。 Newsweek Japan, 「それでも外国人が東京暮らしを愛する理由」２０１０年１０月２８日 Newsweek Japan, 「東京の無駄な空間に自然を」２０１０年６月１４日 Newsweek Japan, 「江戸時代に学ぶエコライフ』２０１０年４月１２日 Newsweek Japan, 「東京のガーデニング文化を世界に誇れ」 ２０１０年１月１２日 東京新聞、「緑と共生、東京から発信を」２００９年１２月８日 English Tokyo Street Gardens: Unrecognized Beauty, Ikebana International, Vol 58, Issue 2, pp 24-30, 2014. My photos of Ginza Farm […]
“The Japanese think of the City in the way that Englishmen used to think of Mighty London. It is either one or the other. Rice paddies or the Ginza.” (p35) I am reading the wonderful author Donald Richie’s The Inland Sea, first published in 1971. Richie is the ultimate American expat in Japan, who stayed […]
A recent New York Times story about vandalism of Paris’ visionary Velib bike-sharing program highlighted an enormous advantage that Tokyo has in creating great public spaces: the respect that citizens pay to shared space and to each other. To mitigate climate change, reduce traffic and clean the city’s air, Paris created a remarkable bike sharing […]
Metropolis magazine in Japan published my article on Tokyo Green Space. It’s my first general interest article on some of the amazing green space innovators I have met during my research in Tokyo: including Ginza rice farmers and bee keepers, a modern bonsai
Tokyo Green Space 