曇りの日、ネッティングのために暗くなります。二番目に高い階と、間に、作業員が立っています。下に、シュロのヤシの木がいいコントラストを作り出しています。
If you look carefully, you can see a worker in the middle of the second highest floor. I also like the contrast between the construction materials, the over-loaded electric pole, and the volunteer palm tree that rises out of the parking lot.
Day and night you can see people fishing in these stocked ponds on the Outer Moat, across from Ichigaya station. The contrast between the busy transit corridor, the beautiful moat, and the leisurely city fishers is enchanting.
最近買ったCanon G1Xというデジタルカメラの使い方をまだ勉強しているが、よく間違います。HDRという設定を使って、動いている車が反復して映ります。芝公園の増上寺で。
I am still getting used to my new (used) Canon G1X digital camera. I mistakenly used the HDR (high dynamic range) setting, and it created this ghost like effect of the car traffic passing the crosswalk. I like the contrast between the dynamic street and the stately landmarks.
I like how this Showa house, with its manicured garden, has somehow survived in Shibuya. Near NHK headquarters. The difference in scale with its neighbors is striking.
なぜは庭なしの新しい自宅が人気なのでしょうか。表参道では、バブル前と８０時代後の自宅の差が大きいです。
Walking in Omotesando, you can see the contrast between houses built before and after the 1980s. Unfortunately, most of the new houses occupy the entire lot, with no room for the sizable gardens in their pre-Bubble predecessors.
ラッパスイセンはとても明るいです。陶芸の植木鉢の花を変えました。
It was nice to re-pot my favorite hand-made ceramics with fresh flowers. I love daffodils for being so cheerful, with a high contrast between fresh green leaves and yellow buds.
茂みの波の形は、角張った建物に対照しています。
The bushes’ wave shape makes a nice contrast with the angular buildings tightly packed.
アパートの入り口から見えた、雨降りの朝の景色です。節電ですから、電気をほとんど消しています。中と外の対象がはっきりしていますね。
This is the view from my apartment building lobby on a rainy spring day. Because of energy conservation, many lights are turned off. This increases the contrast between indoors and outdoors.
I walk through this lobby every day, and rarely think about it or consider taking a photo. Recently, I participated in the Xerox and City photo workshop at Vacant, led by Hirano Taro and organzized by Too Much magazine as part of their Romantic Geographies series. We were asked to take photos of our breakfast and then our trip to the workshop in Harajuku. It made me think more about spaces that become automatic or ignored.
Tokyo residents are more aware of energy use and lighting now. Many parts of the city are less brighly lit: from billboards to train stations to residences. By lowering our lighting, we are more attuned to natural cycles, and more sensitive to the boundaries between private and public, indoor and outdoor, personal and shared resources.
Miniature pine forest outside Japan Supreme Court. In 1970s, traditional garden joined Brutalist architecture. Would love to see traditional garden with urban forest today.
最高裁判所の外にすてきな松の小さな森がある。７０年代に日本庭園とブルータリスム建築は一緒になった。将来は日本庭園と都市の森は一緒になれるかな。
Walking in Chiyoda-ku opposite the Imperial Palace, I saw this forest of beautiful stunted pine trees above a stone wall. At eye level, there appear to be hundreds of carefully twisted pines whose canopy is less than one meter from the ground. Behind this gorgeous sea of needles is the Supreme Court of Japan (最高裁判所), a 1974 Brutalist concrete building that won awards for its architect Shinichi Okada.
I love the stone wall and the pine forest. In my dream, the once avant-guarde building could regain its ぷprominence by using the concrete structure to support a dense urban forest on its walls and roof. The wildness of the forest hill would contrast nicely with the austere pine forest serving as a formal moat to this newly enlivened public building. The contrast would be magnificent.
While I love the chaos of DIY gardens and the lushness of urban forests, there is also room for traditional Japanese gardens and techniques in the urban landscape, particularly around important public buildings. The contrast between heavily manipulated and more natural landscapes is a new concept at which Tokyo can excel.
Recently I visited construction company Kajima’s headquarters in Akasaka to learn more about their extraordinary biodiversity program, and was charmed by the miniature Japanese garden in front of the modernist building. One could criticize the excess of hardscape, but it does make the small traditional garden pop in a dramatic way.
The perfectly pruned pines and arrangement around a “river” of pebbles and rock “mountains” makes a wonderful composition. Even the tallest trees are under 1 meter in this miniature dream landscape. While the environmental benefit is minimal, such stylized and well cared for nature creates a beauty that is unquantifiable and a momentary escape from urban life.
The contrast not only with the building but the surrounding neighborhood is extreme.
Tokyo Green Space 