Project Details
- Project Name
- Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City
- Architect
- ZGF Architects
- Size
- 7,000,000 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2030
- Shared by
- Hanley Wood Media
Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
Originally conceived as a transit-oriented development located 18 miles north of Tokyo, Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City pioneers a district-scale urban planning approach for a resilient neighborhood focused on the way people use spaces. Since 2004, it has been refined to include community aspirations, respond to natural disasters, and bolster environmental and social initiatives. In 2016 Kashiwa-no-ha became the largest LEED® Neighborhood Development Plan Platinum-certified “smart city” in the world.
Conceived as a 7 million SF mixed-use employment district, the Vision Plan was organized around new concepts for open space—with costs and benefits shared by businesses and residential communities, as Japan recognizes the advantage of district-level thinking to reconcile community values, attract new development, and address environmental issues.
Large-scale sustainable living is reinforced through a centralized energy management system; energy conservation, generation, and storage; local food production; and low-carbon urban transportation. Active and vital streets connect and energize the updated civic realm, as living and working in the same neighborhood supports efficient resource use, builds social cohesion, and improves livability. This synergy is demonstrated by the transformation of a rainwater detention facility into a vibrant civic commons—a biophilic community amenity.
Kashiwa-no-ha is environmentally and technologically innovative—an acute interest after 2011’s Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima Power Plant disaster, when energy conservation became a critical national priority. For example, the Area Energy Management System monitors energy levels through an app informing people in high-use areas how to reduce consumption, while display monitors broadcast building performance information in the public realm. Today, Kashiwa-no-ha is a mix of building uses—hotel, hospital, residential, research, and commercial—connected via a district energy and power distribution system to share utility loads and reduce peak electric usage, allowing occupants to live off the grid until power and water can be restored.
Through smart city placemaking, from policy to urban design, Kashiwa-no-ha is a model of a technologically integrated, mixed-use development establishing neighborhood facilities that support a variety of generations, lifestyles, and uses for a sustainable and resilient community.