“Touching” the City, Creating a “Cultural Stage” in Urban Spaces

To "touch with the city" means to actually visit the city and acquire its essence through all five senses—an experience that cannot be fully captured through the internet alone, as it involves a physical interaction between people and the urban environment.

In this design competition, we were tasked with envisioning the future of Tokyo’s main street, "Park Avenue," and its surrounding areas for the year 2040. Our proposal aims to create a unique "urban fabric" in Shibuya’s Park Avenue area, generating a tactile urban quality that can only be experienced firsthand.

The "urban fabric" concept refers to encountering cultural activities that unfold in various public spaces and adding depth to the streetscape through design interventions, much like the texture of a painting or the materiality of a sculpture.

By leveraging the natural terrain of valleys and ridges along Park Avenue, we propose creating new micro-landscapes. These will directly connect people with the city, serving as catalysts for urban cultural experiences. As redevelopment progresses, including projects directly connected to the station, visiting the slightly remote Park Avenue area will provide a novel urban experience that is expressed throughout the street.

Transforming streets from mere conduits for traffic into stages for human activity, the unique urban form of the Park Avenue area will overlay cultural activities, aiming to create an unprecedented new facade for the city.