Nicolas Hugentobler, Takeshi Yano, Atsushi Yokomizo, Guillaume Yersin
In the first half of the workshop we researched a number of waterfront areas in Yokohama (Kannai, Minato Mirai 21, Yokohama Station and Koyasu). As a result, we were able to confirm that the Yokohama waterfront is comprised of areas that are different in a number of respects, including mixture of use and scale.
However, those areas are separated by environmental and historical factors and infrastructure and have only a tenuous relationship to one another. They might be compared to different kinds of jewels, arranged one next to the other but lacking a chain to link them into a necklace. We believed it was necessary to devise that chain and create a network out of these different areas.
We thought that as a first step, the Minato Mirai 21 district ought to be improved. Though Minato Mirai 21 was intended to connect the Yokohama Station area and Kannai, two commercial districts which are at some distance from one another, it was simply placed in the gap between the two commercial districts. Composed of mega blocks, It is not humanly scaled. Its outdoor spaces are deserted, leftover areas; the programs prepared for the spaces are without any special character.
We had discovered through various case studies in our earlier research that the Kannai district had the most diverse mixture of uses and the most human of scales of all the areas. We concluded that the Minato Mirai 21 district could acquire sustainability, mixed uses, a human scale and a new ambience if the Kannai district were used as a model.
This proposal was for a first step in the northward development of an urban necklace.
