I have been involved in many urban design projects so far, which could be broadly divided into two groups: one is the urban design for Makuhari . This began with the creation of a master plan for the Makuhari Wakaba Residential Zone in partnership with ZGF Architects (ZGF). ZGF is a US architecture firm, and we actually went on a tour to observe the urban design that ZGF worked on in Portland, which is known as “the most livable city in the US.” At present (March 2023), of the eight zones (A and B1-B7), part of zone A and all of zones B7 and B2 are completed, and zones B3 and B5 are under construction; I have continued to be involved in an overall coordinating role as the master architect. The second is the urban design for Maya. With seven zones (A-G) arranged over about 1 km along the JR Kobe line, a different designer from JMA took charge of the design for each zone, all of which were completed for the opening in 2021. The hospital and the supermarket, which were not in the original plan, also joined, and it is now a town that is alive with a large number of families.

How many years did Maya take to become the town it is today?

Counting from the competition to select the operator that JMA participated in, it took about 14–15 years for Maya to become the town it is today.

I understand that besides the master plan, you also created the design guidelines that describe the rules and restrictions for design in Makuhari. Did you create design guidelines for Maya as well?

For Maya, I made some loose rules, like “work in concert with the lines of the Rokkō Mountains,” and “designs with lateral movement.” For Makuhari, the designer had not been selected yet, so we needed design guidelines, but for Maya, JMA had been selected as the designer for all zones, so we did not go as far as creating guidelines and simply worked with loose rules. In Makuhari, you can see contests between designs that each show an understanding of the design guidelines, while in Maya, all zones were designed by JMA, so neighboring zones properly maintain their relatedness and the town has a balance between consistency and diversity, with the JMA designers assigned to each zone exhibiting their individuality.

My first involvement was with Harumi Flag. This was a town that would be a legacy facility after being used as an athlete village for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games; it stands on an extensive site and is characterized by its location facing the sea in three directions. I crossed the barriers between architecture, interior design, and landscaping and cooperated with many designers. JMA participated from the building layout phase and created the master plan, and we also formulated design guidelines with a view towards later entry by designers.

It was similar with the urban design for Toyosu, in the sense that they were bayside developments from vacant land. Creating a master plan transformed them into towns where people could enjoy walking comfortably. It looks like Harumi Flag is going to be realized as a comfortable town for people, thanks to the master plan and guidelines. What usages does it include, apart from residential?

The lower levels of Harumi Flag include commercial usage, which generates energy in the main boulevard. We have created an overall master plan, including the surroundings, and we plan for schools, a large commercial facility that will also contain a supermarket, and parks in adjacent locations, and a café has also opened at the end.

Usage composition is very important when creating a master plan, isn’t it?

That’s right. I feel that you can form a better town by having a range of usages that combine so that diverse groups of people visit. It’s important for there to be a town where people can enjoy walking around in the building layout plan.

As a matter of fact, even 60-meter divisions can feel distant. In some projects, the designers debate creating schools and facilities for senior citizens in 30- to 40-meter divisions planned with open space and the like, with the aim of making a walkable town.

Open spaces often give rise to the problem of “site borders.” People sometimes say that cities cannot be designed well because the designers try to complete things just within each site, don’t they?

Site borders between the public and private sectors or between two private operators tend to produce breaks in the open space for the people who travel around there. JMA/PC&PJ’s landscaping broadens perspectives to create a better town, and we develop urban designs that go beyond site borders. As I perform my day-to-day work, I think of this as a mission that only landscaping can complete.

We coordinated many times with the administration about site borders in the urban designs for Toyosu and for the Ōsaki-Gotanda district as well. As a result, we achieved walkways and open spaces with a unified design for a beautiful streetscape. How was H.U. Bioness Complex with regard to “looking at architecture from a broader perspective, not as a series of units”?

H.U. Bioness Complex was planned as a new hub for the H.U. Group, which works in clinical test technology. We proposed an office complex where over 1000 employees could work on the 12-hectare site, based on the concept of “the biophilic village.” In the building layout plan, someone raised a proposal that would use only one building for everything as a candidate, but we regarded the extensive site as a single town and reached the conclusion that we would divide different functions between four buildings, disperse and lay them out over the site, and connect them with corridors. At the center of the site, we created a courtyard filled with a sense of life that would symbolize the brand for a plan where people come and go in the corridors as if in the nervous system and where unexpected exchanges can arise.

Twelve hectares is quite an expansive site, isn’t it?

That’s right. The topic of 60-meter divisions came up before, but we really agonized over what size would be appropriate for the courtyard at the heart of this project—about the sense of distance, because it would relate directly to the length of the surrounding corridors.

Restaurants and the like are hard to use if they are too far away, but if they are too close, it does not make for a change of pace, right?

In the end, we thought that if people could able to see the energy of other people and what they were doing when they see each other between the entrance, the restaurant, the corridors, and everywhere else, that would be a key element that leads to a sense of unity in the town, so we set the maximum distance at 70 meters.

It has been some time since H.U. Bioness Complex was completed, so how is it now?

It did not start operating in earnest until 2022, but I hear that many people venture out to the restaurant from the facilities via the corridors, so it is busy every day. One of our questions was how to get the employees to feel refreshed, so I am really happy to hear that. I feel that we were able to make use of the sense of life obtained from the biophilic environment and by placing everything around the courtyard in urban design as branding for the H.U. Group.

Landscapes come in various sizes from a few square meters to several hectares, but how do you change your thinking between projects, Endo-san?

Rather than changing my thinking, I think about it starting from “function and human behavior.” After COVID-19, I feel that there is a greater need for intangible aspects of parks and other spaces, than for their tangible aspects.

It is true that people’s views of outdoor spaces have changed because of COVID-19, and they have increased in importance.

I think people are seeking richer outdoor and semi-outdoor spaces, rather than indoor spaces. Despite being more difficult if you look just in terms of the maintenance aspects, restaurants and terrace spaces are treasured, aren’t they?

The atrium space of Nihonbashi Muromachi Mitsui Tower is fully provided with Wi-Fi and stoves are installed there during the winter months, making it somewhere that you can spend a lot of time in comfort. The adjacent Mitsui No. 2 Building also has a terrace space that was added in its renovation, as another example of how the use of space has come to be discussed more in the urban design for Nihonbashi as well.

I think that master plans in Japan tend to begin with the “building line,” such as how the structures should be laid out. For people, towns are made up of “links between open spaces,” so I think that conventional master plans should ideally take a wider view of the functional layout of landscapes and connections between them and arrange the architecture needed for that.

People generally imagine that the architecture is assumed and the division of work begins with everything outside being landscaping and everything inside being interior design, but in the JMA/PC&PJ environment, this feels very out of place.

JMA/PC&PJ’s strength is that the specialist staff for architecture, landscaping, interior design, and objects come together from the planning stage to think about design. JMA/PC&PJ has developed a breeding ground where landscaping and architecture relate to each other so that we think about the master plan with an understanding of how the architecture should be designed from the perspective of the landscaping. The landscaping plays a particularly important role in the master plan.

As the scale grows, the landscape often becomes the thing that builds the image of the town. The urban design for Shibaura Island is characterized by the view of the super-high rises from a distance, but I believe that what greatly contributes to branding it as a single island is the worldview built up by the landscape that stretches about 1.6 km around the outside.

Harumi Flag was designed with the landscape concept of “an environmental city floating on the water,” and it has abundant greenery and an open courtyard. Another characteristic feature of Harumi Flag is the “plan prioritizing pedestrians,” which means that cars enter the underground parking area from the entrance to the town. The reason why each of the constructions in the town center have their own face and form a plaza is precisely because there was a master plan. I truly feel that we have built a town for people.

It’s the same with the urban design for Makuhari. Cars access the parking area from the trunk road on the outside of the zone, and the cars are prevented from entering the area around Lone Park/Wakaba 3-chōme Park as much as possible so that the town structure is clear-cut.

In the urban designs for Harumi Flag and Makuhari, the clarity of the town’s composition is another factor in attractive urban design. The movement lines for people are established, designed as landscaping, and connected together. This also applies to design, but it is important to have people recognize it, which requires easily understood images.

If you create a master plan, the town is created initially, but the way you alter it and have it respond to the environment as that changes later is also important, isn’t it?

I think that’s true. Makuhari has the organization “B-Pam,” the Makuhari Bay Park Area Management. It is a mechanism where the residents take leadership in operating the town; the sign planning and everything has been set out in guidelines, which gives the town a sense of unity.

The urban planning for Kashiwanoha, which was developed as a pioneering smart city, was also managed proactively under guidelines, and the town has matured in leaps and bounds.

Rather than just creating “mechanisms to foster and enrich the town” in the urban design guidelines, properly discussing who is going to operate them leads to added value for the town.

Our first urban design project at JMA/PC&PJ was the Ōsaki-Gotanda district. I have since been involved with various projects, such as Musashi-Kosugi, Toyosu, and Makuhari. The Musashi-Kosugi and Ōsaki-Gotanda projects in particular renewed the previous image of the towns, and now that many people live and work there, I feel that the value of the towns overall has increased. Expanding a town where people want to live and work on a broader plane could be considered the meaning of having a master plan. People’s lifestyles change from day to day, but I hope that we will be able to read the future while constantly thinking about the styles that will be desired and continue to create wonderful towns. It is also good to look back over the towns that JMA/PC&PJ has been involved in and see the changes. Review and learn, rather than complete and move on—I feel that JMA/PC&PJ’s urban design has entered that phase at last. Also, our opportunities to create master plans have been limited to the Greater Tokyo area, centered on the midtown area. I’d love to continue our efforts so that we can expand the master plan know-how that we have cultivated into regional areas and around the world, too.

Our Works in this article are here.
・Urban Planning for Makuhari
・Urban Planning for Maya
・Urban Planning for Toyosu
・Urban Planning for Osaki, Gotanda
・Urban Planning for Musashikosugi
・H.U. Bioness Complex