japan

Bamboo House by Kengo Kuma

Architect Kengo Kuma lecturing at the Royal Academy of Arts, being critical of Frank Gehry, mass production and industrialization of architecture:

'Sushi is a good metaphor for my architecture. The importance in sushi is to choose the best material from the place, in season.

'If the journey of the ingredients is too long, the taste of the sushi is compromised. That is a problem that can't be solved by modern technology, and that programme of using local material in season is the secret of good taste, and the secret of my style.' ::Architects' Journal...

Last month, on International Surfing Day, we talked about Rokkasho in Japan. Last weekend, the documentary on the controversial nuclear reprocessing plant and its potential effects on the rest of the world screened at the University of Hawaii.

"Now in the middle of the village at the highest point with the best views, a plant has been built for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants," Hitomi Kamanaka, the film's director said to KGMB9.com:

The rad...

Today, even the Wall Street Journal offers energy conservation advice to its readers. I guess it has gotten that bad, finally. I wish they had done so, say 30 or 20 years ago (or why not 3 years ago, when the IEA published its report called 'Saving Electricity In A Hurry', where the agency - correctly -predicted there would be more outages like those experienced in the United States, Japan and Canada).

Wall Street Journal: Pulling the Plug: ...

Japanese architects Atelier Tekuto have designed the Twin-Bricks House in Urawa-ku, Saitama, Japan. (more…)

Ecotourism or green tourism started getting attention in Japan about 15 years ago, and if you carbon offset your airticket (which some tour agencies will now help you with) you could probably spend a rather planet-friendly week or two over in these parts of the woods. Rent-a-car? Oh, do pick up a Prius, but high speed trains are the most convenient way to get around, and there are local trains and bus services connecting even the most rural parts of the country to Tokyo and Osaka, the 2 largest cities. Here is a brief list of things to do on a greenish summer holiday to Japan:

1) Hotsprings - enjoy the volcanic...

Over at greenz.jp we just finished an event tonight with invited guests speaking about their experiences from Hokkaido and the G8 Summit. Clearly, many young participants felt left out of the picture, unless you were a member of one of the NGOs and maybe even got to actually shake hands with a G8 leader. One thought: Susan George, long-time activist and author asked here in Tokyo last week: "How many people have actually read a G8 Summit Document?"

Good questio...

Mitsubishi's i MiEV Electric Car is Ahead of Schedule
A couple months ago, we got our hands on Mitsubishi's roadmap for its i MiEV electric car. The plan was to lease a few units to fleet customers first in 2009 and then launch it in 2010 (with a focus on Japan, but also in North-America and Europe), but reality is turning out better than even the optimists thought.

Japanese Launch: Summer 2009
The new plan is to launch the retail version of the i MiEV electric car in Japan in the summer of 2009. The reasons are "...

(Farida Bena at Oxfam explaining why food prices are rising around the world)

While the dear leaders of the world's most rich and powerful countries discussed the issue of the international food crisis and climate change, Oxfam highlighted why the rapid growth in biofuels is making millions more people vulnerable to extreme poverty.

The real winners of the G8 Summit here in Japan may very well have been th...

A performance artist has created a robotic crawling japanese business man. This is supposed to symbolize the crash of the asian economy. It means something else to me. But make your own minds up.

Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved. Photo by Masatsura

In a comic book twist to the G8 story, this year’s G8 Summit is under investigation by Detective Conan, a brilliant detective who has been transformed into an elementary school kid. Conan also happens to be the star of the Case Closed manga, which is extremely popular with kids of all ages here in Japan.

As many of you know, Japan is famous for its prolific manga comic books on all subjects ranging from ancient history through to the latest current affairs. In the best Japanese tradition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan (MOFA) h...

map of voyage courtesy of Kenichi Horie

Does the future of ship propulsion lie in the waves themselves?

Ship powered by two fins, has other green tech
Completing what he calls the longest voyage in a wave-powered ship, Kenichi Horie has finished a 4,800 mile, 110-day voyage from Honolulu, Hawaii to Wakayama, Japan. Though equipped with engine and sails for emergencies, Horie’s 31-foot catamaran relied on power generated from two fins at the bow of the ship to propel it through the water. The hull of his ship was recycled aluminum and all electric power, used for navigation equipment, radio and a personal com...

It isn't bad looking. It's a prefab built by Toyota in an assembly line with robots and conveyor belts, and comes with a sixty year warranty. It is fire and earthquake-proof. It will soon come with an electrical system that can charge up your car during off-peak hours.

According to the Wall Street Journal, prospective purchasers can step into an earthquake simulator " for a lesson in why a durable home is important in this earthquake-prone country. Other displays focus on how Toyota's car technologies have been applied to houses, including a rustproofing process that preserves the house's steel structure for decades; a device to quiet engines that can help damp vibrations from fo...

(Youtube video with Oxfam activists at the G8 Summit in Japan)

World leaders' jumbo jets landed through thick fog in Hokkaido, Japan without any major incidents. Thousands of cops are keeping our streets safe. And world leaders make announcements after announcements. Cue NGOs: I'd say they are the real stars of this summit.

Oxfam, Greenpeace, WWF, One and DATA, together with hundreds of local groups have gathered ...

What do you think - should the United States wait until China and India also decide to do something about climate change?

On measures against global warming, which are a focal point of the G8 summit, US president George W Bush met with Japan's prime minister Yasuo Fukuda today on Sunday. The two leaders agreed to cooperate in making progress, including setting up long-term targets, according to NHK World. Mr Fukuda said the two countries' opinions are getting closer, and he does not think the United State...

One million wishes - that is the goal of the Tanzaku Action! Making a wish is a part of the tradition of making a wish to the stars on Tanabata Day on July 7, a holiday.

Now you can send a message to the G8 leaders by writing your hopes on a Virtual Tanzaku.

Tanzaku is a slip of paper on which people write their hopes or wishes and hang it on a bamboo tree. For the G8 Summit, the NGO Forum will display all the Tanzaku messages to ...

digital illustration: Getty Images

The future of air travel may not be gigantic turtle-shaped airships, but Japan hopes to test another idea straight out of science fiction, solar power stations in space, within the next two decades.

Scientific American is running a piece in their June issue which discusses the ambitious, orbital solar energy plans currently being discussed by Japan’s space agency. Without giving it all away, here are the main points:

...

Starting from June to mid July is the rainy season in Japan and we can never leave without an umbrella. Many Japanese department stores and supermarkets have little plastic bags at the entrance of the store for customers to slip their wet umbrella and keep the place dry and safe.

However, according to Japan for Sustainability, Japanese consumers already use roughly 30.5 billion plastic bags annually, the equivalent of 420,000 kiloliters of oil. Adding more plastic bags to the mix is the last thing we want to do. So here is how the Kyoei Design team tackled this...

G8 meetings are a way for our dear leaders to get together and share their pain. I bet they have a lot to moan about in those private sessions. Mum's the word: privacy, secrecy (until it is time to write that best-selling ghost-written auto-biography).

Some 40,000 special police are now everywhere, at all big subway stations, in major parts of cities. Japan has turned itself into a kind, soft, friendly little surveillance state. OK, noone wants a repeat of what happened in London last summer (50 dead). So cheer up, we will all probabl...

Summertime, and the living is easy... If only.

By summer next year, I will not be able to just sit back and enjoy a can of my favourite beer on a beach, I will also be reminded of the CO2 emmissions printed on the can. Cheers!

Sapporo Breweries have announced that they will print on the labels of canned beer how much CO2 is emitted per can from the cultivation of barley, including the production of aluminum cans. through to delivery. Similar ideas have been announced by supermarkets in the UK and Sweden, but this could be the first time a corporation decides to go ahead and provide CO2 emmis...

Photo courtesy tanakawho via flickr

Ironic that the Japanese originally started making those flimsy, break-apart disposable wooden chopsticks as a good way to deal with wood scraps. Now the nation goes through 24 billion pairs per year - 63 million pairs discarded per day. If you're really thrifty you can glue them together into a chopstick canoe.

Otherwise there's a growing trend in Tokyo and other cities to B.Y.O.C - bring your own pair of personal "hashi" or chopsticks. Now the Marche restaurant group is offering a reward system for people who bring their own - one point for each ...

Interesting fashion piece about the design of the school uniform in Japan, where the uniform has kind of transcended the schoolyard to become a symbol of youth and beauty. http://pingmag.jp/2008/03/31/japanese-school-uniform/

Chinese Graphic Design Explodes!

Interview with the writer of a book on contemporary Chinese graphic design. Graphic design in China hasn't been around for so long, but some great things are happening as the government loosens its iron fist a bit.

http://pingmag.jp/2008/04/14/new-graphic-design-in-china/

Constrution Wall becomes Mural Space in Tokyo

Tokyo has spruced up some of its bleak contruction walls by putting some clever artwork on its sites. What a clever city!

http://pingmag.jp/2008/04/21/constructional-fence/

Gift Wrapping, Japan-style

Sweet little piece on the ancient art of carefully wrapping parting gifts for departing visitors to a Japanese home. Even a bottle of wine looks beautiful with this delicate paper!

http://pingmag.jp/2008/04/24/origata/

Shop Giftwrapping a la Tokyo

We love product service systems, where you borrow or rent instead of own. On April Fools Day we showed Puppy The World, a PPS where one can rent a dog; Now we present Neko JaLaLa, or the Cat Café. You don't get to rent the cat, but you get to join them for tea while catz loll around. After all, cats are like tribbles; rubbing them makes you feel good. It is only in the morning that you pay with your skin. One customer says "When it comes to having cats, it's a burden. I work and I don't have the time to take care of them in a responsible manner," but thinks cat-gazing ...

I dunno about this, I wouldn't want to ride through any puddles, and it might be bumpy going over potholes, although the big radius might be great for jumping them.Dezeen says that it was commissioned for the XXI Century Man exhibition in Tokyo. Designer Ben Wilson is quoted below:...

In North America the best one gets is a few posts and rings or the occasional bike locker in a few big cities; In Tokyo they get this amazing multi-storey computerized structure. We need these over here, but can only dream of a city where bikes get treated so well. via ::Spacing...