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In 1990 architect Arata Isozaki, at the request of Governor Toshitami Kihara of Hyogo Prefecture, asked PWP to help prepare a long-range development plan for a new town then under construction on a 2,000-hectare site, 200 kilometers inland from Kobe, Japan, site of a new supercollider that was being constructed by the Japanese government. When the United States Congress stopped the development of a huge supercollider in Texas, Nishi Harima's became the largest in the world--and one that would attract scientists from all over the world. Therefore, the new town program included a new research university; a variety of housing for workers, scientists, and their families; a hotel and conference center; elementary, middle, and high schools; areas for shopping and recreation; and a range of public-administration and service facilities.
The spectacularly beautiful site was mountainous, with steep volcanic hills wooded with a mixed oak and pine forest and a dense planting of Cryptomeria japonica that replaced the forest cut down in immediate postwar logging. The development strategy at that time was to grade off the tops of the hills and place the earth in giant fills in the valleys to produce expensive developable land that was bare and flat. The Japanese have long preferred to live on the level portions of the land--a preference stemming partly from the wealth that farmland has historically represented and partly from Japan's long history of earthquakes and landslides, which damaged earlier hillside housing. Despite numerous modern examples of urban hillside development, these negative feelings persisted in the prefecture staff and in the public at large. Another development difficulty was the fact that most Japanese find city life extremely desirable. Young professionals prefer to live in a clean, safe, culturally rich urban environment near extended family and friends. How, then, could an environment be planned at Harima that would appeal to well-educated young families who were not preconditioned to the middle-class flight to the suburbs so typical of the United States?
PWP set out to retain much of the magnificent natural environment; to maximize the valley and mountain views; to reduce mass grading in order to save the exotic forest cover; and to develop movement and recreation systems that emphasized and exploited these beautiful natural conditions. The new plan first changed the flat land along the access roads from commercial to cultural and recreational use, making them as visible as possible at the entrance to the town. Parks, playgrounds, children's play areas, concert halls, conference facilities, and the first elements of worker housing were organized into a highly visible and civic downtown. Most shopping was removed from previously planned strips along the side of the highway and clustered in pedestrian-friendly complexes immediately visible from, but not lining, the roads. The existing golf course was visually opened up to emphasize a recreation-oriented lifestyle.
The master plan organized the required residential land into neighborhoods of single-family and multiple housing and schools connected by an integrated open-space system of small parks and preserved woods, continuous pedestrian greenways, bike paths, and a town-wide trail system. Roads were carefully fitted to the hillsides.
PWP led the prefecture staff in visits to various hillside developments both in Japan and California and produced a series of images that conveyed the character of the residential environment. Still, there was considerable resistance. After much difficulty, the firm asked Arata Isozaki for advice. He suggested that in order to address the cultural resistance PWP should put its argument and plans into a more persuasive form, and he asked a famous Japanese poet, Mutsuro Takahashi, to express the recommendations in elegant, highly poetic Japanese. With this explanation in hand, PWP presented the proposals to the governor, who thoughtfully reviewed the drawings and plans and then carefully read the arguments. Although our office does not to this day know the exact contents of the poet's text, the governor was persuaded, and the plan was adopted.
PWP then designed the beginnings of the formal downtown park--a great circular open space at the intersection of the two major roads of the town--and, along with Isozaki, prepared detailed landscape plans for the iconic conference center and ryokan, the first housing complex for workers, and the children's downtown playground. In addition, PWP prepared several illustrative neighborhood layouts and grading studies and reviewed the initial siting and open-space designs by other architects and landscape architects for the beginnings of the university complex, the initial retail and commercial development, the first city schools, and administrative and service headquarters.
A.S.L.A. Honor Award (Design) -- Harima Science Garden City; Client: Hyogo Prefecture Government Public Enterprises Agency; Architects: Arata Isozaki and Associates; Tadao Ando and Associates.
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