(1) Shinonome Canal Cort, plan.

Shinonome Canal Court is an urban block located about five kilometres from the centre of Tokyo in the Shinonome quarter, Koto-ku district. Six residential blocks have been designed by six groups of architects: Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop, Toyo Ito & Associates, Yama Architects & Partners, Kengo Kuma & Associates, ADH Architects and Workstation and the three architects Makoto Motokura, Keisuke Yamamoto e Keiji Hori.

The creation of new lodging typologies is linked to the realization of semiprivate spaces (2), which will not only satisfy the requirements of the single inhabitant but will also give a shape to those meeting area described by M. Sorkin. (2) Shinonome Canal Cort, view of lodgings. The opportunities of neighbourhood unit relationships are stimulated by wide range of interesting spaces - the so-called outdoor living spaces (OLS) which are also spaces where people can find there own place.
Workshop: The Sustainable City Author: Michela De Licio 6New houses for new residential requirements

Designing a visual landscape means providing and study of compatibility of various different architectonical materials ranging from private living spaces, to public or semi-private spaces, attributing a city dimension to the complex. The outdoor pedestrian space (3) are the places that people are able to make their own (or fill that they belong to), depending on there mood or character or what they want to do there (work under the trees, read the newspaper on the deck overlooking the canal or, if they are kids play by running around all over the site and so on). This is called outdoor living space and is intended to expand the idea of living in the city. OLS is a three-dimensional and porous structure where people circulated seamlessly. The aim of this project of urban landscape, designed by Studio On Site, is to build an artificial ground and a system of local connection among the different articulate parts which hold social life of housing complex. The residential blocks are linked by a sinuous pedestrian and shopping street that runs the whole length of the block from south to north. The avenue is 10 metres wide and lined with stores and other public facilities. It is simply an empty space to which a meaning is given by the stores and other features, with singular spaces set alongside it. It also serves as a route of transition, connecting the Tatsumi a Toyosu districts. The avenue and the plazas define the unitary character of the complex; six linear plazas are inserted into the S-shaped avenue and taken as a whole form the backbone of the OLS. Both the plazas with trees and the plazas with vistas stretch beyond the CODAN site as far as the public park and the Tatsumi canal, and at the other hand as far as Harumi street (the main street of the Tokyo metropolitan area). The inner courtyard is laid out along the public and commercial pedestrian route that traverses the wall block. On two different levels, according to use, protected courtyards, linear plazas that are planted with trees or paved , suspended routes and large areas with wooden floors constitute a complex landscape in which it is possible to identify well-defined and recognizable spaces.
Workshop: The Sustainable City Author: Michela De Licio

(3) Shinonome Canal Cort, outdoor pedestrian space.

New houses for new residential requirements

The transposition of a contemporary urban ecology into architectural terms produces a hybrid model of aggregation, traditional in its fundamental characteristics, innovative from the viewpoint of services, eclectic and flexible, updatable and substantially mutable.