Gazing down from a helicopter at a huge garbage dump in the middle of Tokyo Bay, architect Tadao Ando had an idea that became part of the city’s Olympic dream — to create a vast new “Sea Forest.”
At the time, the man-made island of trash wasn’t much to look at.
The mega city of Tokyo, the world’s largest with 36 million people, long ago ran out of space for the mountains of rubbish it was producing and had used millions of tonnes since the 1970s as landfill to create the artificial island.
Looking at the 88-hectare wasteland of garbage and dirt, fenced in and criss-crossed by bulldozer tracks, Ando instead imagined an oasis of natural beauty on the edge of the Japanese capital.
“I wanted to convert the landfill space into a forest,” the renowned architect said. “Japan in the past was covered in forests. But because we have burnt so much, these forests have started to diminish.”
Ando said he wants to send a strong environmental message with the Umi-no-Mori or “Sea Forest”, landfill project — for a return to nature and to boost efforts to counter global warming.
“The Earth is going to face this problem of waste,” he said. “That’s the reason I want to show that waste can be converted into forest. This forest doesn’t belong only to Tokyo but to the world.”
With Tokyo bidding to host the 2016 Olympics and promising the greenest Games ever, the island is among the key features Japan hopes will bring the event to the city.
As part of the green Games plan, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has also promised to add 1,000 hectares of green space over a decade, including parks, rooftop gardens and trees planted beside railway tracks.
On the island, tens of thousands of fast-growing tree saplings have already been planted since 2007 to turn it into a forest park that would host the Olympic equestrian and mountain bike and BMX cycling events.
A seawater channel that cuts through the island would be used for rowing, flatwater canoe and kayak competitions as well as marathon swimming.
Part of the design idea is that the forest-island will further cool sea breezes as they head into the concrete jungle that is Tokyo on sweltering summer days and act like a natural air-conditioner.
Rock star and activist Bono has planted trees at the site, as have Nobel laureates and a Japanese astronaut.
“The forest is symbolic,” Ando said. “But it will be realized regardless of whether we win the Olympics or not, because improving the environment is not just for the Olympics.”
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