It is Tokyo, but unlike you have ever seen it before — a miniaturized 1:1,000 scale version of one of the world’s biggest capitals, displaying everything from sea levels to population densities.
Pairing a 3D model with projection mapping, the Urban Lab project at Tokyo’s Mori Building aims to display information about the Japanese capital in different and visually arresting ways.
“We usually can’t grasp the whole picture of the city in a bird’s-eye view, but looking at it this way, we can see how attractive Tokyo is as well as its challenges,” Shinji Takeda, senior manager at Mori Building, told reporters at the facility.
Photo: AFP
Launched in 2019, the project covering 13 of Tokyo’s 23 districts is intended to help researchers and private developers think about the city.
Visitors can spot landmarks, including the red-and-white Tokyo Tower, and endless apartment blocks in precise 3D detail, replicating a sprawling 230km2.
Projection mapping on top of the model offers a range of information — including how railways intersect with the physical landscape, and where businesses and populations are concentrated.
Road and railway network projections throw into relief the comparatively underdeveloped parts of the megacity, while other visual information depicts Tokyo’s various vulnerabilities.
For example, mapping over the model with altitudes and sea levels illustrates which areas are prone to flooding from rivers, canals and the sea.
Given Japan’s exposure to natural disasters, ranging from earthquakes to typhoons, understanding those vulnerabilities is key, Takeda said.
He cited the example of a massive 2019 typhoon that caused significant flooding along Tokyo’s Tama River.
“We saw the importance of learning how the city has developed in terms of its terrain and which areas are more vulnerable in heavy rain,” he said. “In this facility, you can see not only how earthquakes, but also a variety of other issues affect a disaster-prone Tokyo.”
Tokyo is often considered to be expanding and developing wildly, without a particular plan, in part because earthquake requirements are regularly updated and buildings are overhauled to meet new rules.
The exhibit would keep changing with the city, updated each year to reflect the loss of old buildings and the appearance of new ones.
“Tokyo keeps growing,” Takeda said. “It’s not a city where visitors simply see history as if they’re reading an old textbook.”
“It keeps changing and growing every day, and that is another element of the city that people can enjoy,” he said.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS