Afarai

For the Hakuhodo Think Tank HILL in Tokyo, AFARAI went deep into Tokyo to investigate life in the city and the implications of the lack of space in the city.

Even though it’s a well known fact that space is at a premium in Tokyo, the suspicion that everything was intertwined and connected to the lack of urban space in the city led us to explore this subject further. This is a story about how the structural space deficit in Tokyo has shaped the city, its architecture and the quality of life of those who live in it. The long hours of commuting; the impossibility of living in Tokyo’s city center; the lack of affordable space for small-scale entrepreneurs, are all deficiencies in Tokyo’ s urban fabric. Urban deficiencies that set the conditions for a city in which the quality of life of the inhabitants is no longer dependent on the quality of the urban surroundings but rather, on the comfort and convenience offered by Tokyo’s massive service industry.

You can download a condensed version of this special bi-lingual Japanese/English publication here