Will Techtopia Toyota’s Japanese Smart City Succeed?

Environmentalists at Norvergence LLC have analyzed the recently announced project of Bjarke Ingles Group in collaboration with Toyota Motor Corporation. It’s called, “the Toyota Woven City” a sustainable smart city that will serve as a living laboratory at the foothills of Mt. Fuji, Japan.

Called as a “city of the future”, the town will function as a testing area for technologies such as AI, robotics, and smart homes. The company has revealed some of the exciting designs of the project.

The city will be home to 2000 Toyota employees with their families, scientists, retailers, and retired couples.

The house will be equipped with a robotic system that assists people with daily living and sensor-based intelligence that can monitor their health on a regular basis.

Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director of Bjarke Ingles Group (BIG) said “Today the typical is a mess — with everything and nothing happening everywhere. With the Woven City, we peel apart and then weave back together with the three components of a typical road into a new urban fabric: a street optimized for automated vehicles, a promenade for micro-mobility and a linear park for pedestrians.

The resulting pattern of porous 3-by-3 city blocks creates a multitude of different eco-niches for social life, culture, and commerce.”

He further added that science and technology are rapidly changing our minute-to-minute living habits:

• How we inhabit our cities?
• How we navigate our cities?

For a new, environment-friendly, and sustainable form of living; autonomous, emission-free, and shared traveling solutions are important.

Another important post related to this topic: Tree-Planting Drone Can Plant 100,000 Trees in One Day

Important Aspects of Techtopia or Woven City

Image Source: Inhabitat

1.       The city will be focusing on pedestrian-friendly connections and multi-modal transit.
2.       The roads of the city will fall into 3 major categories such as Primary Street for fast-moving and autonomous vehicles (for self-driving vehicles). The Secondary Street will be a recreational promenade, open to pedestrians, low-speeds, and other types of micro-mobility such as scooters, bicycles, and Toyota’s i-Walk. The third will be pedestrian-only pathways that serve as ecological corridors.
3.       The city architecture will be made of mass timber construction built with robotic fabrication technology.
4.       Photovoltaic panels will be situated on the top of the buildings.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda said in a press release: “Building a complete city from the ground up, even on a small scale like this, is a unique opportunity to develop future technologies, including a digital operating system for the city’s infrastructure.

With people, buildings, and vehicles all connected and communicating with each other through data and sensors, we will be able to test connected AI technology in both the virtual and the physical realms maximizing it.”

Till now, the company did not disclose costs for the project but what Norvergence LLC executives heard that yes, the project has a set budget after passing through a proper vetting process.

Apart from Toyota, Google has also experimented with the concept of smart city and is planning to transform a 12-acre plot in Toronto’s waterfront district by 2023.

Author bio:

George Stacey is an environmentalist, journalist, and writer at Norvergence LLC whose work stirred people up and helped launch a new age of environmental awareness across the globe especially in the United States of America.

Apart from Norvergence LLC, she writes frequently for a wide variety of publications across the world, including Nation of Change, Age of Awareness, ESI Africa, Enviro Nigeria, etc.

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