Contemporary Garden City Concept from Asia: “A desire to Convey Voices and Landscapes from the Field”
We spoke with Professor Yokohari, who led the organization of the UTokyo MOOC course "Contemporary Garden City Concept from Asia," about the course’s development process and other aspects.
This wasn’t my first experience creating a MOOC course. I had previously worked on a course related to Sustainability Science, and that experience proved very useful. I believe it was thanks to what we had built up during that earlier effort that this course went so smoothly.
Having watched the entire finished course—though I may sound like I’m praising our work—I felt that despite the omnibus format with contributions from many faculty members, we have created a course that carried a unified message throughout. We didn’t explicitly assign who would cover which sections, but because we’ve long collaborated through joint research and other projects, I believe we naturally achieved a well-balanced structure. We also avoided overlapping content and conveyed everything we wanted to.
One thing I’d reflect on for the future is that I don’t come across well on camera and really don’t enjoy being in front of it—so maybe I should’ve tried harder not to appear in the on-location footage! (laughs) Joking aside, I’d like to see more interactive elements in future developments of the course to enable deeper learning for our viewers. For example, it might be nice to hold live Q&A sessions via Zoom with students taking the course, even just a few times a year. I think that kind of possibility is one of the great advantages of MOOCs.
Throughout this course’s videos, we incorporated plenty of voices and visuals from actual locations, so I’d be glad if learners could approach the course from a field-based perspective. I believe the sense of presence and the real voices from people on-site can deepen understanding beyond what lectures alone can convey.
We were able to gather this kind of content because we actually went to a variety of locations. What especially impressed me was the aerial footage taken by a drone. Until recently, it was difficult to capture such aerial views, but we have made it for this course. Seeing the footage of Nerima and Nishi-Tokyo areas from above makes it instantly clear how extensive the farmlands are, even within urban areas. That footage was so impactful that we’ve used it in contexts beyond this course. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the crew who accompanied us through many days of field filming.
As for the course title, "Contemporary Garden City Concept from Asia, " the term “Garden City” originates from the early 20th-century concept proposed by Ebenezer Howard in the UK. His idea envisioned a “marriage” of city and countryside, blending urban life with agricultural land. However, due to real estate interests and the cultural context of the time, his original philosophy wasn’t fully conveyed. In this course, we revisited the original meaning of Howard’s Garden City concept and reinterpreted and reconstructed it as an “Asian version” with a focus on Tokyo. That’s the background behind the course title.
Currently, I’m also exchanging ideas with researchers in the U.S. and Australia about urban microclimates. In Asia, too, I’ve received invitations to speak from places like China and South Korea, which confirms for me that this is a global issue, not just a Japanese one. In the future, I’d like to consider creating a video project in collaboration with overseas researchers, centered on this theme.
Finally, I’m also involved in urban redevelopment in Tokyo. Traditionally, redevelopment has involved demolishing aging buildings, clearing the land, and constructing large new buildings. However, with the rapid changes in work styles due to the spread of ICT and the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re now facing problems like rising vacancy rates in these standardized developments. On top of that, the sharp increase in construction costs is making some redevelopment projects unfeasible.
In response, I’m exploring whether the Japanese traditional restoration technique kintsugi can be applied to urban redevelopment. Kintsugi is a method of repairing broken or chipped pottery using lacquer and gold powder. Rather than hiding the repairs, the visible restoration is seen as adding character and beauty, creating new value. Instead of rebuilding everything from scratch, this philosophy accepts imperfections and history, preserving what can be preserved while adding value through partial restoration. I believe this way of thinking could be applied to city planning as well. Rather than a total urban overhaul, we could adopt a kintsugi-like approach to create the traditional cool elegance - we call it "iki" in Japanese - and resource-efficient developments that respect the memory and uniqueness of each place. A future program themed around this concept might be a compelling contribution from Japan.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/contemporary-garden-city-concept-from-asia