The city is the great work of art of any culture, and today, at the beginning of the 21st century, needs to embrace levels of unprecedented complexity. According to Richard Sennett, the great urban sociologist of our generation, " the definition of complexity in the context of a city, is an intensely spatial and emotional experience, which requires innovation in both form and language in order to reflect the intricacy of contemporary life".
The Tono Frontier Science Research New City, is an opportunity where such vision can be articulated and materialised. This master planning proposal for the Tono New City therefore takes a multi-dimensional approach, where legitimacy of architectural form and public space are established by positive interactions with the natural environment and human intellect - hollistically thriving to propagate new knowledge and beneficial technologies to humanity and its future.
The key link to the variety of architectural environments along the site is the spinal concourse.
This concourse will become an urban element unique to Tono CIty; a range of micro-climatic conditions and situations are designed into its spatial and experiential qualities. Changes in width, height, lightness, visibility, density, access, texture, temperature, sound, scent, and connectivity occur gradually over 1.5 Kilometers to induce interactive and stimulative encounters between the environment and people. Traffic and parking areas are placed on the slopes at the outer edges of the site in order to free up spaces for the use of pedestrians, cyclists, and roller-skaters.
The extrusion of organic forms into building masses, particularly in the research zones, expresses a collective yet un-authoritative architectural response to the brief. The irregular vegetated roof-scape become the 5th architectural facade with platforms to enjoy the views of the Tono New City as well as the Mount Otsake - a visual interplay between the local and the distant.
The strategy of the building slice-throughs and their consequential variety of open spaces apply throughout the commercial zone, with the organic building masses taking a faceted form. Types of commercial activities are arranged with more external orientated functions located to the south, community trades in the central area, and specialist stores supporting the scientific research zones to the north.
