Can Urban Design Combine the Practical and the Monumental?
Odaiba is a piece of reclaimed land in the middle of Tokyo Bay. Given how new the land is, and the centralized nature of its original planning, despite being in the middle of the city, the neighborhood does not look like any other in Tokyo. While the rest of the city is parsed up into millions of tiny plots occupied by houses, office buildings, and shops standing shoulder to shoulder, intersected with narrow two-lane roads, Odaiba is characterized by almost an excess of open space. A massive concrete promenade runs through the neighborhood end to end, punctuated only by a few trees.