6 URBAN JAPAN HAS BOLD BUILDINGS, THIN BUILDINGS AND A BUSTLING COSMOPOLITAN CHARACTER Japan’s cities, particularly Tokyo, represent a bustling urban environment where masses of people parade through an environment of electronic signage and buildings that jostle with their neighbours. The famous views of thousands of people swarming across pedestrian crossings at Shibuya are well known as is the bustling atmosphere in Shinjuku or Kabukicho with its electric red torii gate or the pop culture of Akihabara with its bright lights. Then there is the amazing pedestrian spine of Harajuku filled with thousands of young Japanese people dressed in the very latest outfits. Tokyo represents the vitality that comes with urban density underpinned by a massive metro rail system. The smaller cities of Kyoto and Osaka also have their quarters of urban density and of modern buildings. In Osaka the Umeda Sky Building designed by Hiroshi Hara for Sekisui House is a heroic 40 storey pair of towers that unite at the top with a circular viewing platform and restaurant and exhibition spaces. From what is called the floating garden observatory has become a popular destination for tourists and locals. At ground level the tower is complemented by a sunken traditional Japanese garden and a living green structure designed by famous Japanese architect Today Ando. This is called the “Wall of Hope” and is 9m high and 78m long. The wall is covered in flowers at different times of the year and it then becomes a “Butterfly Wall”. A very interesting aspect of urban Japan is the emergence of tall thin towers developed on quite small sites. There are many examples in Tokyo and Kyoto of tall thin buildings often only seperated by a 300mm gap between them.