Fukuoka Project: Strategies for Urban Extroverts

The studio will develop a contemporary vision for a new urban center following the relocation of the University of Kyushu. Plans for the consolidation and relocation of the university’s academic campuses are scheduled to be complete by 2019. The present Hakozaki Campus site has a history spanning 1000 years, with the current campus functioning for the last hundred years.

Fukuoka is the fifth largest city in Japan with the second youngest demographic and second highest growth rate in the country. In the most recent survey by Monocle magazine, Fukuoka was ranked ninth as the most livable city in the world. It has an ancient history with port of Hakata functioning as a center of trade for centuries.  Today, because of this strategic geographical location and close cultural and commercial ties with Korea, Taiwan, China and other East Asian countries Fukuoka remains the capitol of Kyushu island and an internationally significant hub.

The studio will start the fall semester by examining the principles of the 2015 Ten Urban Innovations as proposed by the World Economic Forum’s Future Cities Council, which the city wants to incorporate into the future plans. In addition, we will examine how culture and the open embrace of diversity and technological innovation can generate contemporary models of the “urban extrovert” whereby fluid boundaries and territories are designed to embrace the multiple assets of urbanity today.

On November 11th these studies and insights generated by the studio will be presented at an international symposium on urban innovation in Fukuoka. The focus and issues of the studio will involve the historic preservation of modernist buildings, the ecology and conservation of historic landscapes, contemporary principles of urban innovation, and the integration of these principles with the legacy of educational mission for future programs that will exist on this site.