Open space please! / Opunsupesu Kudasai!

It is a journey inside a small neighborhood in Tokyo, discovering Komagome's open public spaces and the Japanese way of perceive them. The experience in the Japanese Ariga Laboratory allows to penetrate in the nowadays conditions of a district and its main issues by means of participatory processes, trying to outline a planning for its urban regeneration

The thesis moves from the approach of Machizukuri (community-building) as a type of community participation-based urban design. This approach needs a long relationship with the neighborhood community, in order to acquire the complexity of people’s needs and to build a reciprocal trust for planning a participatory renovation. My task in this planning was to design the first draft guidelines for the reorganization of public spaces of the neighborhood. The research is a journey inside the small neighborhood of Komagome and during this journey I discovered Komagome's open public space and its community space where the needs of the Komagome’s community emerge. Being expression of the community needs and their evolution, the community spaces are not static, but they constantly change. The experience in the Japanese Ariga Laboratory and the Machizukuri has allowed me to penetrate in the nowadays conditions of a district and its main issues. Rooted in the real emerging needs of Komagome people, the suggestions are draft outlines for a future development of public space in Komagome. The suggestions are based on small actions, defined acupuncture point of action, with the aim of respecting the community and valorizing its habits and the neighborhood itself. In particular, the guidelines would like to strive towards a regeneration of the district, enhancing three main aspects: increase the quality of the current conditions, push younger generation to live in the neighborhood; and valorize the heritage framework of Komagome. The importance of taking part of Ariga Lab has been crucial for the consecutive planning of the project: without the active participation in the team, explaining the current situation and the real needs of Komagome, combined with a personal in-depth analysis of Japanese public space, it would impossible to understand the Japanese framework and to beget the project. Specifically, the most likely risk would transplant a European model in a completely different urban and cultural dimension, which would surely reject it