FIXES

Apartment bike parking, which is often free-space, ordered into fixed parking spaces with paper and tape.

Materials: Paper, Tape
Location: Akishima, Tokyo

Direction sign for Tokyo Tower at Akabanebashi Subway Station. Constructed of tourist brochure cut-outs and classic Tokyo public trasport duct tape lettering.

Materials: Duct Tape, Tourist Brochure
Location: Akabanebashi, Tokyo

Clarification signage in laminated A4.

Materials: Laminated Paper
Location: Shinjuku Station, Tokyo

Felt tipped pens, photocopied map, and tourist brochure combined to form an official information sign in a subway station near Tokyo Tower.

Materials: Felt Tipped Pens, Tourist Brochure, Photocopied Map
Location: Akabanebashi Subway Station, Tokyo

Shinjuku station signage, bilingual in all the important places.

Materials: Tape, Printed Labels
Location: Shinjuku Station, Tokyo

Fence as lost and found display for key.

Materials: Fence
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo

Fence as makeshift and adequate lost and found center.

Materials: Fence

Location: Akishima, Tokyo

Flying fox in a playground casually fixed with duct tape.

Materials: Duct Tape
Location: Nagoya, Aichi

Hand made cushions for winter station benches in Gifu (courtesy of Tajimi High School).

Location: Tajimi, Gifu

As I rode my kick scooter across Tokyo from Shibuya to Ochanomizu, on the way to the Tokyo Mapping Workshop in the heat of summer I turned a corner in a deserted backstreet and ran straight into these monsters…… so tall they need to be tethered to the chain link fence for support as they wither.

Materials: Plastic Twine
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo

Lots more Tokyo sunflowers [HERE] and on Tokyo Green Space [HERE]

Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening

Laminated signage in an inner city apartment complex.

Materials: Duct Tape, Laminated Paper
Location: Minato-ku, Tokyo

Neighbourhood parent patrol sign (laminated A4) attached to bicycle with wire. With this set up, every time you use the bicycle you are performing a casual security check (Note: My bicycle)

Materials: Laminated Paper, Wire
Location: Akishima, Tokyo

Laminated A4 signs affixed with tape proclaim night use of the park prohibited, and encourage people to call the police emergency line if they see anyone suspicious.

The signs are ambiguously official, being layed out in generic Excel style and signed with a simple ‘Akishima City’ or ‘Akishima City Park Authority’ – they look like they could have been made by anyone. I removed one as a test, and it was replaced promptly. When I placed my own sign (as part of the kokonohanashi project) it was promptly removed. So it appears the signs are official, or at least part of a dedicated campaign.

Materials: Laminated Paper, Tape
Location: Akishima, Tokyo

Using many metres of plastic twine, a local coffee shop owner has trained a flowering creeper up and down both sides of the paved lane outside their shop.

Even though seemingly random, the complex web of twine takes a non-trivial amount of time, thought and effort to construct.

The web has been prepared to guide an independent creeper along the fence line of a vacant lot, creating a lush green waist high curtain.

I especially like the way the corners have been densely woven (images 8,9,10), enabling thick growth and thus a cool and shady habitat for insects, cats and other animals.

Materials: Plastic Twine
Location: Akishima, Tokyo

(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)

Easy access for wheeled objects (shopping trolleys, bicycles, etc) created by placing a length of wood up the apartment complex steps. A piece of wood fixed to the lower end prevents slipping.

Materials: Wood
Location: Akishima, Tokyo

A bottle cap receptable (from recyclable PET bottles) attached to the apartment complex rubbish drop-off with a length of wire is a convenient community-use add-on.

Materials: Plastic Basket, Wire
Location: Akishima, Tokyo

The top of the rubbish drop-off point for this apartment complex has been transformed into a bright community flower garden. A lovely twist to the usually forboding and odorous gaping deadspace.

Location: Akishima, Tokyo

(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)

Thanks to Tokyo design researcher Jan Lindenberg for this great find: Unusable public seating repurposed as rock garden at Mt. Takao, West Tokyo.

Materials: Public Bench
Location: Mt. Takao, Tokyo

On an innner-Sendagaya street lies this colourful curbside garden. Another lovely example of a local resident taking the time to brighten up a lonely curbside.

What made this particular garden stand out is the fact that it is composed entirely of plants still in their garden center pots and plastic containers.

One would imagine that the plants would grow better repotted directly into the ground, but perhaps the existing soil is of too-poor quality to allow this. An alternative explanation might be that this is the gardener’s compromise between a ‘potscape‘ and a full-blown regular garden – less intrusive than a whole lot of pots on the sidewalk, while still retaining the flexible, temporary feel of most Tokyo pot-plant gardens…..possibly repotting the plants felt like too much of a brash appropriation for the gardener involved….. (in the last image you can see one plant finally breaking (being set?) free of its contraints – I wonder how long it will last in the ‘real world’)

Any other ideas?

Materials: Potplants
Location: Sendagaya, Tokyo

(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)

A railway sleeper positioned on top of two smaller pieces of wood forms an elegant and function bench in a Sendagaya park.

Materials: Railway Sleeper, Wood
Location: Sendagaya, Tokyo

A railway sleeper attached to two circular pieces of wood by a large building staple creates a simple, elegant and functional bench in a Sendagaya park.

Materials: Railway Sleeper, Wood, Building Staple
Location: Sendagaya, Tokyo

Plastic bamboo poles and netting are used to add height to a playground/creche fence to help prevent loose soccer shots from straying onto the road.




Materials: Netting, Plastic Pole
Location: Tachikawa, Tokyo

Duct tape queueing lanes at the train station.

Location: Tachikawa, Tokyo
Materials: Duct Tape

Parking Full signage in constructed on a cone base. Handle in duct tape and shoelace. Sign in perspex frame, attached with bulldog clips and chain. Magnificent!








Materials: Cone, Chain, Shoelace, Clip, Perspex, Duct Tape
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo

Sidewalk gardening space marked out in bamboo stakes and plastic twine.


Materials: Bamboo Stake, Plastic Twine
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo