A roadside barrier is held together with a LAN cable. I’m still not clear on the purpose of this barrier, however. I think it is to discourage bicycle parking, as seems to be the function of most ‘official’ barriers in the area.
Materials: LAN Cable
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo
Bricks stablize a streetside display which juts out over the curb and onto the road.
Materials: Brick
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo
The gap between two vending machines provides ample storage for polystyrene box lids.
Materials: Vending Machine Gap
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo
The outdoor menu for this food store is secured with plastic twine taped to two bricks, the base evened out with broken paving tiles.
Materials: Bricks, Paving Slab, Plastic Twine, Duct Tape
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo
Lunchtime signage on polystrene food packaging lids – written in markers, stabilized with crate. Signage is attached to hinged board for easy storage/transport (see last image).
Materials: Crate, Markers, Polystyrene, Tape, Hinged Boards
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo
Signs advertising local restaurants lined up and stabilized over pedestrial railing. A system which also keeps them off the thoroughfare. Stabilized with tape and string.
Materials: Railing, String, Tape
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo
Rubbish bin lin tethered to body with rope.
Materials: Rope
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo
Pamphlet stand outside during business hours – tied to the pedestrian railing with plastic twine for stabilisation.
Materials: Plastic Twine
Location: Shibuya, 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
Rubbish bin cleaned and out to dry on a spare bicycle.
Materials: Bicycle
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
This well tended local neighbourhood park garden is actually a quiet memorial to a deceased spouse.
Chatting with the lady who was working on the garden (planting tulips) I learned that she was carrying on the work of her husband, who had passed away the year before. He had worked in some area of the city agriculture/environmental works department and had shared his love and knowledge of plants and gardening over the years of marriage.
His volunteer work maintaining this patch in a local park had been his gift to the neighbourhood.
Location: Akishima, Tokyo
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)
Using hooks and modified clothes hangers, this suburban car port has been transformed into a hanging garden.
(Note: This garden is also multifunctional, with the upturned ends of the clothes hangers used to dry shoes and store slippers – see here)
Materials: Clothes Hangers, Hooks
Location: Akishima, Tokyo
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)
Parking for the local hairdresser is marked out with painted breeze blocks. Robust, temporary, practical.
Materials: Breeze Blocks, Paint
Location: Akishima, Tokyo
From Jared Braiterman (Tokyo Green Space): “I recently saw this crazy Fix on the Marunouchi’s Nakano Sakaue platform. I understand they are doing work, but it seems particularly ad hoc and possibly dangerous on the platform.”
Materials: Duct Tape, Safety Sponge
Location: Nakano Sakaue, Tokyo
“Apartment number 303 is currently vacant, and as a result the building owners have placed green tape over the letterbox to prevent it from filling up with advertising mail. Whenever an apartment is vacant they always tape up the letterbox with green tape.
It appears the occupants of apartment 202 have gone on an extended holiday or business trip and will be leaving the apartment vacant long enough for surplus advertising mail to become a problem. Therefore they, or the building owners, have placed white tape over the letterbox.
If the occupants taped up the letterbox themselves I think to myself “Creative thinking 202″. If the building owners did this then I wonder “Is the different color tape significant, or is it just what they had on hand on the day they taped up the box?, Does green mean vacant and white mean temporarily unoccupied? If so doesn’t this signal to potential burglars that 202 is where the goodies are?”.
This mystery remains unsolved.” – courtesy of Byron Kidd – Thanks again Byron!
Materials: Duct Tape
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)
Block wall used for drying shoes.
Materials: Wall
Location: Akishima, Tokyo
This goya is being trained up and over the pathway in front of the apartment building to the balcont of a first floor apartment.
I like the way that the owner has not only appropriated the patch of earth in front of her residence but also created a physical (and visible to all) connection between the two.
Materials: Plastic Twine
Location: Akishima, Tokyo
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)
Residential fence held together with a length of rope. In a neighbourhood bordering a new subdivision.
Materials: Rope
Location: Akishima, Tokyo
