Regrounding Shibuya

We pay our respects to the Elders of Japan’s Indigenous peoples, and to the Elders of the First Nations of so-called Australia—past, present and emerging. We honour their knowledge, care, and continuing custodianship of land, water and sky. Sovereignty was never ceded.

Manifesto

Throughout this project, we asked: how can urban developments—shaped by neoliberal systems and corporate control—still find ways to hold space for ritual, memory, and care? How can infrastructure reflect the needs of real lives and diverse knowledges, and create room for encounters with place, earth and water?

Our vision for Shibuya has been as a pluriverse—a place that’s open-ended, ecologically alive, and rooted in cultural and environmental heritage, while remaining adaptable to what the future might bring.

We’ve drawn inspiration from Indigenous perspectives, particularly the Shinto worldview that resists uniformity and embraces the fluid, the spontaneous, and the porous. What we’re proposing isn’t just a design—it’s an argument for a different kind of urban metabolism. One that’s regenerative, interconnected, biodiverse, and deeply cultural.

The core ideas we’ve explored include: Juxtaposition: disrupting rigid urban hierarchies; Voids: leaving space open, resisting over-programming, making room for spontaneous life; Thickening: creating rich, layered environments where people, plants, water, soil and animals interact and change over time
 

Site & Project Overview

Our project, Regrounding Shibuya, focuses on Inaribashi Square—a paved public area at the end of the daylit stretch of Shibuya Stream. It sits right next to a cluster of Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS), including pedestrian decks that connect major buildings like the Shibuya Stream Shopping Mall and Scramble Square.

Although the square appears public, it is tightly controlled. Events need to be booked over a month in advance, which reflects a broader pattern: in Shibuya, many public spaces are curated, monitored, and commercially driven. Spontaneity and community-led activity are often squeezed out.

We see three major issues here: First, neoliberalism limits true public life, reducing it to consumption and surveillance; Second, capitalism separates people from nature, pushing urban ecologies out of sight and out of mind; And third, Tokyo’s rivers and water systems have been buried, cutting the city off from its history as a water-connected place
 

In response, our intervention proposes reconnecting the site to its natural and cultural layers. We use Indigenised biodiversity principles (Hromek, 2020) alongside Shinto ecological thinking to reintroduce water, plants, and natural rhythms into this dense, hardened part of the city.

We physically reshape the site to make room for human and more-than-human life, and to invite people into deeper relationships with land, weather, and memory.

Conceptual Foundations: Country, Kami, and the River as Life

From the perspective of the Gadigal, Dharug and Dharawal peoples, land is not just land—it is kin. It is alive. It includes water, animals, air, people, and plants. Waterways hold deep significance, not just as sources of food or transport, but as cultural and ceremonial spaces.

These coastal cultures have long understood the ocean and freshwater systems as interconnected, living systems that require care and respect.

Similarly, in Shinto belief, kami—or spirits—are present in rivers, trees, rocks, and other elements of nature. Water, especially, is seen as a source of purification and renewal, and is central to many rituals.

But Tokyo’s modern development has obscured this relationship with water. Once nicknamed the “Venice of Asia,” Tokyo has buried many of its waterways beneath concrete. Today, artists and ecologists are trying to bring that watery memory back into view.

For us, water became a central theme. We were drawn to its cycle—how it moves from sky to river to sea, carrying the weight of urban pollution and transformation. We wanted to slow water down. To make it visible again. To create a space in the heart of Tokyo where water could be seen, touched, and valued.

Regrounding Shibuya is about making space for that—reconnecting the city to the river as life. 

Design Intervention: Regrounding through Matter & Process

Biodiversity Through Seasonality
Tokyo’s built environment is highly controlled—paved, programmed, and predictable. With Regrounding Shibuya, we wanted to open it up. By making space for natural seasonal changes—like shifting rainfall, changing light, wind, temperature, and blooming cycles—we allow the city to move with the climate, rather than resist it.

These rhythms shape everything: the flow of water through the site, the habits of pollinators, the return of birds, and the flowering of native plants. Our design welcomes these shifts. Shibuya becomes a living system—changing, breathing, and adapting with the seasons.

Breaking Up the Hardscape
To begin, we cut into the concrete. At Inaribashi Square and the surrounding pedestrian decks, sections of paving are carefully removed. But instead of sending the rubble away, we repurpose it. We break it down and use it to build up the ground—forming small mounds and berms that support new plantings and shape the flow of water. This is circular urbanism in action: the old city becomes material for the new.

Learning from Vernacular Techniques
Inspired by Norihisa Kawashima and Nori Architects, we looked to traditional Japanese methods that work with the land, not against it. Undulating terrain is layered over the old surfaces. Biochar and organic matter are mixed into the soil to support plant life, hold water, and sequester carbon. Trees and shrubs are coppiced, as in the satoyama woodland tradition, and bamboo is introduced both as a regenerative material and as a living system for managing water on-site.

Letting Water Be Present Again
Rainwater is no longer swept away. Instead, it is welcomed—captured and directed into the new terrain. Berms become rain gardens and ephemeral wetlands. These gardens don’t rely on mechanical irrigation. Like Nori’s work, they thrive on rainfall and occasional hand-watering. It’s simple, low-tech, and beautiful.

Rain chains help guide the water down—creating a soft, rhythmic sound and visual experience. Bamboo water features catch and channel the flow, making water audible, touchable, and central to the space again.

Welcoming More-than-Human Life
The site becomes a refuge for more-than-human life. Insect “follies”—small structures—offer habitat for creatures once connected to the Shibuya River. Algae-based bioplastic panels are added to glass surfaces. These attract microscopic organisms, help regulate temperature, and turn blank façades into living screens—educational and ever-changing.

Novel Ecologies and Shared Space
Layers of plants, fungi, moisture, and light create small pockets of biodiversity throughout the space. These microclimates attract insects, birds, and even small reptiles. We frame this biodiversity not as accidental, but as a vital part of urban life—something to be designed for and celebrated.

Conclusion: Regrounding as Resistance and Reconnection

Beyond Aesthetic Greening
This isn’t about decorative greening or superficial sustainability. Regrounding Shibuya is a physical and symbolic resistance to the dominant logics of neoliberal urban development—especially in places like Shibuya, where even “public” space is often tightly managed and commercialised. Our intervention is modest but intentional: it cracks open these hard spaces to let nature and culture grow through again. And it sits alongside the work of architects like Nori, who are showing how simple, low-cost materials and processes can produce powerful, meaningful change.

Toward a New Urban Ethic
The design is shaped by Aboriginal understandings of Country, Shinto views of nature as animate, and contemporary ecological thinking. It invites us to relate differently—to land, to water, to each other, and to the more-than-human world.

Final Thought: The River Still Runs
Even when it’s buried under concrete, the river is still there. Regrounding Shibuya is about listening for it. About revealing what’s underneath and letting it breathe again. The project shows that cities don’t need to be sterile or expensive to be meaningful. They can be alive, layered, and open to change. As designers like Nori Architects continue to demonstrate - radical ecological futures can be low-tech, deeply grounded, and beautiful.