JapanWoven City at the foot of Mount Fuji will use solar power, smart fuel cells and zero-emission vehicles.
The city simulation Woven City will have many outdoor spaces. Image: Woven by Toyota
Designed by Toyota, Woven City is only a few kilometers from Mount Fuji, Japan, and will be built from 2021, according to Sun. This futuristic city serves as a “living laboratory” for the company to test energy-efficient self-driving vehicles nicknamed “E-palettes”. The first 2,000 residents will move into the city later this year in a nearly $10 billion study aimed at understanding patterns in driver and pedestrian behavior.
Once in the smart city, residents will live inside homes that run almost entirely on hydrogen, making the metropolis as environmentally friendly as possible. Each house has solar panels on the roof and AI technology that monitors health inside the house. Every vehicle and home is connected through data and sensors, according to Toyota chief Akio Toyoda. Houses built mainly from wood will include many robots to support daily life, helping residents become more independent. According to Toyoda, building a complete city even on such a small scale is a unique opportunity to develop new technology.
Streets will be divided into 3 types including pedestrian-only areas, roads for fast vehicles and roads for low-speed vehicles. The city only allows zero-emission vehicles, special vehicles for the elderly and wheelchair-accessible vehicles. The design reveals the grid-like shape of the experimental city with multiple outdoor spaces to promote interaction.
Toyota assigned the city design to Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, who has worked on many projects such as Two World shopping center, Lego House in Denmark and Google’s Mountain View headquarters. “Technology is starting to rapidly change the way we live and travel in cities. Connected, automated, zero-emissions solutions and mass transit will provide many opportunities for a new type of urban living “, Ingels shared.
Residents moving to Woven City range from families to retired couples to retailers to scientists. The test city is located near the foot of Mount Fuji, a volcano that was last active 300 years ago. “Three centuries have passed since the Hoei eruption, it is possible that magma is accumulating. So it is not surprising that the mountain could erupt at any time,” said Toshitsugu Fujii, a retired professor at Hoei. University of Tokyo, expressed concern that an eruption could return and affect residents in this test city.
An Khang (According to Sun)
