Metaphorically speaking, cuisine like ‘welfare’, ‘house’,

‘education’, ‘culture’, ‘history’, and ‘job’ is made of various ingredients

including characteristics and properties of the area and is served on the
plates called ‘ town’.
CASE Japan

Urban Regeneration
Design By
For
With People
 ま ち づ く り 協議会
地 縁 型コミュニティ

まち
づく
り

I. Own Community Development is Collect People’s Dreams

and Create Opportunity to Challenge Community Committee Establishment
URBAN REGENERATION

Location: Japan
Architect Team: CASE-Japan
Story Contributor: CASE-Japan

K Area
About 200 families are settled in this
area. Community development started
in 1990s. Through the use of “community
funds”, the residents have changed the
community from being one that is reliant
on government assistance, to taking their
own initiative.

In 2000, a big development started in

the neighboring area. As a result, various
groups got together and started commu-
nity development from the residents’ ini-
tiative. In 2001, in order to support civilian
activities, an NGO , which has functions
of incubation, intermediary and funding,
was established.

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With People
 N Area

Community work to develop a safe town.

About 2500 families live in this area, of which

approximately 1400 live in public housing.
Remodeling of the apartment complexes
started in 2003, and at the same time a
community development committee was
founded. The committee was concerned
by frequent cases of people passing away
alone and in solitude. Therefore it started
a “civilian watching” activity in order to re-
new self-supportive attitudes which people
used to have. By gathering residents’ opin-
ions, a “map” of the olden days was made.
Based on this map, children and school staff

URBAN REGENERATION
worked together, offering suggestions for re-
modeling of parks. For the remodeling of the
apartment complex, surveys were carried
out on people’s lifestyles, and design work-
shops were conducted. As a result, different
plans for the various lifestyles were drawn
up. At present, the actual plans for the apart-
ment complex remodeling are in progress,
and a cooperative housing project is being
implemented, aiming for private ownership
of housing.

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With People
 S Area

The community management acts by repair-

ing relations with the existing community
stock.

S area is located nearby the JR Shinosaka

station. Various local organizations and
public facilities have been well function-
ing, thanks to the area’s development be-
ing characterized by a project management
style which joins the already existing orga-
nizations and activities. Many projects have
been implemented such as cooperative
housing, community bus, remodeling public
apartment complex, community salon, and
symbiosis park.
URBAN REGENERATION

Flexible Plan System

Community Units System
Community Management Activity System...
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With People

II. Creating New Grounds, Old Minburi Market, Bangkok
Architect : Kasama Yamtree, Case studio Architects,
Bangkok TYIN, Norway
Year : 2006-2010
Starting with the idea of the city changing and people rapidly migrat-
ing into the eastern part of Bangkok, the research project on how
the old, small communities could live or adjust themselves and their
architecture into this new city began. The focus communities were the
old markets situated at the junctions of canals along Pravetburirom
and Sansab canals in the eastern part of Bangkok. Their beautiful
architecture led us to go deep in and ask more questions about the
areas. We found that these communities were facing a more serious
flooding problem than before, together with many complicated issues
that stopped them from ‘thinking beyond themselves’, which directly
and understandably affected their homes, environment, attitudes and
their own lives.
The old Minburi market was chosen to be the first for implementation
out of the seven markets we researched. At that time, it was the only
market that had a particular group of people who still had a vision that
they should do something with their land before it was taken away.
However, the group was so small and the community had so many
complicated issues, that we were not sure that we would be able
to make any visible change, especially because of the land rights
problem.
Kids designing their own playground - painting
The first implementing process was changing the old burnt down
market area that had become a garbage dump site and an informal
playground into a proper playground. This area was regarded as one
which had the most potential for change, and it was easy to commu-
URBAN REGENERATION
nicate and scale up to other communities. It was therefore useful not
only for the market’s residents, but also people passing through the
area who use the community as a shortcut. Those involved in making
the playground started first with only little children, a few adults, and
the outside volunteers. At that time, there was no trust from anyone
there. However, the process continued and visibly changed the burnt
down area into a cleaner place, thanks to the children and adults
collecting and digging out the garbage from the ground. Later, more
teenagers and adults started to step in, bringing some equipment
and help. It took around 8 weeks to finish the whole process and more
people than expected got involved. Interestingly, after all the outsid-
ers left the community, the residents started to change and improve
the playground areas by themselves. The sand ground was turned
into a proper concrete ground, and the old wall started to have graffiti
art on it which was done by one of the teenagers who helped finish
the playground at first. Some activities were organised inside and
kids and adults started to have more things to do together. All these
things were considered a hopeful sign in a sense that the residents
started to have a sense of their place and an understanding of the
possibilities for change in spite of the fact that they were still facing
the land right problem.
Later, the second implementing process was put in to continue on
from the first one. This time we moved from the outdoor to indoor area
and started to turn one of beautiful old housing units into a community
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With People
 library. The idea behind this was to show the residents the possibili-
ties for changing and improving their housing by only using old ma-
terials, especially those left on the ground with very cheap price. For
example, small pieces of old and abandoned timber could be used
to make a new floor and wall.
The main people involved in this process were architecture students
from Norway, TYIN, who worked with the community and community
architects and mainly helped with the designing and construction
process. They were also the very important people who encouraged
the community to realize the skills that they already had – in carpen-
try, painting, masonry etc. This time, the kids and adults from the first
playground process got involved, together with more new faces who
seriously came to help.
side Sansab canal, or the adults creating more games for children
every month to help prevent them from going outside the community
to get addicted to computer games.
All these events have shown the residents to be much more active
than before, eager and energetic to improve things in the community,
and understanding the possibilities for change and having a better
environment for their homes. From this, we hope that the conse-
quences from all these processes will create more positive changes
and the people will know how to live and ‘think beyond themselves’
no matter where they are….

These projects created not only physical changes in the community,

but also gradually improved the relationship between the people in
the community and their neighbors. Other communities started to
come and became interested in improving their common areas. The
URBAN REGENERATION

community is now very creative in improving their land in many ways,

such as growing their own food by making vegetable patches along-

Kids designing their own playground – making a 3d model

Little kids and teenagers cleaning the burnt down market area Changing the old house into a community library

More pictures and activities please visit:

www.kidsontheground.blogspot.com
The finished playground and more changes www.mai-kao-hong-mai-library.blogspot.com

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