Together with the Toyota Motor Corporation, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) have unveiled the Toyota Woven City as the world’s first urban incubator dedicated to the advancement of all aspects of mobility at the foothills of Mt. Fuji in Japan. Envisioned as a living laboratory to test and advance mobility, autonomy, connectivity, hydrogen-powered infrastructure and industry collaboration, Toyota Woven City aims to bring people and communities together in a future enabled by technology yet grounded in history and nature. The vision, along with an animation by Squint Opera, was presented at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas by the CEO of Toyota, Mr. Akio Toyoda, and BIG Founder Bjarke Ingels.
Toyota commissioned Danish architect, Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) for the design of this landmark project. According to Ingels, a swarm of different technologies are beginning to radically change how we inhabit and navigate our cities. Connected, autonomous, emission-free and shared mobility solutions are bound to unleash a world of opportunities for new forms of urban life. With the breadth of technologies and industries that they have been able to access and collaborate with from the Toyota ecosystem of companies, they now have a unique opportunity to explore new forms of urbanity with the Woven City that could pave new paths for other cities to explore.
“In Higashi-Fuji, Japan, we have decided to build a prototype town of the future where people live, work, play and participate in a living laboratory. Imagine a smart city that would allow researchers, engineers and scientists the opportunity to freely test technology such as autonomy, mobility as a service, personal mobility, robotics, smart home connected technology, AI and more, in a real-world environment. This is a truly unique opportunity to create an entire community, or ‘city’ from the ground up and allow us to build an infrastructure of the future that is connected, digital and sustainable, powered by Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell technology,” said Akio Toyoda, CEO, Toyota Motor Corporation.
Located on a 175-acre former factory site in the city of Susono in Shizuoka, Toyota Woven City creates a new equality among vehicles, alternate forms of movement, people and nature, streamlined by the promise of a connected, clean and shared mobility. The city will utilize solar energy, geothermal energy, and hydrogen fuel cell technology to strive towards a carbon neutral society, with plans to break ground in phases beginning in 2021.