Toyota breaks ground on a green prototype city to foster innovation at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan.
Toyota prototype city
Toyota Motor Corporation and Woven Planet Holdings, Inc., the Toyota Group company responsible for a wide range of mobility development projects, broke ground this week on a futuristic prototype city, designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan.
Toyota Woven City (Toyota was originally a loom maker) will be sited at the old vehicle yard adjacent to the former Higashi-Fuji Plant site of Toyota Motor East Japan, Inc.
The plan, announced in January 2020 at CES in Las Vegas, will be a hydrogen-powered quarter housing 2,000 people. Toyota writes:
Woven City is a project that will demonstrate a human-centered approach to community development. In Toyota’s shift from an automobile manufacturer to a mobility company, the project will bring new technology to life in a real-world environment across a wide range of areas, such as automated driving, personal mobility, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It is expected to provide a number of opportunities for businesses and researchers around the world.
Woven City will have three types of streets interwoven with each other on the ground level, one dedicated to automated, zero-emissions driving, one to pedestrians, and one to pedestrians with personal mobility vehicles. There will also be one underground road used to transport goods.
Global Construction Review notes:
The buildings themselves will be made mostly of wood, using traditional Japanese wood joinery combined with robotic production methods. Rooftops will be covered in photovoltaic panels to supplement the hydrogen fuel cells that will supply the bulk of the energy needed. Food will be grown using hydroponics.
The community will start with roughly 360 residents, mainly senior citizens, families with young children, and inventors, and will eventually have a population of more than 2,000, including Toyota employees. The smart-city platform is designed to be exportable to other countries. Toyota did not give a completion date on its website. Read more from Electrek
