by Tay Kheng Soon / Akitek Tenggara for the
Kawasaki Information City Competition - unplaced

We note on p.21 of the competition proposals that "the proposal should indicate how the theme to which the applicant is responding relates to other themes as part of the content, and contain an introductory explanation of a response which represents an integration of two or more of the competition's themes". In our proposal, we have attempted to integrate all four themes - i.e. (1) Intelligent Plaza, (2) Kawasaki Institute Of Technology (KIT), (3) Campus City Festival and (4) Intelligent Network within a spatial ad overall theoretical concept.

The 37 points (focused in the four working concepts) outlined in the 2001 Kawasaki City Plan, though extremely comprehensive, seem to ignore the identification of the spiritual/intuitive dimensions of the human society envisaged in the Information City. This is all the more surprising since the history of Japanese philosophy, religion, spirituality and aesthetics is a rich heritage which not only remains relevant, but which must continue to grow and develop. This is the key to our comprehensive approach.

One can infer that those who have conceived the vision of Kawasaki City as Advanced Information City anticipate that easy access to systems of human knowledge will enable man to creatively process this information. In other words, given access to the building blocks of a new culture, it is assumed that people in general, and the citizens of Kawasaki City in particular, will choose to avail themselves of the opportunity to build a new cultural edifice capable of complementing their new physical environment. This conceptualization depends on the creativity of the human spirit to meet the challenges of living in an Information Age. We doubt that people will choose this way by itself.

A multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary approach is not only desirable, it is necessary if we are to avoid simplistic assumptions - rife in architectural and planning literature - with regard to societal evolution and complexity, including implications of the human reproductive cycle, and also with regard to the developmental stages of the individual, particularly with reference to recent research on the functions of the human brain.

It seems unnecessary to belabor the point that the Advanced Industrial City does not seem to have provided a physical setting conducive to the further evolution of human society. The violence and alienation of the inner-cities, the high divorce rates and the disintegration of the nuclear family, the high incidence of drug abuse and unemployment, all point toward the necessity to seek an alternative basis for profound urban societal transformation. It seems equally obvious, particularly in a nation as densely populated as Japan, that a return to some rustic rural existence is equally untenable. The development of the Information City, conceived as the next stage in human urban evolution, must therefore take into account such social issues as conjugation, reproduction, nurturing the young, education, the adolescent phase, adult roles, and also the age of the population within a fairly dense urban culture.

At the level of the individual, we must seek to understand the causes of disequilibrium and anomie. we must explore this disequilibrium at the level of the human mind, and seek to understand its societal implications. Here we will argue that the industrial period, with its emphasis on the material and the rational, exacerbates an inherent mental asymmetry which can be traced to the hemispherical specialization of the brain. This asymmetry is characterized by the bi-lateralisation of the human brain, expressed in its divergent and convergent thought processes, by vertical and lateral thinking and by the structure and processes of reasoning and intuition. In other words, modern rationality aggrevates this condition by over-emphasizing the left-side activities.

In considering this disequilibrium, which is manifested in both the individual and the society, we also need to review the insights of the Asian intellectual heritage which have focused on problems of transcendence and integration. This heritage represents an almost unbroken train of thought on the problems of harmony and unity in the face of disorder and change. These may now be highly relevant as we face the Informative Age, with the inherent prospect of even greater disequilibrium caused by the multiplication of choices and the dislocation of families and communities. The excessive bias towards rationality needs to be balanced. Aesthetics, body language and sense education needs to be advanced. If a new equilibrium is to be established, the spiritual must balance the rational. In this endeavour, art can be the integrator because it is capable of encompassing this dualism.

This presentation is based on the assumption, which will be defended in the first section of our summary report that a spiritual/intuitive dimension is essential to the development of the Advanced Information City. The second section deals wit the basic contrasts between the Information City and the Industrial City. Our argument is based on the assumption that at this point in history in the late 20th century, we are poised for a quantum leap in human evolution - from the Industrial Age, which has dominated human development for the past three centuries, to the Information Age, which will define our future. The third section deals with the transformation process whereby the Industrial City can evolve into an Information City, specific to the context of Kawasaki City.

The fourth and lengthiest section is devoted to our vision of a holistically-conceived Advanced Information City can be evolved based on the backbone of the Industrial City. In brief, we conceive of Kawasaki City as being divided into four zones. Zone I is the mechanical zone, controlling access to and from the city. Zone II is the intelligent zone, in which the intelligent plazas and the university, amongst other structures, would be located. Zone III is the work, nurturing and retirement zone, where questions of community life and housing are treated in some detail. Finally, Zone IV - the nature and sense zone, embodies, in the form of a sense park, the 38th element which we feel is essential for the holistic evolution of the Information City.

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