From the Urbanism of Metabolism to Sydney/Tokyo Waterfronts Regeneration (2019–2022)

Abstract

Focusing on the forgotten lessons and potential legacy of the urban projects proposed by the Japanese avant-garde architectural movement of Metabolism, which emerged in the 1960s, and on the critical and comparative study of large-scale waterfront regeneration and design in Tokyo and Sydney, two education and research projects were initiated at UNSW-School of the Built Environment in 2019 and 2021, with the aim of looking at the future of the city in an age of climate change, global warming and rising sea levels. Structured around a variety of international workshops, joint design studios, collaborative archive and documentary reviews, multi-disciplinary seminars, and international symposia, with the participation of national and international academics and scholars, both research projects are currently in progress, with the support of competitive research grants from the Japan Foundation, the Australia–Japan Foundation (AJF), the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and other internal grants from the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (ADA) at UNSW Sydney.