These days, it is fundamental to incorporate environmental protection and nature symbiosis into development, including the eco-city plan and multi-nature river development promoted by the Ministry of Construction.

These days, it is fundamental to incorporate environmental protection and nature symbiosis into development, including the eco-city plan and multi-nature river development promoted by the Ministry of Construction.
However, Tokyo Landscape Co., Ltd. is a pioneer in environmental design, having consistently advocated "landscape ecology" since its establishment in 1968 during the period of rapid economic growth.
We visited the company's president, Haruhito Kobayashi, who is also a leading figure in the field of landscape design in Japan.
In the 1960s, he proposed a no-build construction plan.
President Kobayashi calls himself a "landscape architect.
In Japan, people tend to think of landscape as a visual structure, but I think of landscape as a comprehensive concept of space that reflects the local climate and regional conservation.
In recent years, the word "landscape" has become a much-lauded term, but I think it is starting to be taken in a narrower sense.
In the garden of the house where I grew up, there were a variety of trees, plants, and flowers, and each species landed where it wanted to, as much as possible, in its own way, in harmony with the surrounding landscape, creating an outstanding landscape unique to the area. After graduation, he established Tokyo Landscape Research Institute, Inc. in 1968.
His first major project was the basic design of "Emerald Town," a vacation home in Izu.
At the time, the sale of vacation home sites was booming due to the government's "double income tax" policy.
In the basic design, we proposed a development method that preserves the natural environment while developing the land into residential lots, in other words, a no-build construction plan, considering that this is a vacation home where people come to relax.
Today, 300 hectares of Emerald Town have been transformed into a residential area overflowing with greenery.
After the 1970s, the company began to receive orders for landscaping of housing complexes, road maintenance, park design for national parks, and exposition site development, and it grew along with them.
Since its establishment, the company has handled approximately 1,000 projects.
In addition to its domestic projects, the company has been involved in the formulation of a wildlife protection plan for the Kilimanjaro Province of Tanzania, as well as ongoing overseas technical cooperation in Singapore and other Asian countries.
Learning from the ancient "regenerative design" of Japanese farming villages
The environment-oriented development planning that the company has pioneered is now becoming mainstream.
What will the company seek next?
We, as a group of landscape architects, are committed to providing environmentally friendly design.
As a group of landscape architects, we aim to create spaces for living things, from plants and animals to microorganisms in the soil.
To achieve this, it is important to scientifically understand how living spaces work, in other words, the composition of ecosystems, and to construct them as ecosystems.
The environment changes from area to area, so we must create an eco-system that is unique to each area.
I would like to propose that we scientifically analyze the living systems that existed in Japanese farming villages in the past and transfer them to urban areas.
In the old days, garbage was returned to the fields and gardens, sake and soy sauce were sold by the scale, and people took baskets with them when they went shopping.
This ancient Japanese lifestyle of not producing garbage is called regenerative design.
I believe it is necessary to reproduce this in a rational form, rather than to return it directly to modern cities.
I think it is important not only to respect foreign ideas such as eco-cities and biotopes, but also to learn from Japan's unique view of nature.
In the future, he would like to expand the company's business little by little based on the company's basic concept of "keshikkei.
First of all, we would like to propose master plans for parks and other facilities that can be constructed on a low budget to the 3,300 municipalities in Japan by taking advantage of our company's past achievements.
We are also considering the development of new landscape materials that incorporate the concept of "shikkei" into the materials used for landscaping.
We would also like to increase our business in developing countries through ODA and other means.