This is one of the first projects I was able to significantly help out on. It is a "protection park" located in Nakanobu. Protection Parks are spaces that serve as parks most of the time but are designed as meeting points and staging areas during emergencies. Law requires that "protection parks" of varying sizes be located within a certain distance of each home, with smaller parks like this one being most common, and the smaller parks linking to larger parks, and so on throughout Tokyo.
The parks tend to be pretty basic due to all of the requirements for emergency situations. The space is primarily maintained as open space to accomodate emergency equipment and allow people to camp here if necessary.
This arbor is one of the few structures in the park, but it too is designed with special features for during an emergency. Special conections are built into the roof which allow large tents & awnings to be connected to the arbor making them very secure and allowing this to serve as a command post of sorts.
Watanabe-san's sons test the play equipment
I mostly got to work on park detailing, and while the park is fairly simple and had a limited budget we were able to incorporate areas with slightly higher quality materials and a bit more attention to aesthetics than purely function
The benches double as grills/firepits during an emergency
A large water reservoir lies under the plaza providing clean drinking water during an emergency. There are also facilities that tie into the sewer system allowing temporary bathrooms to be easily placed on site. (you can just see the edge of one of three manholes in the first panorama)
