Toyota in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group has revealed its plans to build a futuristic city in Japan. The Woven City is a 175-acre site that will be located near Mt. Fuji.
This futuristic interpretation of a human settlement will be a living laboratory where researchers will be able to live in as well as temporarily settle to conduct experiments and research. Toyota wants to use this as an opportunity to collaborate with academic and commercial partners, scientists and researchers alike. Woven City wants to be a sustainable city where its inhabitants can live, learn and play while participating in a large-scale experiment.
BIG has carefully planned the urban landscape of the city, creating an intricate road network that features different driving speeds. This provides testing grounds for autonomous vehicle testing as well as alternative-powered infrastructures. Toyota wants to make the city carbon-neutral, using locally-sourced wood to build homes in line with the Japanese tradition.
The number of things to be tested on the Woven City is too long to go into detail but it will be the first large scale experiment for urban life. It will see AI assistance at home, autonomous vehicle transportation as well as eco-friendly construction. This will prove to be a valuable testing ground for cities of the future as it is also a replicable structure that you could easily apply to any other city in the world.