“Playable City” translated literally means “a city where you can play”.
Living in a modern information society as we do, I sometimes wonder if we have forgotten to just play in the city.
Parks where ball games are forbidden.
Roads that can’t be used for live music events.
Beaches where fireworks aren’t allowed.
Have the various restrictions created to supposedly protect, conditioned us to not use our imagination beyond those boundaries and restrictions, and to forget playing in the city?
Playable City Tokyo is, I think, a brilliant opportunity to look at Tokyo from a different perspective. Architects, designers, software programmers, artists, people who live or work in the city, students, young children and older people, anyone can join and exchange ideas, and bring them into reality.
Now is the time to start imagining.
It might be that by changing one small thing the city will become playable for everyone. The more people on board the more variety in perspectives and the richer the ideas, so I look forward to everyone’s participation.
8 September 2015
Seiichi Saito, Creative and Technical Director of Rhizomatiks