I am the fourth speaker to give a speech in Japanese.
(Laughter)
Please bear with me.
Let me introduce myself first.
My name is Masayuki Takeuchi.
I am the project leader for GREEN FLOAT,
our environment-friendly future city concept.
I work for the Shimizu Corporation.
I am in charge of technology for urban planning and buildings.
Before talking about the concept for future cities
I would like to talk about what we can do with architecture
to cope with earthquake problems.
First earthquake.
Some places in Tokyo very far from the epicenter of the earthquake
had a lot of damage such as collapsed furniture or ceilings.
No matter how sturdy we make our buildings,
I'm afraid it doesn't guarantee the safety of people's lives.
This is the Great Buddha of Kamakura.
Actually the history for our earthquake countermeasures began here.
About 90 years ago, in the Great Kanto Earthquake,
this Buddha statue suffered damage.
Several decades after that happened,
in the reconstruction of the statue,
a new technology called "seismic isolated structure"
was used for the first time to prevent its damage in another earthquake.
That technology isn't as difficult as it may sound.
Between the Buddha statue and the pedestal
a sheet of stainless steel plate was inserted, that's all.
When an earthquake occurs
the whole body of the statue slides sideways on the stainless steel sheet,
leaving the statue intact.
But today's seismic isolation technology
is a little more advanced than that.
The concept is that of converting tremors into a gentle swaying motion like a willow
by isolating the building from the ground movement
during an earthquake.
The part that actually sways like a willow
is the damping rubber structure under the building like this.
This is called "seismic isolation rubber" that can sway as a willow does.
In a big earthquake, it can stretch up to 50cm.
I think that when the quake occurred this time in Tokyo
that rubber structure in the buildings must have stretched between 5~10cm.
Because of this, the building above it sways slowly.
As you see in this slide the building on the left is an ordinary one.
It shakes, the furniture in it falls over, and the ceiling collapses
when an earthquake occurs and the ground shakes.
The one on the right is a seismically isolated building.
Because of the damping rubber under the building,
the building on top of it gently sways as if it were on a big ship.
So, the ceiling and the furniture would be safe.
We can ensure our safety by investing only 3% of the total cost in this.
About 2,500 buildings in Japan are seismically isolated.
So, you may ask, what would happen to the existing buildings without it?
This picture shows historical buildings you must be able to identify easily.
These were jacked up long after their construction
to put a damping rubber beneath them.
So this protects the buildings from earthquake damage.
Recent new seismic isolation technology is not only for sideway shakes
but also for vertical jolts.
The seismic isolation technology is finally getting into 3D.
Next is environment.
Have you ever imagined that an earthquake would rob us of this much energy?
On the Yahoo top page
that we now have "Electric Forecast" instead of Weather Forecast
is well known.
I am sure you work in offices
with the lights off when it is sunny outside.
Have you ever seen this kind of window blind?
This window blind is computer programmed
to allow sunlight in according to the height of the sun
by controlling the angle of the blind slats.
This blind would help light up your office a little bit more
even when you don't use the electric lights in your office.
We can also contrive the way
to control the condition of the air inside a building.
Cool air usually comes out of the ceiling through the air ducts,
cooling the whole room at full blast.
However, remember that when we get into a tunnel, it feels cool inside,
although no cool wind is coming in.
It's because the cool temperature of the materials used in making the tunnel
robs our bodies of heat.
This principle is embodied by a radiant cooling system.
Making the surface of the ceiling - in this case it's metal - cool,
lowers the room temperature,
making our environment comfortable.
Some of you may not like a cool draft blowing directly on you.
With this it won't happen.
Comfortable and very energy-saving.
There is also technology for offices that can detect where people are
and adjust for those who like a warm or a cool temperature.
By using a sensor to detect such things
we can save energy and make offices comfortable
without wasting electricity.
This is cutting-edge technology for offices right now.
We will complete the construction of the new headquarters building
for our company next spring.
All those technologies I have just mentioned
are incorporated into this building.
Energy usage and CO2 emission can be reduced by about a half in this building,
so, we call this a "carbon-half building."
Within our ambit after this "carbon-half building"
is a plan to make a "zero-energy building"
using a lot of natural energy.
The word "building" isn't visible in this slide,
but it's "zero-energy building" or ZEB.
Beyond that, GREEN FLOAT - I'll talk about that after this -
will even absorb CO2 from around the structure.
That is to say that our goal is to aim at a "carbon-minus building."
What I've talked about so far are the technologies
that we can incorporate into architecture right now.
So, do you think
that these technologies would make the environment of our future cities
rosy and safe?
Do you think these would ensure that?
I think the answer is no.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't go that way unless the current situation changes.
That means that no matter how hard individual buildings tried
to accommodate new technologies,
there would never be a big paradigm shift.
Now is the time for us to have a distinct paradigm shift.
We need to consider a city as one unit
to solve the safety and environmental problems.
That is the way to adapt to the new era.
We have been proposing the concept
of an environmentally friendly city, GREEN FLOAT, for the past 3 years.
The current dense living conditions on the 30% of the Earth's surface that's land
is causing many environmental problems worldwide.
So, this project is to focus on the oceans
that take up 70% of the Earth's surface.
Japan is a country with advanced environmental technologies.
Japan is also surrounded by oceans.
With all the most advanced technologies -
environmental technology as in GREEN,
and ocean technology as in FLOAT - incorporated into it,
this is a completely new concept for cities.
We are innovating technologies, aiming at breaking ground for it in 2025.
Please watch the video.
(Video starts): GREEN FLOAT is a new conceptual model
for environmentally friendly cities.
The idea is to construct artificial islands in the equatorial ocean
with the aim of achieving self-sufficient and carbon negative cities
with zero waste.
On the Equator it's hot, but the temperature is stable.
Also, the Equator isn't prone to typhoons
so that the climate is stable, too.
The idea is to build towers like this, 1,000m high
At that elevation it's cooler,
we'd create "cities in the sky"
with a year-round temperature of 26 degrees C.
Each cell of GREEN FLOAT has a radius of 1km, a walkable distance.
One cell is defined as one town,
and a module consisting of cells is defined as a city,
and one unit consisting of modules is defined as a country.
As its population increases, it could grow like water lilies.
The part between 700 and 1,000m high is the urban area.
On the periphery, there are residencies and hospitals.
In the center, there are offices and commercial facilities.
The tower has a plant factory which grows vegetables.
In the lower part, cereals are grown,
and in the shallows, fish and seaweed are cultivated.
The CO2, waste water and garbage from the urban area
become nutrients for the plant factory below.
They also become nutrients for arable and marine cultivation at the bottom.
In other words we want to achieve a natural cycle,
where the city gets back fish from the shallows,
cereals from the fields, vegetables from the plant factory.
In consideration of the marine environment,
to ensure sunlight is not blocked from going into the ocean depths,
GREEN FLOAT drifts slowly as it floats with the ocean currents,
instead of being fixed in one place.
Smart marine construction techniques using the buoyancy forces of seawater
will enable it to be built safely and efficiently.
The main issue is how to construct new cities and buildings;
that is, the technology needed to build floating cities or aerial cities.
Another issue is how to create a new environment on the Earth.
This involves such fields
as satellite solar power and waste circulation.
We also have to think about new economic systems
such as trading in CO2 emission rights
and systems for international coordination,
as it wouldn't be fair for the cities to belong to individual countries.
So, the three big themes are construction, the environment, and social systems.
(Video ends)
I have introduced GREEN FLOAT, a new paradigm,
with the idea that a city is considered as one unit.
Thank you.
(Applause)