Big Forest Appears on Shopping Center Rooftop

In the autumn of 2003, Japan's largest green space with trees appeared on the rooftop of the Tamagawa Takashimaya Shopping Center in a suburb of Tokyo. Designed with the concept of creating a rooftop forest, the 4,100 square-meter space has been mainly planted with fruit trees such as apple, persimmon, lemon and other citrus fruits, grape vines, berry bushes, and various herbs.

The facilities opened in 1969 as the first suburban shopping center in Japan. The management has been working on greening the site since the very beginning, and today the trees are growing lushly on terraces and around the buildings. In opening a new annex in 2003, they decided to put more energy into tree-planting to meet customers' growing need for places to relax and refresh, as Japanese society experiences a falling birthrate and the average age rises. In Japan, most department stores use their rooftops for customer enjoyment.

In addition, to address the urban "heat island" effect, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government passed an ordinance in fiscal 2001 requiring owners to provide green spaces of over 20 percent of the rooftop area when large buildings are constructed or renovated. This shopping center's rooftop green space area largely exceeds the municipal requirements.



Posted: 2003/11/27 08:00:32 PM
Japanese version