blog-LyleInTokyo: 1991 Hyakunincho Walkabout and Danchi Design

I think these apartment buildings have since been torn down and new ones constructed in their place, but I haven't gone to the area to have a look this year (yet).

Danchi apartments in Hyakunincho

Looking towards Shinjuku (above) and Nakano (below). As you can see, the air wasn't particularly clear. I think the main source of smog then was probably trucks, as there were a number of older ones still on the roads and without a wind to clear the city, things accumulated in the air. Even so, it wasn't really noticeable unless you looked off into the distance (these are telephoto views).

Hyakunincho Walkabout

These were in-camera effects I was experimenting with at the time, not something I did after the fact. The camera could capture two high-contrast images and they could be set in a range of colors and used separately or together. These images are actually of three components - 1) image capture of TV antennas, 2) image capture of flowers, 3) live image of the overcast sky. (The purpose of the image capture function was so you could write a title on a piece of paper, capture it, and then overlay it on a video as you took it.)

Hyakunincho Walkabout

Considering the cracks in the concrete on the roof, and the mysterious numbers written on the side of a neighboring building, I think they had assessed the condition of the buildings and (possibly) come to a conclusion about their demolition?

Hyakunincho Walkabout

These days, TV = cable, but it used to nearly all come from the air via antennas. (VHF on the bottom and UHF on the top, in case you don't already know.)

Rooftops of apartment buildings here used to generally have roof access, but now just about all rooftops are locked off. Making use of the roof was a good idea I think, but (presumably) worries about people throwing things off have led to them becoming forbidden zones.

Hyakunincho Walkabout

The old design for this type of apartment building was to have stairways in-between the apartments, as shown here, which was good in that all windows (on upper floors) were inaccessible and could be left open without privacy/security worries. Newer designs have stairs on the end of the building only, and then long walkways with all the apartment doors in a row. This makes better use of the space the building is on (less space used for stairs), but also means that the front windows are on the walkway, and more difficult to use due to all the foot traffic that passes right by them.

With multiple stairways, the mail boxes for each section were at the base of the stairs. With the long corridor type, there are either one huge group of mailboxes on the first floor (inside) or half of the building's mail boxes by one stairway and the other half on the other side.

In 1991, when this was taken, generally only the danchi apartments (pubic housing) had this much green. Land prices in Tokyo being what they were (and are) other types of apartments didn't usually have much (or any) green. There seems to be some kind of legal requirement now that high-rise buildings include some kind of green in front (and/or around) them, so there's less of a divide than there used to be.

Hyakunincho Walkabout

An older area of residential houses. Tokyo is interesting in that even in central parts of the city, you come across pockets of houses that you would expect to find out in the suburbs. As the city continues to be developed though (a process that never ends in Tokyo), there are fewer and fewer areas like this in the central areas.