G-project｜株式会社地球の芽

It's getting colder day by day here in Kobunaki, and we feel winter almost there!
Please find our project update since July 2006 below:

[Visit to Venice Architecture Biennale]

In September, g-project staff and some of those involved in our project visited Venice, Italy to tour "Venice Architecture Biennale". This year, the Japanese main commissioner was the architect, Terunobu Fujimori, whom we are working with for Kobunaki Ecovillage. Fujimori's major is architectural history, but he started designing his own works in his 40s. His works are different from anybody else, highly praised as "buildings we have never seen and we have been missing".

His policy is "to challenge interesting things in exciting ways". We asked his opinion about what he thinks important for Kobunaki Ecovillage project. "I do not use the words such as "ecology" or "sustainability", because it sounds hypocritical. Logics and languages can express only 1/10 of the reality. But never forget that what most important for the happiness of human being or community always exist in the leftover, 9/10. Don't hurry. You will see what I mean through construction workshops with me."

He is going to be a supervisor of one of the construction work in Kobunaki. His messages will be passed over to Kobunaki community through the g-project team.

Chie Saito

　

[The 100 Seeds Harvest Festival in Tokyo]

On 19-20 October in Marunouchi, Tokyo, G-project team co-organized "The 100 Seeds Harvest Festival" with 100 Seeds Theatre, a non-profit organization to promote organic food and farming based in Kobunaki.

We had two aims for this festival. One is to raise the awareness towards the local brand of agricultural products in Omihachiman City, where we located. We have felt the needs to gain recognition of Omihachiman as sustainable productive center, as 100 Seeds Theater and other farmers are practicing or trying organic farming. The second is to raise the recognition of the area of Omihachiman itself. As Omihachiman has been proved its value as a important cultural landscape in Japan, we feel the potential to appeal more people to visit or live in the area by promoting attractions of traditional townscape and rural lifestyle.

As a result, the event was extremely well received, and almost all the vegetable and our local specialties were sold out. We expect to apply this experience to the future, promoting our vegetable and lifestyle.

Tomomi Takada

[The Long and Winding Road to Kobunaki]

Mr. Akimura, our president, told me five years ago, "You are elected here to create an ecovillage!" It has been years to start our project on the site, but finally we almost get the prospect.

Since 2004, we have held talks with administrative bodies almost every day. Japan's administrative system is known as complicated and time-consuming. We tried to speed up the process by fostering partnerships with administration and civil society, but it took more than two years as a result.

Why? As the site for Kobunaki used to be rice field about 20 years ago, we need to get development permission. Japanese culture is based on rice cultivation, and I think that is why administration takes so much importance on rice field and hesitates to change to some other purpose. In consideration of this background, we put together a plan which closely link up with agricultural activities; such as setting 30 square meters of vegetable garden for each plot.

100 Seeds Theater, our organic farm on the south of the Kobunaki site, has been already started two years ago, and preparation for residential area will start soon. Though there is still a long way to realize our ecovillage, I really feel happy that a part of our dreams will come true very soon.

Wataru Iida


Editor's note

I had been working in Tokyo office since I joined this project, and recently I moved to Omihachiman City, where Kobunaki will be built. Not only visiting but by living, I'm getting to feel very comfortable in this area, thanks to natural environment and nice neighborhood. Though it will take some more time to see Kobunaki in real, let would be intersting to discover more of Omihachiman!