Occasionally, I might feel compelled to step out and experience the sheer urban intensity of a walk beside the Shuto Expressway, Tokyo's vast network of elevated toll roads. Such a journey on foot carries a melancholic undertone. It is a self-effacing activity, directly interfacing with the city's most unyielding, pedestrian-unfriendly concrete landscapes. Along some segments, you can walk beneath the towering pillars of the Expressway, and at times, crossing footbridges over the main roads brings you close enough to touch its underside and feel the rumble of one million vehicles daily passing by above.
Those moods are rare, though; for the most part, I'm inclined to steer clear of the Shuto Expressway. During walks through areas interconnected by its span, I usually seek out quieter paths, one or two streets behind the main roads. Still, given the Expressway's expansive structure, comprising three elevated ring roads and twelve radial routes fanning out from Tokyo's centre, it's inevitable to occasionally emerge from the seclusion of backstreets and momentarily confront its imposing presence.
On a recent walk from Roppongi towards Shirokane for coffee and breakfast at the excellent café Drogheria Sancricca, I opted for a diversion down a comparatively calm slope named Nagasaka, meaning 'long slope'. The beginning of this descent, marked by a scattering of restaurants, bars, and clubs near Roppongi, gradually thins out into a quieter blend of offices and residential buildings. By taking this path, you can skirt around a busy segment of Azabudai-dōri, notable for its relentless traffic, compounded by the C1 inner circular loop of the Shuto Expressway that arches overhead—a sight of spectacular congestion at almost any hour.
In due course, the path converges with Azabudai-dōri, and walking along the main road becomes necessary for a while. The journey is eventually punctuated by a pair of black and white vending machines on the right-hand side, thoughtfully sheltered to provide a moment's sanctuary from the elements while you sip on a saccharine canned coffee. The vending machines signal you back onto the more pleasant side streets leading toward Shirokane.
Upon reaching this stretch, I was drawn to a tiny park occupying a corner plot spanning merely 98 m². The space consists of paving tiles encircling a stately Keyaki, or Japanese Zelkova tree, complemented by a blue metal workout station, a bench, and four seats. A locker stands nearby, and there is no grass, with only a blend of dirt and gravel covering the concrete below. Meticulously maintained hedges frame the perimeter, masking the metal fencing beneath a veil of green. On initial impressions, it might be one of the smallest, most sparsely equipped play parks I have encountered.
Despite its diminutive size and minimal equipment, this park is well-kept, with every item serving a deliberate purpose. Dirt or sand-covered ground is commonplace across municipal parks in Japanese cities; they are easier to maintain and offer little opportunity for urban weeds to thrive. This pragmatic choice trades aesthetic appeal for practicality. The locker is most likely filled with emergency supplies, underscoring the dual role of these small parks in Japanese cityscapes: they are strategic points for evacuation and act as firebreaks, helping to contain fires in tightly packed urban districts. The bench, designed with a curved backrest, invites stretching, possibly after a few sets of chest dips or pull-ups at the workout station.
The robust Keyaki tree at the park's centre provides greenery and shade even in this concrete-dominated area. Alongside Sakura and Ginkgo trees, Keyakis are a mainstay in Tokyo's landscaping due to their resilience in urban settings. They withstand pollution and compacted soil well and are generally resistant to disease and pests, contributing to their longevity in the challenging conditions of city life. We're all drawn to the Sakura in spring and Ginkgo trees in autumn, but consider admiring a Keyaki on your next visit. Keyakizaka, another slope in Roppongi known for its illuminated Keyaki trees during wintertime, is probably Tokyo's premier Keyaki viewing spot.
This park leans more towards being a rest spot for adults about to tackle the final incline to Roppongi than a play area for children. Wander any considerable distance in Tokyo, and you'll notice relatively few benches to relieve weary legs. The absence of public seating mirrors tough-love principles in Japanese urban design, favouring practical use of space and preserving social order over individual comfort in communal areas.
Despite Tokyo's infinite walkability, the absence of resting spots outside commercial properties subtly promotes short breaks for consuming goods and services. This phenomenon significantly contributes to my frequent discovery of kissatens and cafés (leading to inadvertent caffeine spikes during my strolls). In central locations, this issue is acute enough that The Tokyo Bench Project, a specific machizukuri (town creation) community effort, focuses on adding more benches along Chuō-dōri from Ginza to Ueno, aiming to bring what they term a "ground-level revolution" to city dwellers.
So, small parks with a bench or two are appreciated as you approach residential areas, regardless of whether children accompany you. However, a plaque displaying the park's name, Nagasakaue Asobiba—with 'asobiba' translating to 'playground'—implies that it should facilitate children's play. Yet, play equipment is notably missing, and the harsh urban backdrop tells a different story. This observation aligns with a recurring theme of similarly austere parks scattered throughout all 23 of Tokyo's special wards.
In 2018, a Twitter user named Koizumi Motoo shared a photograph depicting an austere interpretation of a playground—a patch of artificial grass flanked by two towering, nondescript buildings. The only playground equipment present was a single, desolate panda ride. Koizumi remarked, "Quite a stoic park, not for the half-hearted," wryly acknowledging the minimalist nature of the setup. It suggests that only those with a serious commitment to imagination could consider this a playground, earning it the title "saddest playground in the world" online. A reply to the thread showed a similar setting with two forlorn play items—a red tomato and an orange carrot—each positioned on a square green mat atop the asphalt. The scene is framed by caution tape and traffic cones, and the displayed items resemble more abstract sculptures for the contemplative urbanite than a child's play area.
Even in these puzzling instances, there is invariably at least one piece of play equipment. Often, the setting is less pathetic, too. Photographers and bloggers have curated collections showcasing Tokyo's more charming retro playground installations. Photojournalist Lee Chapman exhibits an array of retro delights on his portfolio website, including a giant robot from a bygone era, a concrete UFO hailing from the 1960s, and a nostalgic push-button telephone slide. Similarly, a blogger writing under the moniker Tokyo Fox hosts an impressive assortment of playground structures on his website, featuring various figures from animals and dinosaurs to mythological creatures.
Yet, Nagasakaue Asobiba has nothing. In understanding Tokyo, it's often insightful to consider the impact of legislation on the streetscape. In Super Legal Buildings, architect Yoshimura Yasutaka shows how architectural constraints have spurred inventive adaptations, giving rise to Tokyo's unique design patterns. A report by the Tokyo Shimbun has pointed out a significant reduction in playground apparatus across the 23 special wards over recent decades, with the wards blaming the stringent 2002 safety standards set by the Japan Park Facilities Association. These regulations require substantial "safety areas" around play equipment to mitigate accident risks, a mandate that proves challenging for compact city parks where space is at a premium. The safety area required increases according to how high the play equipment is off the ground. This backdrop might explain the lonesome carrot and the desolate panda, perhaps born from a design brief that demanded low-cost and low-lying solutions.
According to various sources, before the Meiji Era (1868–1912), the landscape of Tokyo was devoid of urban parks as we understand them today—green public spaces designed for leisure and the appreciation of nature. Instead, community interactions centred around street life and the intimate quarters of residential alleys. Shrines often served the recreational purpose of parks, yet their sanctity as private, religious spaces meant they did not equate to public green areas. Some temple grounds and estates of Daimyo (influential feudal lords)—Ueno Park and Shinjuku Gyoen being notable instances—eventually became public parks. Yet, the adoption of urban parks in Japan was a slow process and during the 20th century, amidst rapid urbanisation, prioritising space for parks often took a backseat.
In spite of progress, present day Tokyo still struggles in this area. Christian Dimmer, Associate Professor for Urban Studies at Waseda University, pointed out on Instagram recently that although the lack of green space in Japan is often lamented, it stands in contrast to thousands of hectares of valuable asphalted land, which often languish, serving as car parks whilst awaiting redevelopment, a process that can take years. It got me wondering whether the forlorn panda and lonesome carrot aren't placeholders for future commercial development.
In Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology, Jinnai Hidenobu elaborates how, during the 1920s, city planner Ishihara Kenji, inspired by time spent in the United States, introduced the concept of "vest-pocket parks" to Tokyo as part of the reconstruction efforts after the Great Kanto Earthquake. In line with urban densification in Japan, private gardens became scarce, and the increase in vehicle traffic made traditional street play unsafe for children. As a result, pocket parks emerged as vital communal spaces. Urban planners were encouraged to transcend traditional Japanese landscaping whilst refraining from merely replicating foreign designs. Jinnai's publication includes plans and photographs of the first series of pocket parks, which, although not as small, bear the fundamental characteristics of today's compact, minimalist playgrounds in Tokyo, hinting at a historical continuity.
The 2012 publication Small Tokyo, published by Flick Studio, compiles insights from architects, landscape designers, and urban researchers on the theme of 'smallness' within Tokyo's built environment. Program director in Landscape Architecture at RMIT University in Melbourne, Marieluise Jonas, in her examination of the city's urban weeds, reports that Tokyo's 14.6 million inhabitants have, on average, less than 5 m² of open space per person. Additionally, the standard 150 m² plot designated for single-family homes often allows for minimal, if any, garden space, sometimes reducing these areas to mere centimetres in width. This context underscores the significance of even a modest 98 m² public green space within walking distance from home.
In the same publication, Heike Rahmann, a landscape architect and urban researcher, posits that Japanese culture inherently values the concept of smallness, viewing spatial limitations as catalysts for inventive use of confined areas. She references the traditional art forms of bonkei (miniature landscapes), bonsai (miniature trees), and tsubo-niwa (compact gardens and courtyards) as emblematic of this philosophy in Japanese landscape design.
Focusing on tsubo-niwa, Rahmann proposes that these small courtyard gardens built within the tight confines of homes, eateries, and lodgings offer a pertinent analogy for Japan's petite public parks. Characterised by their small scale, tsubo-niwa provide tranquil, visually appealing vistas viewable from inside the building, merging indoor and outdoor environments. Their careful orchestration within limited bounds encompasses the aesthetic virtues of minimalism, equilibrium, and concord. Rahmann likens the intimate spacing of buildings and miniature parks to the relationship between a tsubo-niwa and its enclosing architecture.
Nagasakaue Asobiba is no tsubo-niwa, and Rahmann concedes that Japan's small parks often diverge far from this traditional concept. However, contemplating the meticulous cultivation inherent in tsubo-niwa, or the delicate artistry involved in pruning miniature bonsai trees, offers a serene, enjoyable perspective on the management of confined spaces within the metropolis. This contemplative narrative is particularly convenient for Tokyo as a metropolis that underwent intense population expansion post-World War II and later endured one of history's most significant real estate bubbles in the 1980s.
My first home in Japan was small. The entrance, a small, brown door featuring a small keypad lock, was nestled on a narrow street of small shops and bars near Koenji Station. A tight staircase led to a small kitchen, which branched into a series of tiny, private guest rooms. Most inhabitants of the Koenji Guesthouse were temporary travellers. In contrast, I had chosen to rent one of its smallest and most affordable rooms for three months to launch my Tokyo life. Living in confined spaces wasn't new to me, given my previous London accommodation was a converted cupboard under the stairs in Hackney for £420 per month. Yet, unlike my new Tokyo space, that tiny London room could at least comfortably fit a standard-sized desk.
The room in Koenji featured a raised single bed on the left-hand side, offering space beneath for luggage, and a sliver, scarcely a couple of feet wide, on the right with a desk built into the corner. The desk could accommodate a laptop, a paper lamp, a mouse, and a cup of coffee snugly between the lamp and the mouse. Over those months, I adapted to using my mouse at maximum tracking speed, allowing me to cover the entire screen with mere centimetres of movement. It's tempting to idealise that period as a lesson in restrained Japanese living.
Compared to Hackney, this room was built from beautifully light, soothing wood. One of the owners, who doubled as a carpenter, had crafted an ambience that resonated with foreign guests' perceptions of Japanese living. The legacy of Japan's golden era in consumer electronics, renowned for miniaturisation and intricate craftsmanship, still holds weight abroad, and the owner-carpenter of my guesthouse had accordingly maximised the limited space of his property to its zenith. The room was an outlier—surprisingly small even to my Japanese friends living in one-room apartments on a student budget. I soon became grateful for small local play parks to walk to for a break from my extra-small room.
As previously mentioned, I had considered Nagasakaue Asobiba among the smallest parks I've encountered in Tokyo, yet on reflection, I've certainly come across others of similar or lesser dimensions. However, a park's essence and impact extend beyond its physical attributes—its relation to the urban landscape that envelops it is enormously influential. Beyond the Keyaki tree and sparse design, the distinctive aspect of Nagasakaue Asobiba is its immediate proximity to the Shuto Expressway, a monumental piece of infrastructure that invariably makes the space seem smaller. It's so close you could toss an empty can from the vending machine onto the C1 Route.
Adopting a critical mindset, I might guess that the Expressway encroached upon the park, overshadowing it and depriving the community of a peaceful open space. Yet, the park was opened in 1976, fifteen years after the C1 route's establishment in 1961, so it was a deliberate decision to perch a park on the edge of the Expressway. My collection of Tokyo photographs, amassed over the years, includes a few playgrounds near or beneath expressway sections, prompting a light investigation into this phenomenon via Google Images. Indeed, there exists a rich sub-category of expressway-adjacent play parks. I know where I'll be going next time I land in Tokyo.
The setting brings to mind Shakkei, a principle from 17th-century China adopted into Japanese garden aesthetics, that translates to "borrowed scenery." This technique integrates surrounding features such as distant mountains, rivers, and forests into the garden's composition, allowing the designer to curate the view by selectively revealing desired elements. In the confines of Nagasakaue Asobiba, I can't help hoping that the park's creator, when presented with this modest parcel of land and its challenging environs, approached the design with a cool-headed and impartial mindset, choosing to incorporate the roaring Shuto Expressway into their plan by way of Shakkei.
Nagasakaue Asobiba reflects aspects of Tokyo's nuanced dance with public spaces, illustrating how small details can inform our understanding of the metropolis. This unassuming park provides a momentary retreat from the urban expanse. It offers safety and suggests the resilience woven into Tokyo's urban landscape, holding stories of the city's heritage and the forces that continue to shape its development. Not least, it provides an unexpected vantage point for contemplating the Shuto Expressway's complexity. I don't advocate for a special visit to this "hidden gem" during a Tokyo holiday, but it serves as a way of seeing and learning the city. It may be far fetched for some, unable to look beyond the perplexing case of the panda and lonely carrot, but as someone who has chosen to receive this newsletter, I trust you'll receive and consider this perspective.
Until we meet in a miniature playground in Tokyo,
AJ
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