At the end of March next year, a public park is to be opened on the roof of a major junction of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Expressway. With an area of some 7,000 square meters and with a shape resembling the Colosseum in Rome, it will boast a track measuring the same 400-meter circumference as that used in general track and field athletics, varying from 16 to 24 meters in width (from 11 to 35 meters above the street level), and its vertical slope is about 6%. In the space created by the slope, some 1,000 trees of various heights have been planted, along with 30,000 plants for ground covering, enabling visitors to enjoy the changing seasons throughout the year. Beneath the junction’s roof, an “Opus Dream Plaza” measuring some 3,000 square meters in area will feature futsal courts or be available to host local events.

A major traffic artery, Tokyo’s Metropolitan Expressway carries nearly one million vehicles every day, but at the same time is a source of air and noise pollution. An attempt to turn an unwanted nuisance into something attractive may be unique to a major city like Tokyo. The junction itself, in order to suppress auto exhaust and noise, is a massive slab composed of more than 120,000 cubic meters of concrete. Because the park is under the authority of Tokyo’s Meguro City, it has not been named “Laupta: Castle in the Sky” (as per the 1986 animated film by Hayao Miyazaki), but rather “Meguro Sky Garden.” Meguro’s popular mayor Mr. Eiji Aoki — who’s been nicknamed “Mackerel Pike of Meguro” from the famous annual fish festival of the same name hosted by Meguro — says, “By calling it the Meguro Sky Garden, we would like for it to be the kind of place where many people will be able to familiarize themselves with its appeal.

A major traffic artery, Tokyo’s Metropolitan Expressway carries nearly one million vehicles every day, but at the same time is a source of air and noise pollution. An attempt to turn an unwanted nuisance into something attractive may be unique to a major city like Tokyo. The junction itself, in order to suppress auto exhaust and noise, is a massive slab composed of more than 120,000 cubic meters of concrete. Because the park is under the authority of Tokyo’s Meguro City, it has not been named “Laupta: Castle in the Sky” (as per the 1986 animated film by Hayao Miyazaki), but rather “Meguro Sky Garden.” Meguro’s popular mayor Mr. Eiji Aoki — who’s been nicknamed “Mackerel Pike of Meguro” from the famous annual fish festival of the same name hosted by Meguro — says, “By calling it the Meguro Sky Garden, we would like for it to be the kind of place where many people will be able to familiarize themselves with its appeal.


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