In this global age, the world is becoming more and more interconnected and borderless, even after COVID-19 forced each country to strengthen its border control. What role should universities play at this critical moment? To think about this question, the Office for the Global Relations begins a new series of articles to introduce Nagasaki University’s initiatives for international cooperation during the COVID-19 and Post-COVID-19 period.
The first special article features “Nagasaki Landscape Design Internship” led by Prof. Seiko Goto, Faculty of Environmental Science at Nagasaki University (NU). Although this internship started as only a seminar class in the beginning, it now involves international students and contributes to the design of the largest megaproject in Japan today.
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Prof. Goto received a Ph.D. in horticultural science from Chiba University, after she studied landscape architecture at Harvard University. She has taught landscape design at several universities in the world, including the University of Toronto, Canada, and Rutgers University, USA. In 2016, Prof. Goto joined NU as a professor.
During her first year at NU, she launched the “Nagasaki Landscape Design Internship” program, which invites professors and students from the University of California, Berkeley (UC, Berkeley). to learn about Nagasaki landscape and town planning. In the beginning, it was only one week, due to the professors’ busy schedule, but later extended to five weeks by inviting only students, which made the program more productive. Recently, the program expanded to include students from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and is conducted online after the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Moreover, Mr. Kazuyuki Ishihara, a world-famous landscape artist, joined the Faculty of Environmental Science, at NU as an adjunct lecturer this April. Since he is the general producer and a landscape producer of GATEWAY NARITA, Prof. Goto and her students are now involved with this project.
GATEWAY NARITA is the largest megaproject in Japan today, which creates a new type of urban cluster with hotels, shopping areas, convention halls, and other buildings. It will be 30 times larger than Tokyo Dome City. Mr. Ishihara wants GATEWAY NARITA to be a place that a person thinks they “must visit before they die.”
Prof. Goto and her students from the three universities together are designing a landscape plan for GATEWAY NARITA based on the concept of “Rakuichi-Rakuza,” an open market policy introduced by Daimyo Nobunaga Oda during the 16th century. On July 8, the midterm presentation was held online where students represented by Ms. Aya Furusato (NU) and Ms. Yumiko Nakano (UC Berkeley) presented the students’ design ideas to Mr. Kimitaka Yanase, the CEO of Kyosei Bank Group, which leads the megaproject.
After the presentation, Prof. Goto told the local media that it is more difficult to conduct this project online than face-to-face. There are only a few hours each day for them to meet because students are from different time-zones. However, she said they are brilliant and hard-working. The team works 24 hours; while one team is sleeping, another team is working. Although her schedule is like “an emergency” because she tries to answer students’ questions night and day, she hopes that the project helps inspire the students to believe in themselves, to say “we’ve done it!” before they graduate and become professionals in their field.
Ms. Furusato, who was the presenter for NU, never thought that she would be involved with this kind of megaproject, which is far away from Nagasaki. She smiled and said that she hopes for at least one “like” from Mr. Yanase and Mr. Ishihara to the ideas she presented. She has more confidence now after she received positive feedback from them. As a matter of fact, Mr. Ishihara highly praised one of her designs, two bridges that are built to appear like the Niomon gate of Azuchi Castle, one of the main castles of Daimyo Oda Nobunaga (see the picture below.
Ms. Furusato explained her idea to build two bridges between buildings, which together appear as the Niomon gate from a certain angle.
The final presentation is planned for the end of July in Tokyo. Using the students’ ideas, Mr. Ishihara and his project team will finalize the master plan by December this year and construction will start by next autumn. We hope as many as possible of the students’ ideas are incorporated into the master plan.