Scaling the Food–Energy–Water Concept in Tokyo

This chapter is about the FEW Nexus in Tokyo. The nexus is by its nature complex and complicated, with multiple intertwined parts. To manage complexity, it is essential to place local processes and customs at the center of any design or development. With that in mind this chapter aims to bridge the ideal goals of the FEW Nexus with the specific reality of Tokyo by combining two narratives. The first is a historical overview of the shift of urban planning from equilibrium to dynamic resilience, making use of several ideas from the realm of ecology. The second describes the nature of change in the Japanese city, supported with a simple case study of a residential block in Tokyo. The importance of the sanitary movement is specially recognized for its scale of impact, and the impossible prototype that it became for nearly all grand urban planning theories thereafter. The FEW Nexus is close in spirit to that precedent because it too has the ambition of changing the infrastructure of cities in their entirety, much like the sanitary movement did in its time. The existing Japanese planning system offers several entry points for the overlay of the FEW Nexus. It is therefore proposed that a bottom-up approach to design can be used to transform large parts of Tokyo through the fast pace of replacement of buildings in the city, as well as through partnership with building typologies that function inside logistical networks.