Discovering a region, meeting people, working to build a city
Ryoko Kawaguchi (Completed studies in 1981; Managing Director of designARP LLC.)
I work in Shizuoka City as a consultant in urban development that incorporates local characteristics inarchitectural design and within Shizuoka Prefecture. I married while still a student and after completing
my masterʼs degree went to work at the architectʼs oﬃce operated by my fatherʼs older brother. I continued working while carrying other duties such as parenting, and later looking after my parents, doing mybest to do what was needed both at home and at work. Sometimes I would feel like I couldnʼt keep up
with the pressures of it all, and before I knew it thirty years had passed. The children have grown into
independence and now I spend each day working at both architectural design and “urban development.” The latter is complex and diﬃcult but interesting. Everyday there is something to enjoy.
When I say “urban development,” there may be a number of people that wonder what it is I mean. Andwell they should, since “urban development” has no clear deﬁnition. At one time it was conﬁned tomeaning physical projects such as city planning and road construction, the creation of urban areas. It has
since come to go beyond these physical aspects to include intangible aspects and is used to cover all theprojects and activities related to lifestyle and the region. Since it can be used in so many contexts tomatch what is being said it has become a very useful term. It isnʼt often used to discuss negative aspects
but to reﬂect an intention to advance the regional environment and lifestyles towards positiveoutcomes. Personally, I use “urban development” broadly to refer to all “actions” that have the intent ofimproving interpersonal relationship and the region at their core. Urban development also involves “thesite: location of the problem” and the “actions and implemented items” performed there.
So what does it mean to make “Urban Development” an occupation? At the core of urban development
is the citizens. The job is then to support their actions and appropriately provide the diﬀerent kinds ofknowledge, techniques and wisdom needed at their locations (problem solving). In some cases there aretimes when the work includes getting directly involved on site. Every area is unique and must be carefully
studied. We meet with the people and have conversations to consider improvements customized to thecommunity and help local people take action and implement the proposals.
I got involved in urban development in order to help the region become more alive, including regional
reinvigoration plans and renovation of shopping districts. Doing this kind of work helped me to realizethat merely building things and making the city look nice is not enough to make it more alive. That good
opportunities and locations for urban development take place when the process of urban development
is decided locally. Using meetings to consider concrete actions such as facilities or cityscape we holdworkshops to build awareness of urban development and in the course of this we have learned manythings the hard way. Weʼve also met some great people and found good opportunities to make a diﬀerence, gradually building a business in urbandevelopment. As I played the part I felt wasneeded at each time and place, I was lucky to
discover how interesting this work could be.
One reason I could do this was the relative
freedom to act one has in an architect oﬃce
located in a smaller regional center. I am
grateful that Iʼm able to do this work in thisway and play my own small part.

Workshop about making a park at an Elementary School