INTERNATIONAL: Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town Opens Near Tokyo

By Balazs Szekely, Associate Editor

The Fujisawa SST Council recently held a grand opening ceremony for Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town, an eco-friendly and progressive community located on the outskirts of Tokyo. FSST Council, the developer of the project is a consortium led by Panasonic Corporation.

Located in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Fujisawa SST is a joint project between the private and public sectors – a smart town with 1,000 households where the lifestyle of future residents came before everything else during the planning, even before infrastructure.

“We are not simply aiming to develop a town underpinned by advanced technology-based infrastructure, but a town based on actual lifestyles,” the developers claim in the project’s overview. “We first put a 100-year vision at the center of our project and then established guidelines for town and community designs.”

The main landmark of the town is Fujisawa SST SQUARE, the core facility serving as a central communication base for the residents and a community management nucleus promoting the town’s growth through its various assets and functions. The SQUARE Center has a cafe and kitchen corner for hosting events and for relaxation. The SQUARE Lab – a food and craft studio – offers interactive workshops for residents.  Shonan T-SITE, a cultural complex is also soon to open on the south side of the SQUARE with the aim of maximizing the central site’s value not only to residents but to all the people who gather there including visitors and people living in the adjacent communities.

The SQUARE also gives home to Fujisawa SST Management Company, which provides the five essential services defined in the Fujisawa SST concept as energy, security, mobility, healthcare and community. The town utilizes a hybrid electrical network including rooftop solar panels and storage batteries, completed with a number of high- as well as low-tech features that contribute to a reduced energy usage. For families without cars or occasional drivers, Fujisawa SST has set a detached housing zone for the second phase of sales that provides access to the town’s eco-car or electric scooter sharing  system, rent-a-car services and other environmentally-friendly means of transportation through SQUARE Mobility.