New York-based architect Bjarke Ingels designs Toyota's "city of the future" in Japan
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Toyota and Danish architect Bjarke Ingels are driving the carmaker into the future with a plan to build a prototype "city of the future" called Woven City in Japan.
"Woven City is a long-time project that has been a personal passion of President Akio Toyoda to explore how new mobility and technology for sustainable energy could contribute to how people can live happy, healthy lives in the future," said James Kuffner, the chief technology officer at Toyota Research Institute.
Toyota plans to build Woven City on a 175-acre site at the base of Mt. Fuji. The complex will allow researchers, scientists and engineers to test emerging technologies such as robots, self-driving vehicles and smart homes in a "real-life environment."
The city, which was designed in collaboration with the New York-based Bjarke Ingels, whose firm is responsible for designing the Via on 57th on Manhattan's West Side and the upcoming 2 World Trade Center, was announced by Toyota's CEO Akio Toyoda at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
"Toyota has built a tremendously successful car business but what's the future and how are these technologies going to evolve and shape the design of how we live and can we solve some really important problems about sustainable energy, traffic, congestion, pollution for our world," asked Kuffner.
The futuristic project envisioned as a "living laboratory" is expected to break ground in 2021.
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