Urban Design and Management with Public-Private-Academia Partnership initiated by Urban Design Center, Kashiwanoha (UDCK)

The University of Tokyo is in the process of bolstering its “Kashiwa Campus” in the Kashiwanoha district of Kashiwa City as its third major campus, aiming to establish a new academic concept of “Trans-discipline.” Kashiwanoha is known as the new frontier of ongoing urban development under the banner of building a smart city. In the first phase of this urban development, "Urban Design Center, Kashiwanoha (UDCK)" was founded in November 2006 as a platform to create a new model town of the 21st century by promoting new urban design and planning combined with the university’s knowledge and technologies.

Since its foundation, UDCK has served as a hub for collaboration among stakeholders through a public-private-academia partnership, and the professors in the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Frontier Sciences and Chiba University have taken the initiative in creating an advanced urban design and management method, which can be called the “urban design center system.” It has promoted unique social and regional cooperation not only for designing physical urban environment but also community building through application of new planning theories and implementation of leading projects based on the new public-private-academia partnership.

Achievements of UDCK over the past 10 years have been already highly evaluated internationally. As such, it has received awards, such as the Ishikawa prize in 2016 by the City Planning Institute of Japan and Platinum of LEED-ND in 2016 by the US Green Building Council.

- Associate Professor Tsuyoshi Seike, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo
- Professor Takeshi Ueno, Chiba University
- Vice-director Hiroya Mimaki, UDCK
- Mitsui Fudosan Co.,Ltd.
- Kashiwa City
- The Kashiwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry
- Regional Council of Tanaka Area
- Intercity Railway Company (Tsukuba Express)