The workshop aimed to explore ways of diving into and understanding the everyday practices around machizukuri in Yanaka, especially by exploring the role of the Yanaka Art and Design Festival, or Gei-ko-ten, through mapping and interviewing people during the festival. The Gei-ko-ten festival has run consecutively for 23 years, celebrating the community and shedding light on the various skills in arts, design and crafts that exist in the neighborhood.
The intensive workshop was organized for October 23-26, 2015. A multidisciplinary group of graduate students took part in the introductory lectures and conducted fieldwork around Yanaka during the last day of Gei-ko-ten. The students were divided into two teams, with members of the Finnish and Japanese workshop organizers joining them. Each team selected a specific theme to explore and devised a relevant walking route or strategy to explore Yanaka.

Participants observed and documented the community activities in Yanaka and interviewed people taking part in the festival as well as residents of and visitors to the area. The aim was to understand the role of the Gei-ko-ten in Yanaka, and especially its particular role as part of machizukuri activities. In addition, the participants aimed to map and collect material related to the use of digital media and technologies in Yanaka, especially the ways in which the participating shops, practitioners and artists prepare and take part in the festival.
Afterwards, the fieldwork participants had a chance to interview some of the representatives of the Gei-ko-ten organizers and receive feedback for their initial findings. From this media rich material, participants prepared a map of an urban neighborhood as seen through the lens of Gei-ko-ten. The teams also produced presentations on the process and suggested solutions to the challenges and gaps they had identified from their fieldwork.
The workshop provided a better understanding of a particular kind of hybrid community life and activities, and uncovered why and how the neighborhood is taking part in Gei-ko-ten.
The multiple interviews especially shed light on the differing motivations of the people participating, leading also to a multi-faceted understanding of the reason(s) behind the organization of the festival. Participants also highlighted issues around knowledge sharing among stakeholders before and during the festival, and pointed out that based on their findings there is a visible gap between the older and younger generations ― both of whom are exhibiting and participating in the festival. One proposal offered by the participants of the workshop was more effective use of social media.
In general we can conclude that there are some similarities between the activities of self-organized communities in Nordic countries and those of the machizukuri movements in Japan. In both contexts we identified the rise of “thematic associations” in ways that influence the shaping of the urban environment.