Pakhuis de Zwijger and SHIBAURA HOUSE are pleased to announce a new collaboration: a two-way fellowship exchange between Amsterdam and Tokyo, with Prof. Shin Aiba of Tokyo Metropolitan University as the first fellow with the support of Dutch Culture and the Municipality of Amsterdam.
PDZ first partnered with SH-H in 2024 through a hybrid exchange project, part of the Designing Cities for All (DCFA) programme on (Re)Designing Connection. In 2025, the collaboration continued with an in-person workshop series co-organized by the DCFA programme lead and SH-H. Read more here. The week brought together cultural exchange, creative dialogue and reflection on how design and community intersect across different cultural contexts. Following this visit, both organizations committed to building a long-term partnership.
The first fellowship in Amsterdam: Folding the City
Aiba is an urban planner known for his idea of “folding the city”: a way of downsizing and reorganising cities in an age of population decline. His three-months fellowship runs from October to December 2026. From 3 to 11 December he will be in Amsterdam for a public lecture, workshop at Pakhuis de Zwijger, and exchange with university and different visits. In January he will report back in Tokyo at SHIBAURA HOUSE.
This fellowship will focus on 3 areas:
1. Vacant properties as a tool for community development
Amsterdam knows how an empty building can become a creative space. Tokyo’s story is different. Its population and number of households are still growing, so the city is not filling up with abandoned houses. Instead, homes and flats can stand empty or underused for five to ten years while a property slowly passes from the family to the market. Community initiatives in suburban Tokyo are already giving such places a new life. This exchange asks how the two experiences can inform each other, and how vacancy can be linked to wider challenges such as loneliness, climate change or the integration of newcomers, rather than being filled for its own sake.
2. Housing with and for an aging population
Amsterdam is experimenting with intergenerational living, where younger and older residents share buildings and daily life. Tokyo is home to a very large aging population. Side by side, the two cities raise the question of how housing can be developed with older residents and not only for them.
3. Urban metabolism: spongification vs sprawl
Cities constantly renew themselves, and in Tokyo that metabolism is slowing down. Vacancies appear scattered through the city, a pattern known as sponge urbanisation, while new development keeps spreading onto farmland at the edges. Spongification and sprawl happen at the same time. Amsterdam, with a severe housing shortage, has long held back expansion through compact-city policy and strict zoning. So where does the pressure for new development go, and what part does social housing play?
What’s next?
This is only the beginning. A second fellowship on the topic of urban spaces across waterways and canals will follow in early 2027 and reverse the direction of the exchange: a Dutch expert will travel to Tokyo, test ideas there and bring them back to Amsterdam. More details will be announced soon, so stay tuned.
Follow Pakhuis de Zwijger and website for dates and ways to take part in any of the public events here!
