The Edo model

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Japan's efficient garden plots could be a model for how to keep feeding ourselves, even as sprawling cities devour land

Azby Brown was born in 1956 in New Orleans, and he went on to study architecture at Yale University. He came to Japan for the first time in 1983 and ultimate...

Space—living space, that is, and the ways we envision it and use it, and particularly how it affects the way we communicate with each other—fascinates Azby B...

The Edo period (江戸時代, Edo jidai?) or Tokugawa period (徳川時代, Tokugawa jidai?) is the period between 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when Japanese society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional daimyo. The period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, a stable population, popular enjoyment of arts and culture, recycling of materials, and sustainable forest management. It was a sustainable and self-sufficient society which was based on the principles of complete utilization of finite resources.[1] The...

Au Japon comme en Occident, nous rappelle P-F. Souyri [1], l’histoire japonaise a été interprétée à ...

Azby Brown's Just Enough is a compelling account of how Edo Japan confronted environmental problems similar to ours, and how it created solutions that connected farms and cities, people and nature.

I stumbled across this interesting article a while ago about how there was pretty much no garbage in Japan’s Edo Period because almost everything got recycled. I translated it into English, but it’...

Artist and designer Azby Brown offers simple lessons in sustainability from the Edo period of Japan.