An introduction to Woven City – Toyota’s Living Laboratory
The innovative city is advertised as a “living laboratory” and will be home to a wide array of interconnected technologies such as robotics, AI, autonomous vehicles, IoT, smart homes, smart construction and manufacturing, digital health, and sustainable energy.
One of the main aims is to create a combination of natural and man-made ecosystem that supports both people and the environment. This will include multi-generational assisted living, where people of all ages will gather to solve the puzzle of designing a truly inclusive city.
The prototype is named Woven City and will be built on a 175-acre land situated at the foothills of Mount Fuji in Japan. This place was previously the site of one of the Toyota factories. The company sees this experiment as an opportunity to test autonomous technology and smart city infrastructure together. It will also help in expanding its business beyond cars.
For Toyota, Woven City is not only a bold leap forward but a tribute to what has come before. This site in the city of Susono in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan was once home to the Higashi Fuji Plant, where Toyota led Japan’s motorization and manufactured many of its iconic cars from 1967 to 2020. Woven City is an unprecedented opportunity for Toyota to build on this exceptional legacy and develop life-enriching ideas for the future.
Woven City will also be used for exploring ways to expand how mobility can enrich humanity. The researchers will test ideas related to the mobility of information, goods, and people in fields such as food and agriculture, transportation, energy, healthcare, education, entertainment, and more.
Construction on Woven City has already begun, and a variety of mobility-related pilot experiments are scheduled to begin in 2024 and 2025. The results of these studies will inform how to improve the city and further its progress. This approach will allow to continually test new mobility initiatives —a never-ending improvement cycle for an ever-evolving city.