Waseda Students, Top Projects Recognised for Excellence at ULI Summit in Tokyo

For the second year in a row, Japan’s Waseda University was crowned champion of the ULI Hines Student Competition with a development proposal for a Tokyo site once home to one of the biggest fish markets in the world.

At the 2024 ULI Asia Pacific Summit last Wednesday, the university’s four-member Team Caplico claimed the top prize at the competition for a plan to transform the 19 hectare (47 acre) former site of Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo’s Chuo ward into a biochemistry hub.

What set the winning proposal apart was its thoughtfulness and its alignment with what the government, the customer base and the various stakeholders would actually want, said Hines APAC CEO Ray Lawler.

“The quality and the financial feasibility of the submission are (also) key,” Lawler told Mingtiandi on the sidelines of the event. “We have to do the project that’s feasible, so the students need a balance of good, smart design.”

A collaboration of the Urban Land Institute and US-based developer Hines, the Student Competition had 27 teams from seven Asia Pacific nations take part during the contest’s second year in the region, up from 19 groups that joined the inaugural tournament last year.

The BioChem Frontier

Team Caplico, comprising Koki Yano, Yungju Hsieh, Yunwoo Ryu and Yuki Tominaga, bested four other groups that made it to the final round, including another from their university, two from China and one from India.

Central to the design of the winning proposal — dubbed The BioChem Frontier — was the goal of addressing Japan’s ageing population by dedicating space for research on extending healthy life expectancy.

Lawler said the winning entry was selected even before the government and a Mitsui Fudosan-led consortium announced in April that the JPY 900 billion ($5.8 billion) project had been approved for the site.

The complex, to be built from 2025 to 2039, will have nine buildings including a 57,000-seat multipurpose stadium, offices, hotels, residential apartments and retail offerings.

“The site’s iconic, it’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” Lawler said. “The Tokyo Giants’ baseball stadium was not in the winning students’ proposal, but it was actually in some of the proposals. It’s going to be really fun to watch Mitsui Fudosan go ahead and do this and we can compare and contrast what our students thought.”

Facing the Port of Tokyo and the Sumida River, the project site was home to the famed Tsukiji Fish Market, one of the biggest in the world, until the marketplace relocated to Toyosu district in 2018.

Lawler highlighted the significance of gathering students from multiple disciplines to devise urban development projects that are creative, sustainable and economically viable.

“What is exciting about the students is they all are demanding more sustainability, and that’s aligned with ULI, aligned with Hines and with most of the cities and countries that we work with,” he said. “I do think we’re in a once-in-a-multigenerational moment where financial feasibility, sustainability, environmental stewardship, thriving communities, and value creation and protection are all syncing up at the same time.”

Excellence Rewarded

Many of the same qualities recognised in the student competition were top of mind later that same day as the ULI handed out its Asia Pacific Awards for Excellence to real estate projects in Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the Philippines.

The winners included Swire Properties’ Two Taikoo Place, part of the Hong Kong developer’s flagship office portfolio in Quarry Bay, and the Otemachi One mixed-use complex co-developed by Mitsui & Co and Mitsui Fudosan in Tokyo’s Chiyoda ward.

“The winning projects stand out for their innovation and impact, representing excellence in design and architecture,” said ULI APAC CEO Alan Beebe. “They serve as a showcase for the region’s top-tier real estate developments, offering valuable lessons for the industry.”