Toyota’s Woven City is a place where people live and play while researching

Woven City: Toyota’s Vision of the Future

In the heart of Japan, specifically in Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture, lies a groundbreaking project known as Woven City. This futuristic city is not just a testing ground for the latest technologies, but a fully functional urban environment where people can live, work, and play while contributing to cutting-edge research. Designed and built from the ground up by Toyota, Woven City is a bold experiment that aims to transition the automaker into a broader mobility company focused on shaping the future of movement.

What sets Woven City apart from traditional testing grounds is that it is a real-world laboratory where inventors, residents, and visitors come together to test and refine innovations in a city that is actually lived in. According to Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda, Woven City is “a place where people can invent and develop all kinds of new products and ideas, a living laboratory.” This ambitious project is aimed at creating a test bed for autonomous vehicles, smart homes, robotics, and artificial intelligence within a carefully designed urban environment.

The city’s design incorporates a unique street system that prioritizes different modes of transportation, separating traffic based on speed and usage to promote safety and efficiency. There are dedicated lanes for faster vehicles, mixed-use streets for bicycles, scooters, and pedestrians, and pedestrian-only parks, reflecting Woven City’s human-centered design philosophy.

Initially, around 100 residents, primarily Toyota and “WbyT” employees and their families, are expected to move in this fall. The community will then expand to around 360 residents during its first phase, eventually housing around 2,000 people, including inventors, weavers, and visitors. Inventors are individuals focused on mobility solutions, including Toyota employees, startups, and entrepreneurs, while weavers are residents and visitors who collaborate with inventors by testing new products and services.

Woven City is not just about testing technology; it’s about co-creation, bringing together diverse groups of people to develop human-centered solutions for societal challenges. The city offers the “Woven Inventor Garage,” providing access to cutting-edge technologies and a “Digital Twin” virtual simulation of the city for inventors to model scenarios and test products before deploying them in the real world.

Some of the innovations being tested in Woven City include Toyota’s e-Palette for automated transport, delivery robots for smart logistics, and technologies for fostering emotional connections between people who are physically apart. These initiatives reflect Toyota’s core philosophy of innovation and driving positive change in society.

As Woven City continues to evolve and redefine what’s possible, it will be fascinating to see how this living laboratory shapes the future of mobility and creates a better world through innovation. Would you want to live in a high-tech, experimental city like Toyota’s Woven City? The future is here, and it’s happening in Woven City.