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Portland has long been known for its progressive environmental policies and commitment to sustainable buildings and industries. Recently, businesses here have begun exporting aspects of those successes.

鈥淲e have a long history in sustainability in urban planning,鈥� said Michael Gurton, business development officer at the Portland Development Commission. 鈥淲e realized we could take our abilities to rapidly urbanizing areas around the world.鈥�

Kashiwanoha, Japan, was one such city in need of what Portland companies could offer. Kashiwanoha (pronounced cash-owa-no-ha) is a city of approximately 400,000 people, 27 miles north of Tokyo. It was one of the first Japanese cities to dive into the eco-district concept with its 鈥淪mart City鈥� development.

With eco-districts, engineers and architects look for ways to combine structures and services within a small urban area to more efficiently handle items including energy, water and waste.

Portland companies become involved in Kashiwanoha’s district, which measures slightly less than one square mile, in 2014 when business leaders from Kashiwanoha signed a memorandum of understanding with the PDC to improve the Kashiwanoha Campus City project. The group toured the Pearl District, which serves as a model for the Japanese district.

Initial efforts in the district weren’t a rousing success.

鈥淲hat they did was put in all that green development and still no one wanted to come to that one development,鈥� said Amy Nagy, PDC business development coordinator for green industry. 鈥淗aving the green infrastructure is all well and good, but it needs to be a place people want to use.鈥�

Many of the problems stemmed from how development was conceived and tested.

鈥淚t has been corporate or business users that have been asked about the use of the space 鈥� not the users of the space,鈥� Nagy said.

In Japan, use of focus groups and community outreach is not as common as it is in the United States. Getting people talking was a major step in helping make the community more livable.

That is where ZGF Architects and its team came into the picture.

鈥淚t’s almost like a test bed for (Japan’s) national initiatives,鈥� said Charles Kelley, a principal at ZGF. 鈥淭hey were looking for ways to deal with questions of health and happiness. Their GDP is third largest in the world, but they are losing population.鈥�

The biggest part of the project, Kelley said, was aimed at making the district’s technology more user-friendly. For instance, a stormwater facility in the district was addressed. The water ran into a detention pond, generically named No. 2 flood control reservoir.

鈥淭he detention pond 鈥� was fenced off,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey thought it was dangerous. We looked at it as an asset.鈥�

By redesigning how water flowed into the pond, the team was able to turn the pond into an aqua-terrace park. Now a popular bookseller is set to open shop there.

One of the first goals of the project was to come up with the big concepts for the area. A big part of those early steps was increasing the jobs to housing unit ratio. Again, the team looked to the Pearl District as a model. Within that district, there are four jobs to every one housing unit. In Kashiwanoha, the original idea was a one-to-one ratio.

Merging ground-floor activation with existing technology and systems was crucial to the district’s success, Glumac associate principal Chris Lowen said.

鈥淲e came up with a variety of efficient ideas,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e presented a range of these ideas.鈥�

Glumac took the lead in helping the city reduce its environmental footprint. There was a give-and-take atmosphere, Lowen said.

鈥淭hey had very ambitious waste reduction goals and needed us to help them look at the area as a whole as opposed to just individual buildings,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey had large battery storage systems. We were able to bring some of those ideas over here.鈥�

By combining the Japanese electrical storage concepts with effective distribution techniques, team members were able to create a better electrical system within buildings, Lowen said.

鈥淚t was kind of like a hybrid building instead of hybrid car,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 think we also came up with some pretty cool ways to recycle water.鈥�

Glumac’s involvement was largely in the project’s early stages. The eco-district has now progressed to the point where it is a growing and vibrant part of the city.

One of the biggest aspects in developing the new district was making sure that not only the buildings but the people could survive the earthquakes that plague the region. After an earthquake in 2007, lessons were learned.

鈥淭hey found that there was lower mortality in regions that had higher social cohesion because people were taking care of each other,鈥� Kelley said. 鈥淭he community cohesion was not felt the same in the district.鈥�

While the buildings had top-notch technology like battery power, stormwater and wastewater systems that could operate 鈥渙ff the grid,鈥� there wasn’t much that drew people together. The way ZGF changed that was by creating more open spaces to serve as gathering places.

鈥淧ortland was exporting the green outdoor space use to connect the buildings,鈥� Kelley said. 鈥淲e got people to talk openly about what they wanted. We got the buildings organized. We got a vision plan centered around what these people wanted.鈥�

Kashiwanoha’s Smart City still has tons of technology that includes battery storage, an aerobic digester, and solar and wind energy elements. There are also hotel, hospital, laboratory and commercial buildings that are connected together. The district energy distribution system shares heat loads, and the synergistic system allows the buildings to operate off the grid until regional power and water can be restored during a disaster.

鈥淭ech is meaningless unless we also have an open space that is equal to what we want in our lives,鈥� Kelley said.

The result of the project is an area where people want to live and work. It’s also being honored as among the most environmentally friendly. The project has already earned Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design Neighborhood Development platinum certification. It is the first neighborhood in Japan to earn that designation and ranks among the largest, in terms of land space, in the world to achieve that honor.

鈥淭hey took advice, made a plan and are now implementing a plan,鈥� Kelley said. 鈥淚t is kind of an unusual project. It’s the next-level kind of stuff we did there.鈥�