In our first report on the newly reopened Meiji Park, we looked at the practical side: the multi-level walkways, terraces, places to sit, food, coffee, craft beer, pizza, and urban spa that now fill this compact site beside Hakata Station.
This second article takes a step closer to the people and ideas behind the park.
At the opening, Fukuoka Now had the chance to meet architect Sou Fujimoto, whose office supervised the overall design. Standing with the park in the background, and later inside the bakery that opens directly onto the public space, Fujimoto came across much like the park itself: open, approachable, thoughtful, and quietly playful.
That matters, because Meiji Park is not designed simply to be looked at. It is designed to be used. Its terraces, steps, paths, shops, and pockets of greenery all seem to ask the same question: how can people share a small piece of the city more comfortably?
To understand that idea more deeply, we listened back to the opening ceremony and talk session, where Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima, Fujimoto, and Tokyo Tatemono representatives spoke about the thinking behind the park, the role of public space in a changing Hakata, and why the real life of Meiji Park begins only after people start using it.
Why This Site Matters
Meiji Park sits in the middle of the Hakata Connected area, where the district around Hakata Station is being remade with newer, more earthquake-resistant buildings. In his opening remarks, Mayor Takashima connected that redevelopment to the broader need for spaces that still feel human.
“Around Hakata Station, buildings are being reborn one after another as advanced, highly earthquake-resistant structures,” he said. “In the middle of those buildings, when you step into Meiji Park, there are curves and greenery. It feels almost like entering a different world.”
The park was developed through Park-PFI, a system that allows private operators to create and manage revenue-generating facilities in public parks, with part of that value supporting the park itself. For Takashima, the point is not simply financial efficiency, but a more sustainable way to improve public space.
“Until now, the usual idea was that government builds parks and government manages them,” he said during the ceremony. “With Park-PFI, we can make use of private-sector ideas and know-how. The cafes and other facilities in the park generate revenue, and that can be used to improve the entrance, planting, and the overall appeal of the park.”
He described the model as a “three-way benefit” for the public, private operators, and government. In the talk session, he put it more casually: public parks need better systems, better maintenance, and more creativity if they are going to remain useful. “It is important to use wisdom,” he said, “and create a sustainable form.”
The official project concept is The Gateway Park “HAKATA MEIJI.” According to the organizer’s press materials, the park creates about 1,400 square meters of green space in the city center, with around 160 trees and plants, five distinct plaza and garden areas, and a 226-meter multi-level path connected to the tenant building’s outdoor stairs.
Sou Fujimoto: Park Plus Architecture
For Fujimoto, the starting point was the unusual character of the site: a compact piece of land surrounded by buildings, close to one of Kyushu’s busiest transport hubs.
“When I first came here, I felt the potential of this place,” Fujimoto said at the opening ceremony. “It is surrounded by buildings, and I thought it could become like a courtyard in the city, a place where rich greenery and people’s activities could come alive.”
But he also felt that a flat park would not be enough.
“Because this is such a prime city-center location, I thought it would be a little wasteful if it were only a flat park,” he said. “By making it three-dimensional, we could create a new kind of urban park, something different from anywhere else.”
That idea became the park’s defining feature: a multi-level path that loops through and around the site, connecting the ground, terraces, shops, and upper areas. In the talk session, Fujimoto explained that he had long wanted to design a park because buildings alone cannot support the full range of human activity.
“I had actually wanted to make a park for a long time,” he said. “Buildings are important, but if there are only buildings, it feels a little incomplete as a place for people’s lives and activities. When there are paths, plazas, and open spaces, people’s activities can become richer.”
He described Meiji Park as “something like a park and architecture combined.” The aim was not to place a building beside a park, but to make the two flow into each other.
“The park and the building are not separate,” Fujimoto said. “The multi-level path makes the park a little architectural, and the building has the path wrapping around it, with rooftop terraces and greenery. I was excited by the idea that a new future form could emerge, where park and building merge together.”
The result gives visitors a way to see Hakata from angles that did not exist before: looking down into the greenery, moving through young trees, and experiencing a small site as a sequence of changing views.
Greenery In A Denser City
One of the strongest themes from the talk session was greenery, not as decoration, but as a basic part of how future cities should feel.
Takashima spoke with unusual directness. “Greenery is what wins,” he said, explaining that as cities become more rational, efficient, and technology-driven, people need contact with living things even more.
“We humans are living beings,” he said. “In a rational city, where business can happen efficiently and buildings are safe, it is precisely now that greenery, flowers, and art are important. They let us feel something as human beings.”
Fujimoto agreed, placing Meiji Park in a wider global context.
“People often say Japan has few parks compared with cities overseas, and not enough greenery,” he said. “That feels like a waste. With Japan’s climate, greenery grows well. Personally, I think cities should become forests.”
He pointed to Paris, where streets and hard surfaces are being reworked to bring more planting into the historic city. Fukuoka, he suggested, could become a leader in showing how greenery can be added to the urban core.
“As a first step, if this greenery spreads out from Meiji Park, and if parks are renewed in different places, I think the image of Fukuoka could change,” Fujimoto said.
On opening day, Meiji Park’s greenery was still young, but the intention was already visible. The park is designed to grow into itself, and to become greener, softer, and more layered over time.
The Mayor: People Mixing In The City
The most memorable part of the talk session may have been the way Takashima spoke about casual human contact. In a city of office towers and elevators, he said, people do not automatically mix just because they work near each other.
“Even if tenants are in the same building, they do not just naturally mix and become friends,” he said. “People ride the elevator together, but they do not really talk.”
For him, Meiji Park’s value is that it creates reasons for small interactions. He used the sauna as one example, especially loyly, the sauna practice of pouring water over heated stones.
“With loyly, someone has to pour the water,” he said. “Maybe one person pours it when the stones are ready, or someone else does it a little too early. That creates a kind of human fluctuation.”
In other words, the park is not only about facilities. It is about small moments: asking “is this okay?”, sharing a bench, eating bread outside, meeting someone after work, or stopping in after a sauna.
“A system that creates that kind of communication is here,” Takashima said. “People will have lunch in this park, spend time here, and not only gather, but mix. Creating that kind of mechanism in the city has great value.”
His comments also touched on the emotional side of redevelopment. As Hakata’s buildings become larger and newer, a city can start to feel intimidating or overly controlled. But Takashima said he was struck by the warmth of the local welcome around Meiji Park, including congratulatory messages from nearby institutions.
“The area is changing through Hakata Connected, and buildings are becoming new and taller,” he said. “But it is not something frightening. It is good that signs of people’s presence and life remain in different places.”
The Developer: Experience Value
Tokyo Tatemono’s Takeshi Jinbo, speaking as a project representative, framed the park around “experience value.” The company has worked on other park projects, including Tokyo Metropolitan Meiji Park, and Jinbo said those experiences changed how he thought about parks.
“I realized for the first time how important parks are,” he said during the talk session. “When a park has different kinds of activity, different people come, new communities form, and the place becomes lively again.”
At the ceremony, he also emphasized that the project was not simply about completing construction.
“We do not think that making a building or facility is the end,” Jinbo said. “Through management and operation from here, it is important to grow this park.”
That thinking also shaped the tenant mix. The shops were not chosen only as individual businesses, but as parts of a larger experience: bread and coffee, pizza and craft beer, sauna and food, terraces and takeout.
In the talk session, Jinbo said the Hakata Station location felt special precisely because it is surrounded by buildings. At first, he admitted, the idea of a multi-level park sounded strange.
“When the concept of a multi-level path first came up, I thought, what is that?” he said. “Parks are usually flat. But as we kept thinking about it, creating a three-dimensional space in the middle of buildings began to feel very logical.”
He added that the tenants understood the project’s intent and helped turn the concept into something people could actually use.
“The shops gathered here share our thinking,” Jinbo said. “After a sauna, people can eat, drink beer, and have different experiences. That is exactly the image we had.”
The Park Begins After Opening
Near the end of the talk session, each speaker returned to the same idea: opening day is not the finish line.
Fujimoto put it simply.
“Architecture, and parks too, are only a starting point when the thing is completed,” he said. “It is when people come, when exchange is born, when community appears, when people gather and mix, that the place truly comes alive.”
He pointed out that each tenant opens onto a terrace or the park, so visitors do not feel separated from the public space.
“When you step out from the tenants, there is always a large terrace, and it connects to the park,” he said. “Even from the sauna, you can come out and feel as if you are directly connected to the park. That is a real value.”
Jinbo echoed the idea in his closing comments.
“What has been completed is still only half,” he said. “From here, the park needs its soul. It needs local people to love it and begin using it naturally.”
Takashima closed on a similar note, saying that public spaces where people can mix will become increasingly important.
“A park exists because people are there,” he said. “From here, this may inspire new ways of using parks. In the coming age, places where people can mix will become more and more important.”
That may be the real promise of Meiji Park. Its paths, terraces, trees, shops, and sauna are all physical things. But the deeper idea is social: a compact place in the city where people can pause, look around, eat, rest, meet, and gradually make the space their own.
Read the first of this two part article here: https://www.fukuoka-now.com/en/meiji-park-reopens/
Text & Photos: Nick Szasz / Fukuoka Now