This spatial design competition seeks new proposals concerning the relationship between the urban environment and keitai (mobile phone) in the near future. What sorts of conditions, forms and environments will the "keitai city" exhibit? Competition entrants are encouraged to propose images of the future of a "keitai society" unconstrained by preconceptions, or proposals for new spatial designs that make today's assumed worldview seem hackneyed.

Kengo Kuma, Architect: This phenomenon reminds me of the vision of the city of the future which Archigram had in the 1960s. Ideas like “Plug-in City” and “Walking City” suggested an image of a flexible city with detachable urban functions. The keitai (mobile phone) has gone a long way toward actually making this vision a reality. Against this background, I think we need to step back and reconsider the significance of the keitai within the city as a whole. Looking back over the past decade, the keitai has been the catalyst for some of the most optimistic aspirations in the city.

[...] Kiyohito Nagata, Vice President of NTT DoCoMo: Whether it is a PC or a telephone, it is hard to do what you really want if you have to share your environment with other people. A keitai is private, so it can easily become something very important to you personally, something you can’t do without. You might say that the keitai gave form to the thoughts in peoples’ minds, together with part of the contents of their pockets.

[...]Kuma: Stepping into a city square where people are actually coming together, you find that most of them are talking with their friends over their keitai, or sending mail, or surfing the Internet. A place that was planned as a community space has become a place for individuals to freely do their own thing. The modern age was an era of in which the community was dismantled for the sake of enabling the individual. [...] The keitai represents the final stage of the dissolution of the individual. It seems to give us more freedom, but in fact we are becoming hostages to technology. Anyone who wants to get in touch with us can do so immediately. With GPS they even know
where we are. We thought we were gaining unlimited freedom, but it may be that everyone is being shut into a gigantic glass case. People have begun to notice this, but the important thing is to think about what should happen next. Whether it is squares or houses, we have to think about a new kind of shelter.

[...] Nagata: One of the points in that video would be how people behave. Visual information is easy for people to understand, and as a company we could share the image of the world depicted there and use it in our development work. What I would like to see is ideas about new lifestyles for people, including keitai, however you want to define it, plus hints for the future. I look forward to seeing proposals about the kinds of things important to those who create architecture, and how they relate to people.