When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Japan

A New German Suburb Rises...In Osaka, Japan

White clinker brick houses with saunas, Jacuzzis and underfloor heating: in the Munich suburb of Grünwald, villas like this abound. But now, a Japanese businessman has decided to plant this “Grünwald style” for the moneyed elite in Osaka.

One of Mr. Okamato's Grünwald Co. homes
One of Mr. Okamato's Grünwald Co. homes
Manuela Warkocz

OSAKA -- Grünwald in the middle of Osaka. Well, not exactly the middle, but in the section of the city known as Suita, about 10 km from the center of Japan's third-largest city. "Grünwald" announces the sign – the word painted in elegant faux calligraphy. Beyond it lie the white-tiled villa-style luxury apartments that the Grünwald Co, Ltd has built. The apartments are presently among the most sought-after status symbols of Osaka's upper crust.

Behind the successful real estate venture is Japanese businessman Yukiharu Okamoto. The 61-year-old spent several years in Munich where he headed the subsidiary of a Japanese company.

He loved the Grünwald area on sight, and used to roam around the neighborhood: "I soon realized that I wanted to build this type of housing, with white bricks, black roof tiling and a lot of green landscaping, in Osaka," he says. As it turned out, the idea of "beautifying" Japan's cities and giving his fellow Japanese a taste of solid German architecture proved to be a lucrative business model.

The success story began in 1990 with the "Mädelhaus," which loosely translated means "the gals' house," a building for single women. Over the next 20 years, Okamoto built seven further apartment buildings with more than 100 apartments, baptizing them with full-on Munich-style names like "Villa Schönbrunn," "Villa Märchenschloss' (a Märchenschloss is a fairytale castle) and "Villa Maximilian."

For the Japanese, these names are as exotic as they are unpronounceable and evoke pleasing associations of old Bavaria. Playing on that, Okamoto imported a lot of Bavarian stylistic elements – four-sided towers, hipped roofs, rounded arches, brick walls, attics, balconies and window boxes – which make up what he is now calling "Grünwald design."

Of particular importance to the chairman of Grünwald Co, Ltd is the landscaping of the gardens which does take Japanese tastes and preferences into account – at the entrance to "Villa Schönbrunn," for example, a fine keyaki tree shares space with a plaster dog and the figure of an angel.

The interiors of the apartments, which range in size from 35 to 140 square meters, are upscale by German standards, but represent the true height of luxury in Japan. Underfloor heating "is still very rare in Japan," says Okamoto. Each room has at least two double-glazed windows, the bathrooms are generously proportioned, and there are solar panels.

Earthquake proof

Shared by residents are a sauna, fitness room and Jacuzzi along with a large home movie theater. Doctors, lawyers, and executives of large companies are among the tenants, according to the real estate company's documentation – except in the "Mädelhaus," where the apartments are rented to single women and have special security features such as automatically locking doors.

So that his "Grünwald" in Osaka could not be destroyed by earthquakes, Okamoto says his buildings have "concrete walls with class 1 certification, so they can withstand a quake of 8 or more on the Richter scale." Does he use German construction materials? No, that was unfortunately not possible, says the entrepreneur.

When he started out, he tried to import windows from Germany because "they're the best in the world." However, getting the necessary permission from local authorities turned out to be long and tedious. But the Japanese businessman, who intends to continue expanding Osaka's Grünwald, still maintains contacts in Grünwald, Germany, such as with the Rotary Club whose members made donations for victims of the tsunami catastrophe last March.

By letting scholarship-holders live in much-sought-after attic apartments in Suita, Okamoto also supports a foundation that grants the scholarships to young people so they can discover what it's like to live in Japan. But the company boss himself doesn't live in Grünwald. He and his family occupy a renovated 200-year-old home with a straw roof in traditional Japanese style.

Read the original article in German

Photo - Grünwald Co. Ltd.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Green

Forest Networks? Revisiting The Science Of Trees And Funghi "Reaching Out"

A compelling story about how forest fungal networks communicate has garnered much public interest. Is any of it true?

Thomas Brail films the roots of a cut tree with his smartphone.

Arborist and conservationist Thomas Brail at a clearcutting near his hometown of Mazamet in the Tarn, France.

Melanie Jones, Jason Hoeksema, & Justine Karst

Over the past few years, a fascinating narrative about forests and fungi has captured the public imagination. It holds that the roots of neighboring trees can be connected by fungal filaments, forming massive underground networks that can span entire forests — a so-called wood-wide web. Through this web, the story goes, trees share carbon, water, and other nutrients, and even send chemical warnings of dangers such as insect attacks. The narrative — recounted in books, podcasts, TV series, documentaries, and news articles — has prompted some experts to rethink not only forest management but the relationships between self-interest and altruism in human society.

But is any of it true?

The three of us have studied forest fungi for our whole careers, and even we were surprised by some of the more extraordinary claims surfacing in the media about the wood-wide web. Thinking we had missed something, we thoroughly reviewed 26 field studies, including several of our own, that looked at the role fungal networks play in resource transfer in forests. What we found shows how easily confirmation bias, unchecked claims, and credulous news reporting can, over time, distort research findings beyond recognition. It should serve as a cautionary tale for scientists and journalists alike.

First, let’s be clear: Fungi do grow inside and on tree roots, forming a symbiosis called a mycorrhiza, or fungus-root. Mycorrhizae are essential for the normal growth of trees. Among other things, the fungi can take up from the soil, and transfer to the tree, nutrients that roots could not otherwise access. In return, fungi receive from the roots sugars they need to grow.

As fungal filaments spread out through forest soil, they will often, at least temporarily, physically connect the roots of two neighboring trees. The resulting system of interconnected tree roots is called a common mycorrhizal network, or CMN.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest