Elementary School into Skyscraper in Tokyo

Tokyo is an overcrowded city - not enough land space for anything, offices are crammed in tall buildings to make way for roads and green space down below. Not like New York yet, but land space is scare in Tokyo.

An aging public schoolhouse in the heart of Tokyo about to crumble down had a choice to make -whether to rebuild one knew where it stands right now or to move elsewhere. The ward authorities decided to move the school into a nearby ultra high-rising building scheduled to open in six years, April 2021.

The schoolhouse in the question is that of Joto Elementary School five minutes walk from Tokyo Station. The ultra-tall building is to be 45-storeyed, 245 meter high and houses offices, commercial facilities, and hotels. The school is to occupy 1-4 floors stretching out sideways with classrooms, a pool and a playground on the rooftop of the 4th floor.

The school is to have its own entrance completely detached from the office area to restrict traffic for the security of the children.

This is the first case of a public school tenanting in a high-rising commercial building, say the authorities. The building has a total floor space of 280 thousand square meters and the school will tenant the lower floors. An underground bus terminal will accommodate the present bus terminals around Tokyo Station to streamline bus traffic in the vicinity.

In the area across Yaesu Dori, another 54-storey, 250-meter-high building is scheduled to open about the same time.

Joto Elementary School is one of those "restoration schools" built in 1929 after the Great Kanto Earthquake and is said to have historical values. Some dissident voices are heard against demolishing the structure; others are apprehensive of aggravating education environment by "caging" children in a mammoth building.