Following the socio-economic changes of today, the needs within the urban and rural landscapes is facing a period of transition. The landscape plans under preparation through out Japan strongly tend to put an emphasis on grasping panoramic landscape, primarily aiming to ensure landscape views, and the market in landscape is also limited to the maintenance and the restoration of particular spaces. However, there is very little development towards the restructuring of landscape as a whole. Professor Goto aims to create landscapes with the autonomy of citizens through the comprehension and structuralization of Machizukuri efforts.
Since 1994, Professor Goto has continued research in the field of urban and rural landscape planning and design. The urban and rural landscape mentioned here is perceived not only as the visual scenic landscape, but takes into consideration the contextual layers of culture, history and the social networks which composes a regional community. The Goto laboratory comprehensively deals with topics from “lifescape”, the landscape which reflects the daily lifestyle of citizens, to the social structure which supports this.

In more detail, the themes and topics addressed within laboratories research pertain to the analysis of the rural and urban fabric from the following aspects.

1) Local Landscape: The holistic approach of understanding scenery and region
2) Dynamism of Urban Transition : The description and redefinition of “cities”
3) Structure of Social Space : The discovery and creation of new “public spaces”
4) Social Capital : Landscapes as a expression of autonomy, commons and territorial capital
5) City-Regions: The strategic unity between urban and rural regions

Professor Goto has much experience working as a landscape advisor for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the Landscape council of Tokyo Metropolitan Government and various local government associations. Through this interaction he has worked towards the integration of various Machizukuri movements within the structural framework of urban and rural landscape planning.

One example of this is the “Kinosaki 100 year plan”, which was developed based on a number of community workshops. As a pilot project for the “Kinosaki 100 year plan” the Kiyamachi-kouji project was designed by the Goto Laboratory as a new public space for the local community and a space which encourages tourists to walk the streets of Kinosaki hot springs. Various methods, such as “the game of life for community planning” and “oral history for community planning”, have been developed and utilized to grasp the feeling of the peoples daily lives with the perspective of time. This is then applied to the planning and design process, in order to visualize a “new vision” which can be shared by the entire community. In this sense the Goto Laboratory inherits Waseda’s traditional fieldwork approach in planning, research and design.