Tokyo Zoo Project | mapping animals on the streets of Tokyo

by Johnny on April 12, 2012

screenshots | click to enlarge

Tokyo Zoo Project is a website that has managed to transform the city of Tokyo into a zoo. How? By unleashing various cycling routes around the city that trace outlines of animals. There’s a panda that peruses Shibuya, a gorilla that goes to Haneda and even a zebra that zooms through my old neighborhood of Kichijoji.

The different animals were chosen based on requests they received on twitter. A team of cartographers then drew out animal-shaped routes on a map. But in all its topographic greatness, the project also has an interactive component, which of course involves a purchase. With Sony’s NAV-U personal navigation system (about 24,000 yen) you can try out all the routes yourself. You can even create new routes. The navigation system even logs cool stats like distance traveled and calories burned. But with a little creativity we can all try out these routes without making the purchase.

Tokyo Zoo Project is a nominee for a Webby Award this year in the “Best Visual Design-Function” category (which is how I discovered the project). It was created by ad agency Frontage – a joint-venture between Sony and Dentsu.

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1 comment

1 Shiro Ueshima { 04.12.12 at 10:00 pm }: It’s a pleasure to introduced me to that blog of Tokyo Zoo Project.
Spoon & Tamago is the very wide field of view.I am fun to read.