Grin Grin (ぐりんぐりん), Island City Central Park

Island City is a new piece of land built out in Hakata Bay, in Fukuoka, partly to strengthen the city's port functions. Its first residents moved in during 2005; in 2015 the magazine Fukuoka Now marked ten years since their arrival. The same year 2005 saw the opening of the island's central park, laid out around a pond and covering about 100,000 m² according to the Japanese Wikipedia.

To equip the park, the City of Fukuoka, as client, turned to Toyo Ito, whom the park's website introduces as an architect working around the world. Completed in 2005, the building was conceived as a hands-on learning facility: a place to discover plants and try gardening, which also houses the park's management office. The English Wikipedia describes it as the first building put up on the island, a covered structure linked by walkways.

Its central block owes much to Ipoh, Fukuoka's sister city in Malaysia, whose many donations are used there to recreate the vegetation of subtropical Malaysia. Twenty years after opening, Grin Grin remains the only paid facility in an otherwise free park, and it houses an advice desk on greenery and water.

Grin Grin consists of three irregularly shaped volumes built of concrete, steel and glass. The description on the architecture website archiweb likens them to an enlarged bean pod, or to pearls strung along a green belt. The shells rise from the ground and join it without a clear break, so that the line between building and terrain blurs; from the paid area visitors can climb onto the roof, which gives a 360-degree view over the park, the distant mountains, the city and the sea.

According to archiweb the built area is 5,033 m² on a site of 129,170 m², a larger figure than the 100,000 m² the Japanese Wikipedia gives for the park. The official website describes three spaces of about 1,000 m² each, with distinct interior volumes and themes. To the north, a green gallery forms a large open hall surrounded by plants and filled with daylight. In the centre, the tropical and subtropical plant space serves as the glasshouse. To the south, a hands-on space holds flowers, fruit trees and aquatic plants. Walking from one shell to the next and then over the roofs makes the complex read as landscape as much as building.

The botanical heart of the building is its central block, which the park presents as a learning space for subtropical and tropical environments. Many of its plants were donated by Ipoh, Fukuoka's sister city in Malaysia, and the display sets out to recreate the vegetation of subtropical Malaysia.

Orchids have a special place: the park states that it shows about 650 pots of orchids a year. The south block gathers brightly coloured flowers and fruit trees; aquatic plants and tropical fish are also kept there, so that visitors can observe life in the water. To the north, the green gallery, framed by vegetation, serves as a large open hall. The sources consulted publish no species list or notable specimens, so this entry keeps to these broad outlines.

Grin Grin stands on the west side of the pond in Island City Central Park, in Kashii-teruha, Higashi Ward. Entry to the park is free; only the building charges admission, and the roof, with its panoramic view over the park, the city and the bay, is reached from the paid area.

The orchids of the central block, shown throughout the year, reward visits in different seasons, and the park itself suits walks around the pond in fine weather. The building also houses an advice desk on greenery and water, and the south block offers gardening activities. To continue the theme, the Fukuoka City Botanical Garden and its large glasshouse, in Chūō Ward, also appear in this atlas.