Human Hub Tenneiji soko is a renovation of the 54-year-old, two-story factory of Sekibikodo, a company that produces lacquerware in Aizu Wakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture. Aizu Wakamatsu is a region where the lacquer craft has flourished as an industry. Sekibikodo has built a nationwide sales network by making plaques and other products in collaboration with craftsmen using lacquer techniques, but with the changing times, the company faced the need to propose new products and pass on its techniques.

Therefore, for this project, we proposed a self-made factory-type store, a hub for cultural exchange equipped with a workshop for making products utilizing traditional crafts. The first floor is a workshop, store, shared kitchen, and café, and the second floor is a co-working space for local venture companies involved in the smart city project.

With a limited budget, the first phase of the project prioritized the repair of the roof, insulation, floor heating, exterior and other infrastructure to cope with the natural environment of Tohoku, and the workshop was completed first to ensure its functionality. In the second phase, craftsmen were recruited to operate the workshop and create the necessary interior and furniture for the store, making it a functional program that allows the space to be remodeled even after construction is completed. Currently, products for sale in the store are being made in the workshop as part of the third phase of the program.

This also leads to originality in design. The interior and furniture are designed in such a way that the staff and craftsmen can create and modify the products themselves. For examples, simple fixtures made of inexpensive materials, and a Flat Table made of dismantled materials and painted with lacquer. On the exterior, the existing corrugated panel façade was retained, but a portion of the wall on the southeast side was replaced with a transparent polycarbonate corrugated panel to reveal insulation, giving a new look to the familiar building.

The innovation of this project lies in the fact that it presents a new way to carry on traditional crafts. The traditional craft industry is in danger of tapering off due to the aging of craftspeople, but this workshop is not a closed apprenticeship system, but rather an open workshop where young craftspeople are given the opportunity to freely use the facilities to make their products and where customers can see what they are making. By reorganizing the network of traditional crafts and creating a center for cultural exchange, the project created an opportunity to reevaluate the traditional crafts in age of mass production and mass consumption, and to focus on the future of a recycling-oriented society. In this respect, it can be said that we are aiming for sustainability.

In addition, the products made at the workshop are made from old materials that have been dismantled in the region, thus realizing an upcycling of materials that involves the local community.