From research on vernacular architecture in India, to journeys across Japan, to outreach classes and international workshops — here's Tabisuru Makers Lab's journey so far, in chronological order. (Based on my Maker Faire Tokyo 2026 exhibition.)
While walking through cities, I became interested in “vernacular architecture” — structures built by hand by local residents without architects. Since India has diverse climates and vegetation, it offers vernacular architecture very different from Japan's, so I conducted fieldwork there and diagrammed the techniques used.
My interest in vernacular architecture raised a question: what actually makes a place feel like itself? To find out, I traveled across Japan living out of my car, collecting things that felt distinctly local to each region. Similar things kept turning up in different places, shaking my definition of local character itself.
Grasses and plants close at hand have long been used as materials for baskets and toys, but today they've largely been replaced by mass-produced plastic, and fewer people know how to work with them. This study focuses on Okinawa, once a thriving center of grass weaving, and analyzes the knowledge and ingenuity behind these crafts by making toys from natural materials there.
Snow is a symbol of northern Japan's nature, yet in everyday life it's often just a nuisance. Looked at differently, though, it's also an accessible material — as shown by the “snow sculptures” and “kamakura” huts of the Sapporo Snow Festival. Using this snow, I held a workshop in Kuriyama, Hokkaido, where residents built a bus stop together.
Nagahama's symbol, “Kurokabe Square,” takes its name from the black plaster (“kurokabe”) on a Meiji-era bank building — black chosen over the usual white to signal trust to the community. Using this same black plaster, I held a workshop at “Cocorone Market” in Nagahama, Shiga, where participants made keychains and signboards.
Now in its 5th year, this outreach class by the Kobayashi Hiroto Lab, Keio University, and Tane Elementary School has run since 2023. Students built a large sugoroku board where each square stood for one year, and each child expressed — through drawings and models — what Tane looked like that year, or what they hoped it would become.
Under the theme “Forest, Living, and Town,” 10 participants from 8 countries — teens to 80s — learned Japanese forestry, architecture, and ways of living: felling trees to renovate an old farmhouse in Phase 1, then renovating a vacant storefront in Kurokabe Square in Phase 2, opening it back to the street.
