Karatsu Castle

[Project Overview]
Karatsu has long been a gateway to the Asian continent. During the Edo period, the Karatsu Domain was an important base for the shogunate's rule over Kyushu, and it was also a historical and cultural city where unique cultures such as the Karatsu Kunchi festival and Karatsu pottery flourished.
Our company believes that Karatsu Castle, the starting point for sightseeing in Karatsu, should play a role in creating a circulating mechanism for walking tours, by leveraging the charm of Karatsu's brilliant history and culture.
We have comprehensively reviewed displays, facilities, and operations, aiming to redevelop Karatsu Castle as a hub for revitalizing the region and serving as a comprehensive guidance facility for "walking tours" in Karatsu City.
Our company provided comprehensive support, from basic planning and design to construction.

[Customer's Challenges]
There were three issues with Karatsu Castle before its renovation.
The first reason was that the client desperately wanted to update the aging facilities, outdated displays, and aging displays themes.
The second reason is that Karatsu City has attractive resources that are not being fully utilized, and there was a need for collaboration with its collections and other tourist spots.
The third reason was the need to address safety and cultural property preservation issues, including issues related to natural light, universal concept design, earthquakes, and theft.
By addressing these three challenges, we aimed to create a tourist hub befitting a "city of authentic tourism and cultural exchange, surrounded by nature, history, and culture."

[Solution]
To address the challenges, we aim to create displays that allows visitors to enjoy Karatsu, developing displays story centered on the history of the castle town and its successive lords, and realizing an attractive displays space that utilizes the Hizen Province Products Chart and Karatsu ware.
We actively utilized IT, including introducing AR (augmented reality) displays explanations.
Next, aiming to create a "comfortable displays," we created a welcoming space such as a museum shop, reviewed the flow of visitors within the museum and made accommodations for foreign tourists and other visitors with disabilities, and installed restrooms, stairlifts, and a multipurpose room.
Furthermore, with the aim of creating a "safe and secure displays," we enhanced the functions of the facility as an introduction to sightseeing in Karatsu, such as the tourist information corner, promoted the idea of visitors moving around by disseminating information about sightseeing facilities, and thoroughly implemented risk management against accidents and losses.
In summary, we have proposed three solutions.

<Our project members>
[Developer] Yumeki Kusumoto
[Sales & Project Management] Tatsuya Fujii, Yumeki Kusumoto
[Planning] Takeshi Kami, Kyohei Kishida
[design, layout] Masaaki Mitsunaga, Rie Morita
[Production and construction] Takeshi Suezaki, Goro Yamano, Nanae Hori
[maintenance management] Katsumi Yamada, Takatoshi Nakamura