Works#Regional revitalization

The zelkova trees lining the streets are covered in fresh greenery, transforming Sendai into the most beautiful "City of Forests" in May. The Sendai Aoba Festival, a period festival showcasing the "stylishness of the Date clan," is held in May. This festival began in 1985, marking the 350th anniversary of the death of Date Masamune, as a revival of a festival held in the Sendai domain during the Edo period. The fourth festival, held in 1988, saw the creation of five Sendai Yamaboko floats, recreating the traditional Yamaboko procession. Five more were added the following year, and another was created in 1995, bringing the total to eleven. Our Tohoku Branch was involved in the creation of the floats from the early stages, and thanks to that connection, all branch staff continue to support the procession every year. In 2025, the 12th Yamaboko, the "Borrowful Harvest Yamaboko," will be added to the festival for the first time in 30 years. Creating a new Yamahoko requires a considerable amount of money. Furthermore, it requires the participation of more than 100 people, including the pullers and dancers, so the sponsor must be a fairly large local organization or group. In this situation, the new Yamahoko was realized with the cooperation of Iris Ohyama, which is based in Sendai, Miyagi. Our company has a long-standing relationship with the Sendai Aoba Festival, and was in charge of the concept design and production work. *Dates: 2 days, the third Sunday of May every year and the day before.

Tokiwakan, a ryokan inn in Gamagori, Aichi Prefecture, was beloved by many literary figures during the late Meiji period. The Ume Annex, originally built as a detached building, has been reborn as "THE COVE," a Gamagori Classic Hotel accommodation facility, offering a whole-house rental experience. Based on the concept of "encountering the blessings of the region surrounding Mikawa Bay and enjoying them with all five senses," the hotel makes the most of the renowned building, a registered tangible cultural property, and the views it commands, nestled on a hill overlooking Takeshima Island in the tranquil Mikawa Bay. Furthermore, by adding a touch of "newness" where necessary, the hotel creates a pleasant contrast and an extraordinary lodging experience. The hotel is packed with the charms of the region, featuring artwork using traditional techniques handed down in the area and the development of original drinks crafted by local people using local ingredients.

The Hiwasa Sea Turtle Museum Caretta is a rare sea turtle museum located on Ohama Beach in Tokushima Prefecture, and is beloved as the oldest loggerhead turtle conservation site in the region. At the same time, it also serves as a base facility for the local Minami Town's plan to increase the return rate of sea turtles. This renovation has created a place where people can learn about the coexistence of humans and nature through sea turtles and nurture the next generation of leaders by providing a comfortable space for visitors and making it easy for sea turtles to live in from the perspective of animal welfare.

We have planned a Mie Prefecture booth to be exhibited in the Kansai Pavilion at the 2025 World Expo, Japan (Osaka-Kansai Expo). The Mie Prefecture booth is based on the theme of "The Origin of the Japanese Spirit" and has been designed as a space where visitors can experience the charms of the "beautiful country of Mie," including its rich nature, history, diverse culture, and food. It is an experiential booth that allows visitors to experience Mie with all five senses through valuable displays and content that can only be found at the Expo.

The new indoor playground "mirocco" opened in Kakegawa City, Shizuoka Prefecture in July 2025. It aims to be a place where not only children can play to their heart's content, but also families and local people can enjoy together. This facility was built by renovating the pool and hot spring facilities at the indoor facility "Tamarina" in 22nd Century Hill Park in Mansui, Kakegawa City, and renovating it into an all-weather playground. We were responsible for the entire process, from concept formulation to design, construction of interiors, play equipment, decoration, and operation, while utilizing our know-how in regional revitalization and facility business. In addition, as an independent DBO* project, we made private investments in this facility, and improved the facility's appeal by adding play equipment, built-in furniture, signs, graphics, etc. About the facility concept/space concept design The facility concept is "Let's create a bouncy everyday life." The name "mirocco" was decided by vote, with the intention of creating a facility that everyone will want to visit 365 days a year (3=mi/6=ro/5=ko). The main areas are "Guru Guru no Yama" where you can play with play equipment, "Waku Waku Base" where you can play quietly, "Hitoyasumi Lounge" where adults can relax, and "Haihai no Hara" where babies can play safely. In addition to these areas, "This Is Cafe", which has new stores in Shizuoka Prefecture, will open in Tamarina and offer a menu that is easy for customers of all ages to use. In addition, the interiors of the facility, play equipment, benches, etc. are made with local resources, and environmentally friendly materials are used in various places, such as benches made from local felled wood, a craft space where scraps and waste materials are used as craft materials, and plaster walls made from Kakegawa's "soil". *DBO: Abbreviation for Design Build Operate, a business method for developing public facilities. The public sector commissions private businesses to design, build, and operate the facility.

Sapporo Flower Carpet 2024 is a citizen-participation art event in which participants create large flower paintings using Hokkaido petals and natural materials, with the main venue being the Hokkaido Prefectural Government Red Brick Building and Sapporo Kita 3-jo Square. The aim is to promote the beautiful "flower scenery" of Hokkaido and Sapporo, and to promote the floriculture industry. The event began in 2014 and is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, with a total of approximately 3,800 volunteers involved in the production and a total of approximately 640,000 visitors. In 2024, the event will be held from June 28th (Friday) to 30th (Sunday). Fujie Suzuki, a Sapporo native and art director at NOMURA Co.,Ltd. IVD, was invited to design the anniversary carpet (main carpet) commemorating the 10th anniversary of the event. NOMURA Co.,Ltd. IVD was also in charge of the key visuals for this event. The theme of the anniversary carpet is "Weaving, towards the future." The carpet is the largest to date, at 225m², and was concept design and created by Suzuki himself, the first Japanese concept design the Brussels Flower Carpet 2016, which was highly praised both at home and abroad. NOMURA Co.,Ltd. has been providing special support by concept design the anniversary carpet and key visuals, and providing PR and volunteer support. The Sapporo Flower Carpet has been held since 2014. It is run by a public-private partnership between the government (Hokkaido and Sapporo City) and private companies. It is working to develop human resources who will increase the value of the region, run by a diverse group of citizen volunteers, from young children to people working in the neighborhood and foreign residents, and promote understanding of the floriculture industry in Hokkaido for the next generation through collaboration with elementary and high schools.

The hotel is directly connected to Kitahiroshima Station on the JR Chitose Line, the closest station to Hokkaido Ballpark F Village. The first to third floors are commercial facilities, and the fourth to thirteenth floors are the hotel with a total of 158 guest rooms. We were mainly in charge of concept design and construction of the hotel lobby and the guest room floor on the 11th floor, which has a Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters theme. The lobby space is sprinkled with baseball-themed elements, and the ceiling features an image of the Fighters' home stadium, S.Con Field HOKKAIDO, and the Fighters colors are used to create an exciting space. The Fighters floor has a corridor as a gallery space, where autographed uniforms and photos of players are displays, and the guest rooms are chicly coordinated in black to evoke the image of S.Con Field, and you can see the stadium from the windows.

This facility is a conservation and research facility for the Amami rabbit, a special natural monument. The name of the facility, "Kuruguru," means "dark black" in Shimaguchi (Amami dialect), and represents the Amami rabbit's coat color and the image of life circulating round and round. Here, visitors can take on the rabbit's scale and adventure through the night forest. They will be surprised by cars that suddenly appear and huge predators, and push aside plants and flowers taller than themselves to search for forest creatures that react to the black light. The facility is designed to help visitors understand the rabbit's feelings and fears by seeing them from the rabbit's perspective, and to foster empathy. Furthermore, the treatment room for rescued rabbits is fully open to visitors, showing the reality of injuries caused by traffic accidents and other causes, and the facility is a place where visitors can watch over rescued rabbits until they are released back into the wild, surrounded by the nature of Amami Oshima, and think about the coexistence of humans and rabbits.

The Former Hokkaido Government Office Building, built in 1888, is known affectionately as the "Red Brick Office" and is an important cultural property that represents Hokkaido. It will be temporarily closed from 2019 for seismic reinforcement and preservation renovation work. During the closure, we planned a temporary observation facility with the theme "Only here and now" that can only be viewed during the renovation work.

This project was undertaken by Takekoma Shrine, one of Japan's three major Inari shrines, to create a lively atmosphere in the local community. Our company acted as the hub, forming a team that united the shrine, the local community, and the company. The team worked on five main areas: "development of the shrine forest," "installation of a cafe," "vitalization of the local community," "promotion," and "creating a new festival." Our company was responsible for the overall production of the project, including planning, logo concept design, design administration, landscaping concept design, construction, exterior construction, cafe opening support, cafe menu development, product development, video production, and PR. Our goal was to ensure that Takekoma Shrine would continue to be an indispensable part of the lives of the local residents and be passed on to the future in a sustainable way. ○ Contents of comprehensive production ① Extraction of customer issues ② Proposal of solutions to those issues ③ Consideration of implementation (operation) system ④ Creation of implementation (operation) system (leasing) ⑤ concept design based on opinions of the shrine and operators ⑥ Product development (food and drink menu, selection of products for sale) ⑦ Consideration of revitalization of the shrine as a whole ⑧ Creation of a promotional video for the entire shrine ⑨ Consideration of CAFÉ promotion ⑩ Opening ceremony planning ⑪ Attracting various media ⑫ Implementing PDCA after opening ⑬ Create a new festival ⑭ Global promotional video for overseas By seeking supporters from our network (mainly local companies), we were able to create a system that can operate independently.

Kurukuru is a public mobility service run by local residents that has been operating provisionally as a means of transportation in Nitto-cho and Daishi-cho, Kawachinagano City, where population decline and an aging population are accelerating after 50 years since the development of residential land. In order to operate the transportation service that supports local mobility with the initiative of local residents, we held a participatory art workshop. Together with members of the art club of a local junior high school and local residents, we held a total of 10 art workshops, "See, Learn, Create," with the aim of reaffirming social issues through art, rediscovering the charm of the town, and fostering a sense of participation in town development among local residents through co-creation.

KOCHIKAME Museum" is a sightseeing base facility for the Kameari area in Katsushika City, based on the manga "Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsujo" (Here I come, Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsujo). We were in charge of the concept of the facility, displays, content planning and design, and construction. In addition, we planned and designed the circulation measures around Kameari Station, construction and promotional measures for the opening of the facility. The two teams, CIC (Content Integration Center), a team of experts in IP content*, and the public works facility team, which has expertise in local government tourism base facilities and city planning, took advantage of each other's strengths. The concept of the project was "The main character builds a facility on his own and then runs away to the town of Kameari! The architecture looks like a stack of comic book frames, with famous scenes popping up interiors and a space that exudes the worldview of the work concept design, creating a sense of existence for the main characters and creating an immersive spatial experience for visitors. Visitors experience a consistent spatial story from the entrance to the exit, as if they are chasing a hero who has escaped. This also contributes to the promotion of the shopping district and local revitalization of Katsushika Ward and the Kameari area. *This term refers to all content protected by Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). For example, games, movies, animation, manga, novels, music, characters, etc. fall under IP content.

"Marunouchi Street Park" is a social experiment project to examine the future form and utilization of Nakadori Street in Marunouchi, Tokyo. The ninth "Marunouchi Street Park 2024 Winter" was held in 2019, and expanded from the previous three blocks of Nakadori Street to five blocks including Gyoko-dori Street, making it the largest scale event to date. Our company participated as a general planning partner and in charge of operations. The theme of this event was "Bright Street." We were in charge of the spatial design, construction, and operation that made use of the illuminations, a seasonal feature of Marunouchi in winter. We supported the planning and operation of the environmentally friendly resin skating rink, which is popular every year, the Glass House Market with its wide range of products, portrait content and street music perfect for the holiday season, and more. (Event period: November 14th to December 25th, 2024)

This is a renovation project for the hotel "The Mana Village" located at the tip of Cape Ashizuri in Kochi Prefecture. The project began in 2020 to transform the former Ashizuri Pacific Hotel into one of Asia's leading resort hotels, "The Mana Village." In this project, we added value to two new types of guest rooms, the common areas, and the infinity deck. The new guest rooms consist of seven Japanese-style rooms and a concept room designed by young hotel staff and our designers, with the aim of providing a "new way to enjoy the ocean like art" while also promoting the charm of Kochi and connecting Kochi with our guests. This is an ongoing project in which we will share the hotel's transformation with our guests over time, building up their expectations.

In order to pass on the spirit and culture of the indigenous Ainu people to the next generation, Shiranuka Town is promoting town development based on the idea of "Ior (traditional living space)" and has recently opened the Shiranuka Ainu Museum "Pokor" to introduce the Ainu culture passed down in the town. The name of the facility, "Pokor", reflects the desire of the Ainu people of Shiranuka to "cherish the place where they were born and raised", and this desire is expressed through elaborate dioramas that depict Ainu life, realistic reproductions of every nook and cranny of the cise (Ainu dwelling), traditional crafts and beautiful costumes, and the soundscape of "Ior (traditional living space)" that envelops the entire museum. This facility allows you to experience the rich Ainu life that is vividly depicted with your five senses and deepen your understanding by experiencing the Ainu culture that has lived in the harsh yet majestic nature.