VUILD Partners with Yahoo! JAPAN’s “LODGE” to Sell Wooden Furniture Kits for Remote Work

This initiative was realized as one of the projects of LODGE, which moved its activities primarily online after Yahoo! JAPAN shifted in October 2020 to a “new way of working” unconstrained by time or place. Under the theme “Making Japan more convenient through information technology,” LODGE focuses on creating open innovation, centered on hosting open events, planning services and products, and networking and support activities.

The collaboration began this spring when members who run LODGE contacted VUILD. Volunteer Yahoo! JAPAN employees, including web designers and engineers, started a project on the theme of “the ideal work-from-home style” to create wooden furniture kits suited to their own remote work environments, using “EMARF” (*1), a cloud service developed by VUILD that lets you complete the entire process of wooden making online, from design to cutting parts.

Starting from illustrations drawn by each participant, the wooden furniture kits for remote work were completed through several workshops with, and supervision by, VUILD’s architects. After test marketing to Yahoo! JAPAN employees and repeated adjustments, they have now been turned into products.

“LODGE Remote Work Kit,” the site selling the kits, is an e-commerce service that combines an e-commerce and communication platform developed by LODGE with VUILD’s “EMARF.” As a first release, the six wooden furniture kits described above are on sale, X of which can be resized in width, depth and height to suit the buyer’s lifestyle.

According to a survey on teleworking (*2) published by ASKUL Corporation on May 14, even more than a year after the impact of COVID-19 began, “setting up the work environment, such as desks, chairs and internet connection” remained the most common challenge when teleworking, cited by 54.5% of respondents (multiple answers; n=1,396).

VUILD will continue collaborating with Yahoo! JAPAN to provide a platform where people adopting new ways of working can make wooden items that fit their ideal work-from-home style.

<LODGE Remote Work Kit>
URL: https://lodge.yahoo.co.jp/pj/fab/rwk/

<Introducing the wooden furniture kits>
▼Standing desk you can share with your kids (designer: 平野彩花)
A set of boxes that stack up into a standing desk during work and serve as a toy box for your child the rest of the time. Split apart, they also become a work surface for parent and child, and can be used in many ways as your child grows.

▼A chair for a change of mood (designer: 吉村佳純)
A chair that transforms into a stand for playing an instrument, a bookshelf or a gently swaying rocking chair. Why not use it for a change of pace when working from home, where you tend to stay in the same spot?

▼NOOM (designer: 市川大翔)
A desk that lets you work using your bed as a chair. Use it in many ways, such as working while relaxing or taking a break. Adding extension parts lets you reconfigure it into a bench style.

▼Katazuke-saurus (designer: 清水覚)
A cardboard storage unit for households to organize the cardboard boxes that tend to pile up when working from home. Shaped like a cute dinosaur, it grows bigger the more boxes you store.

▼Clover Desk (designers: 鈴木歓喜, 福田香子)
A desk with a top divided into four pieces that can be arranged in four layouts: Kado-oki (corner), Kabe-oki (against the wall), Kakomi (enclosed) and Danran (gathering). Use more parts and the possibilities are endless.

▼Balcony Block (designer: 中島慎太郎)
A set of blocks that turns into a standing desk when fixed to a balcony railing. When not in use, they can be stacked away. Why not create a second desk on your balcony for a change of pace or a breather from work? It can be made to fit the size of your railing.

<Notes>
・After downloading the cutting data, please place your cutting order on EMARF.
・Because knots and grain vary from piece to piece, the finished product will differ from the images.
・After ordering, the items will be delivered as parts. Please assemble them yourself.

*1: EMARF (https://emarf.co/)
EMARF is a cloud service that lets you complete the entire process of wooden making online, from design to cutting parts. By installing EMARF, which extends the functions of CAD (Computer Aided Design) software, you can submit wooden parts online directly from CAD, parts that used to require specialist knowledge or that you gave up on because of cost or lead-time constraints, and make things from home as if you had your own workshop.

*2: ASKUL Corporation, survey on “implementation rates of telework and challenges in its adoption”
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000217.000021550.html

▼LODGE
https://lodge.yahoo.co.jp/

▼Remote Work Kit project
https://note.com/lodge/m/mfba7fa0775e8

[VUILD Inc.]
Representative: Koki Akiyoshi (CEO)
Founded: November 21, 2017
Headquarters: unico 1F-A, 3-4 Nisshin-cho, Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Business: Architectural design, development and manufacturing of wood products, sales of CNC routers, digital talent development, business development support, IT service development
Web: https://vuild.co.jp/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vuildinc
note: https://note.com/vuild
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