VUILD and Matsukawa Town, Nagano Take On Building a Self-Reliant, Decentralized Society That Connects Young People with the Community

VUILD Inc. (“VUILD”) and Matsukawa Town, Nagano Prefecture, have concluded a comprehensive regional partnership agreement looking ahead to the post-COVID era. To make Matsukawa a sustainable community, the partners will draw on its local resources of “people” and “forests” to build the framework for a self-reliant, decentralized society, and aim to create social businesses that generate a new economy in rural and mountain areas.

Matsukawa is a town of river terraces spreading east and west of the Tenryu River in the center of the Ina Valley in southern Nagano. Its population peaked at 14,117 in 2005 and fell to 12,666 in 2019, a decline of more than 1,400 people, and is expected to keep decreasing. Along with this population decline, the population is aging, and self-governing organizations such as neighborhood associations and community centers face a range of challenges. Against this backdrop, the town has made “sustainable community building” a central theme of its future development.

VUILD is an architecture-tech startup that aims to transform the building industry through digital technology. Under its vision of “a society where living and making are connected,” VUILD seeks to democratize the highly specialized building industry with digital technology and realize a world in which anyone can make the furniture and buildings they need for daily life with their own hands.

On April 1, 2020, VUILD and Matsukawa Town concluded a comprehensive regional partnership agreement to promote sustainable community building in Matsukawa from a long-term perspective, looking ahead to the post-COVID era.
The spread of COVID-19 has shaken values that were once taken for granted.
VUILD is exploring the direction of architectural making and the potential of distributed manufacturing in the post-COVID era, centered on “EMARF 3.0” (*), released this spring, which lets people make things from remote locations. To become a sustainable community and realize a society where “living” and “making” are connected, Matsukawa will work with VUILD, which is changing the way things are “made” through digital technology, to deepen the relationship between “making” and “living” that is the appeal of hilly and mountainous areas. At the same time, the partners will build mechanisms that connect the community with young people.

This fiscal year, the two parties will hold participatory making workshops centered on high school students and other residents, and will use the abundant forest resources that cover 64.5% of the town’s area to bring local timber into everyday life.

As a kickoff, an online meeting was recently held with VUILD, Matsukawa Town Office staff, people active locally across all industries, and people working outside the town. In August, further online meetings are planned, including students from Matsukawa who now live outside the town.

Going forward, running a “hub for building a self-reliant, decentralized society” that we keep making ourselves will require people who take on the challenge together.
Drawing on its connections and community of people interested in “making,” VUILD will build partnerships to promote and develop community-building initiatives that create vibrancy and revitalize the region, in collaboration with communities that make use of local resources.
Matsukawa has also created a LINE account, “Matsukawa Connect,” so that young people who leave the town for school or other reasons can stay “connected” with their hometown, and it connects online with students who grew up in Matsukawa. This account will also be used to invite participation in the project.

<Purpose of the comprehensive regional partnership agreement>
To make Matsukawa a sustainable community by drawing on its local resources of “people” and “forests” and creating social businesses that generate a new economy in rural and mountain areas.

<Overview of the comprehensive regional partnership agreement>
Date of agreement: April 1, 2020
Overview: 1. Regional design toward a self-reliant, decentralized society that makes use of natural, cultural and social capital
2. Use of local timber within the region to create better ways of living
3. Support for residents’ self-governing activities to make life in rural and mountain areas more attractive
4. Securing human resources, mainly young people, to drive social businesses
5. Promotion of disaster prevention and mitigation measures
6. Promotion of the SDGs
7. Other matters necessary to expand the region’s potential and achieve sustainable, fulfilling lives

<Plans for FY2020>
・Participatory making workshops targeting young people inside and outside the region
・Building partnerships inside and outside Matsukawa
・Hands-on projects using “EMARF 3.0,” which lets people make things from remote locations

* EMARF 3.0
A plug-in that extends the functions of CAD (Computer Aided Design) software, released by VUILD in May. It is Japan’s first cloud pre-cut service that lets people make architectural elements from home. Wooden building parts that used to require specialist knowledge, or that people gave up on because of cost or lead-time constraints, can be submitted online from CAD and fabricated as if you had your own workshop.
https://emarf.co/

[Matsukawa Town, Nagano Prefecture (https://www.town.matsukawa.lg.jp/)]
Matsukawa is a town of river terraces spreading east and west of the Tenryu River in the center of the Ina Valley in southern Nagano. Fruit growing in Matsukawa began in 1915 and marked its 100th year in 2015; orchards stretch in layer upon layer across the hills on the west bank. In its peaceful, nostalgic satoyama landscape, you can meet cheerful, warm-hearted people and the wisdom of a way of life that quietly makes use of nature’s gifts.
LINE (Matsukawa Connect):

[VUILD Inc. (https://vuild.co.jp/)]
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