Marebito House, Nanto, Japan

Architecture: Vuild. Co.
Text: Bálint Botzheim
Photos: Hayato Kurobe, Takumi Ota

An architecture startup Vuild, Inc. has completed “House for Marebito” in Nanto City, Toyama Prefecture in 2019. This project challenges the local issues of forestry and marginal settlement by only using local lumbers and CNC milling machine. Toga village is stated as “marginal village” with over half the residents over the age of 65 that is in danger of disappearing. By building a guesthouse in such location, this project proposes a new concept of second home “more than tourism, but not migration” that people go back and forth the land as they visit their relatives. For construction, Vuild proposed a new local networking system which completes all the construction process, from material procurement to installation, within a 10-kilometer radius in order to make use of local forest resources, and approach the decline of forestry. By processing all the parts small, they succeeded in involving residents who had never been able to participate in architecture such as kids, women, and elder people.