A Home for the Neighbourhood: "En-en"

For the architectural project “enen” — which set out to create a building that functions like a path, connecting childcare and the wider community — I supported the planning documentation and editorial work for the grant application, and facilitated the process to help the nursery staff engage as active participants.

The project began in 2021, while working alongside Osaka-based design studio UMA/design farm on a branding project for Oitaken Fukushikai. Staff at Takio Nursery School, one of the corporation’s facilities, brought the initial question to us. The nursery teachers there don’t only hear from children and parents — they also encounter, or become aware of, situations in the surrounding community: isolated deaths among elderly residents, child abuse, and other difficult realities. “Because we’re rooted in this community, couldn’t we take a more fundamental, long-term view — and work to rebuild the connections that have come apart?” That sense of concern among the staff gave rise to the idea for “Enen”: a place that could care for children who fall between the gaps of existing systems, and where neighbours could come to know one another’s faces.

The Nippon Foundation’s Future Welfare Facility Architecture Project had drawn attention from its launch as a new kind of grant initiative — one in which operators and architects collaborate to reimagine welfare through the design of space itself. Our first application was unsuccessful, but the team kept at it, and in the second round (2022), Enen was selected as one of three projects chosen from 292 applications submitted from across Japan.

Architect Toru Yabashi and Takumi Ueno of Yahashi Toru Architectural Design Office joined the project, leading the process through interviews and workshops — translating the fragmented ideas that nursery staff held about the challenges they faced and the kinds of spaces they wanted into architectural form, through models and drawings. Within that process, I worked to bridge the thinking of the nursery staff and the specialist knowledge of the other members, and to notice when dialogue was missing and create the conditions for it. For the grant application, I supported the articulation of planning documents and helped organise the overall outcomes of the project. I also handled the editing and writing for the Enen leaflet.

Enen serves as a base for temporary childcare — for infants from birth, children recovering from illness, and children with medical needs — as well as a hub for broader child-rearing support. At the same time, it houses a community dining space, a café, a penny-candy shop, and a small library: a place open to the neighbourhood, where people of all ages can drop in. By nurturing points of connection with a wide range of people, the project also aims to surface community needs that aren’t yet visible, and link them to future forms of support.

The building is situated to connect Takio Nursery School with Hadahigashi Park. At its centre is a generous earthen-floor space called the “big doma” — a passage-like room that carries the nursery staff’s wish to welcome anyone who walks in, like a home for the whole neighbourhood. It’s open to everyone, so if you find yourself nearby, please feel free to stop by.