Root house project “Y-Wai Hiroba”

“Y-Wai Hiroba,” located in Isogo ward, Yokohama, is a community space and shared office created by renovating a vacant house. The first floor is a community space where locals can get together and hold meetings, while the second floor is a shared office that welcomes local businesses. The community space is also used as a living lab so that local businesses and citizens come together and discuss to address local issues. The operating company is Taiyojuken Corporation and the vacant house management initiative is named “Root House Project”.

Another good thing of Y-Wai Hiroba is that it can be functioned as a regional disaster prevention base in the event of a natural disaster such as a typhoon or earthquake. The house will get equipped with an off-grid photovoltaic power generation system with a storage battery, which is to supply enough electricity in the event of natural disasters. A shelter is also expected to be installed in the house in the future.

Renovating vacant houses, Y-Wai Hiroba has created a decentralized regional infrastructure with two different functions, a local community space and a disaster prevention base. The number of vacant houses in Yokohama was about 178,000 in 2018 with the vacancy rate of 10%, and the number continues to increase every year. Y-Wai Hiroba’s efforts have attracted attention as a good example of regional revitalization model using vacant houses.

1. Turn vacant houses into local community and co-working spaces

Renting a unused vacant house and turning it into a community space and a co-working space for local people and businesses, Y-Wai Hiroba has built connections among local residents and improved the local resilience. As the operation cost is covered by rent fees from the companies on the second floor, the community space on the first floor can be used free of charge.

2. Base for a living lab to address regional issues

Y-Wai Hiroba is used as a base for local living lab activities. Member companies can take advantage of having the base in the area and promote business development to meet local needs by letting local users on the first floor try out their services and products under development.

3. Provide a local disaster prevention base with off-grid solar power

The most distinctive feature of Y-Wai Hiroba is that it can be used as an evacuation base for local people with off-grid solar power facilities in the event of a disaster. Utilizing vacant houses and installing multiple disaster prevention bases in the area will lead to resilient town development.