About
Staple is a soft developer connecting local towns
and urban environments
Hard
Soft
Soft
Staple is a soft developer that, through extensive travels, establishes connections and targets the fascinating neighborhoods within walking distance. We focus on planning, developing, and operating spaces, acting as developers of the soft aspects of the community.
A "soft" neighborhood is a place where one can feel that they are a part of it, gradually becoming enchanted. It's a town where the president of the shopping district and the young newcomer who just moved in can sit at the same table. The passing people in the town diversify over time, creating encounters, enhancing possibilities.
Thinking about others, contemplating the natural environment close to daily life. To weave those gentle connections, Staple adopts an open-minded attitude towards diverse thoughts and cultures. By continuously developing spaces in dense walkable neighborhoods, they believe in a future where a broader and more diverse range of people engage with the community. We believe a collective of these softer neighborhoods will cause grassroots transformation of society.
Context
Our Mission
Urbanization has improved the economy and created opportunities for work and education in a positive way, but simultaneously has reminded us of the beauty of a simpler environment and lifestyle that is often only found outside the neighborhood.
The efficiency of urbanization often brings undesirable consequences such as separation of social classes, feelings of isolation, and overcrowding. In Japan, the advanced infrastructure and the convenience it brings is also available in the countryside, which holds much potential.
Staple reveals the opportunities and options outside of the neighborhood by focusing on placemaking with this potential in mind. If this potential is realized, then each and every region of Japan will thrive in a unique way, and continue to be worth exploring.
‘New infrastructure’ for ‘New locals’
Staple does not consider people who happen to interact with a place into the typical duality of ‘locals’ and ‘tourists’. In addition to ‘original locals,’ anyone who has some kind of relationship to a place can be thought of as a ‘new local,’ and even visitors and travelers should be thought of as ‘potential locals.’
Whether the motivation is vacation or tourism, a visitor can become a new local, and over time the three types of locals will become a strong community. That unification is one of the most significant aspects of revitalization.
Create a new infrastructure that attracts new locals.
Make the neighborhood more livable for all three types of locals by developing dynamic new infrastructure.
Staple recognizes that the foundation for quality of life in any microcosm is the existence of soft but essential infrastructure such as schools and workspaces, the local bathhouse, coffee shops, and even simple vegetable stands. Developing this soft infrastructure allows people to live in a way whereby the local history, culture, land, and climate is reflected in all aspects of daily life. Methods of creating, producing, and consuming goods–and even energy–can all be clearly felt as tied specifically to that place.
Scroll
今見える3つのアプローチ
Change is constant.Placemaking should leave room for organic change, making things accessible and participatory. Take time to grow close to the land and its community, and envision its future as a team.
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A Walkable Neighborhood
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Walking is the smallest unit of action that people engage in on a daily basis, and it is also one of the most crucial actions. Walking through the neighborhood allows for chance encounters with acquaintances and friends, engaging in impromptu conversations. It provides opportunities to receive recommendations from the local grocer about today's specials or witness dogs and children playing in the park. Physical proximity enhances interaction and solidarity, fostering a warm, friendly, and safe sense of community. Even visitors from outside the neighborhood are more likely to experience serendipitous encounters with local residents and events.
When people can walk or bike in their daily lives, it contributes to an environmentally friendly lifestyle. Creating and nurturing a community that develops within such a range, where rich lives can flourish, holds significant meaning.
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Creating Height and Interaction - Cultivating the Soil of Diversity
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Creating a destination-worthy hotel or restaurant has the power to raise the value and recognition of the broader area’s identity. The addition of a facility that welcomes everyone and serves as ‘the living room of the neighborhood,’ heightens people’s ability to live and work together. This space not only resembles a living room; it also becomes a hub for the 3 types of locals to come together, where camaraderie and a sense of belonging transpires. The depth and breadth of these relationships expands the neighborhood’s capacity for meaningful growth.
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Interlocal - Connecting Urban, Rural, and Nature
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By maintaining a lifestyle that involves having a base in the city or a local area while regularly visiting another local space or immersing oneself in nature such as the sea, mountains, or rivers—a lifestyle with both 'A-side and B-side'—individual perspectives and networks expand. This not only enriches personal lives but also has the effect of individuals acting as catalysts, circulating new ideas and sensibilities within each local community.
Staple aims to create and operate a community called "Soil work," believing that by doing so, they can generate such effects from one local area to another, fostering a flow of new ideas and sensibilities facilitated by individuals connecting urban, rural, and natural spaces.
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Profile
| Company Name: | Staple Inc. |
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| Board Directors: | CEO: Yuta Oka Ryota Kobayashi Yusuke Umeda |
| Advisory Board | Takashi Mitachi Shunichi Shibue Yukako Ishikawa |
| Number of Employees: | 73 |
| Founded: | November 5th, 2018 |
| Capital Stock: | 94.73 million yen |
