nagaoka kenmei’s Vision for Community and Design in Agui
Mar 06,2025
Mar 06,2025
Nagaoka Kenmei, as a design activist, explores approaches to design while unearthing the essence of regions and presenting and promoting the fundamental qualities of regions. He started the D & Department Project in 2000, which focuses on “long-life” design — designing good things with longevity. He has also launched a chain of D & Department community stores that promote the character of their respective regions, and he publishes d design travel, a series of novel guidebooks that advocate for travel from a design perspective. Nagaoka opened a new store called dnews aichi agui at the end of 2021 in his hometown of Agui, Aichi. We spoke with him about his mindset today, four years after opening dnews aichi agui, and his plans for the future.
The town of Agui in Aichi Prefecture once flourished as a center for Chita cotton production. At its peak, the town was home to over 70 weaving factories. Dnews aichi agui is located in a renovated former weaving factory.
As we drove through the tranquil countryside looking for the store, a building that seemed to fit the bill came into view. A small signboard stood in front of the long, tiled-roofed building that stretched along the road. Its unembellished yet tasteful appearance told us that this was the place. Peering through the window, we spotted Nagaoka Kenmei at the cash register counter.
Nagaoka lived in Agui from the age of three until he was 18. “I hated that there was nothing for me here, so I left for Tokyo,” he says with a laugh. So why did he create a new store in this town that he once disliked? Apparently, a series of encounters played a part.
“I was asked at one time to give a lecture by the youth club of the town’s Chamber of Commerce. I was thrilled to have the honor of speaking in my hometown and gladly accepted. Someone I met there said to me, ‘Why don’t you do something in this town?’”
Design activist Nagaoka Kenmei
Nagaoka had been searching for a suitable property in the city of Nagoya for an Aichi branch of his D & Department stores. He had never entertained the idea of placing it in Agui, but another chance encounter led him to lease the site of an old sawtooth-roofed weaving factory.
“I decided that I wouldn’t open a store in the town unless the townspeople wanted it. That’s why I decided to crowdfund the expenses to open the store. It turned out that many local residents contributed to the crowdfunding, raising four-fifths of the total opening costs. The residents who contributed to the crowdfunding don’t see themselves as just customers; they feel that this is their own store. So, for example, if the toilet paper runs out, they will go ahead and replace the roll on their own. With this community spirit behind us, it was a very comfortable store launch.”
The interior of the renovated former weaving factory has a spacious layout
Nagaoka’s original vision was to open a D & Department branch in all 47 prefectures.
“When I traveled the country, I noticed that the areas around local train stations looked the same everywhere, like they had just copied and pasted something that had been successful somewhere else. I felt a sense of dread about how the local character of each of these places was disappearing. This is what inspired me to create venues, and media, that proclaim: ‘This place is fantastic. This place is uniquely special.’ And that’s how I started the D & Department stores and the d design travel guidebooks.”
Currently, there are 14 D & Department stores, including outlets in Hokkaido, Fukushima, Saitama, and Seoul, South Korea, and d design travel guidebooks have been published for 34 prefectures. The dnews aichi agui store is the first dnews store in Japan bearing the name of its town.
The store features a collection of seasonings and other products made on the Chita Peninsula. Many are fermented products such as vinegar and amazake [a sweet drink made from koji rice malt].
“I originally launched dnews with the idea of showcasing Japan’s attractions from smaller municipal-level areas rather than larger prefectural-level regions. At the present time, we have this location in Agui, Aichi, and we are preparing to launch a store in Okinawa. But having run this store in this location for four years now, I’ve realized just how Tokyo-centric the structure and approach of our operations have been.”
As an example of this, Nagaoka shared a story about the bamboo grove in front of the store.
“The bamboo grove in front of the shop had grown out of control, so I decided to trim out some trees and thin the grove out. In Tokyo, I’d have someone take care of non-critical tasks like this, but it doesn’t work that way here. If you aren’t willing to get your hands dirty, nothing moves forward. But once I got started, people passing by saw me and joined in to help. In the end, about six neighbors pitched in and we got the job done in no time. The next question became what to do with all the cut bamboo. As I pondered how much it would cost to have it disposed of, someone approached me saying, ‘Let’s do something with that bamboo.’ However, to talk with the person, we first had to get together for a drink that night. It was a great time. It’s fun, but at the same time I can’t seem to get any closer to the main thing I want done. [laughs]”
“People started leaving firewood in front of the store, so I built a woodshed. Before I knew it, more people started restocking it,” says Nagaoka. “When someone does something for you, you find a way to give back. That’s how connections with the local community are formed.”
Whenever Nagaoka tried to do something, the locals would get involved in the matter, and as these connections flourished, they would devolve into matters unrelated to the original issue. Each action goes slowly, and the work doesn’t progress very quickly. “If you’re going to do something in this area, I think you have to value this process, and that, in itself, is interesting,” says Nagaoka. As he contemplated how things proceed in the area, he began to feel that running the shop with the same old model wasn’t quite right.
“Until recently, we had followed the D & Department rules at this store: selecting products, arranging them on the shelves, serving customers, and making sales. But we are trying to change that model at this store. For example, with items like furniture that people want to see in person, they can view samples here, but we handle the purchase online for them, and the product is delivered directly to their home. This model, which is common in places like China, means we avoid holding inventory and handling logistics, while customers get products cheaper and faster. We’ve reduced the items available for immediate purchase in the store — it’s now about half of what we started with. Ultimately, we plan to stock only items produced on Chita Peninsula, where Agui is located, and original products developed using materials from Chita Peninsula.
“In place of our old model, we are thinking about letting people who make things locally use this space to sell their products, with a portion of the sales to cover renting the space. It’s taken me four years since opening the store to finally start realizing this.”
Nagaoka is changing the relationship between the store and the customer, rather than relying on the conventional store model. Some customers become involved in sales as producers, transforming them from customers into members of the store.
Agui no Akasushisu is made with saké lees vinegar (called akasu locally), a traditional seasoning on Chita Peninsula, where Agui is located. This original product was developed by dnews aichi agui in partnership with Mitsui Sumise, a vinegar producer in Agui.
Products made with local Chita cotton are also on display
Still, Nagaoka says he has faced challenges since opening his store in Agui.
“Since coming back here, I’ve felt a sense of helplessness at times. Yet also a determination to do something about it. Specifically when it comes to how to foster cultural awareness in the town.”
The D & Department Project has discovered and promoted the unique distinctions of various regions. Unfortunately, preserving the local character is made more difficult when the local people show little interest in or fail to recognize the beauty inherent in their area.
“In 2023, we started the Agui Beautification Workshop as a means to convey that the ordinary things in the town are really the town’s heritage. And yet around 90 percent of the people who come to the events were not locals. Despite this, I’ve held on to the hope that running these events and other activities will gradually get this awareness to seep into the town, leading to change. But the town’s cultural awareness has yet to be transformed. We’ve been busy, creating various frameworks using media and other resources. Initially, I believed these actions would for sure cause the town’s cultural awareness to change. I’ve found out, unfortunately, it’s not that simple.”
With the belief that a town without a bookstore is inexcusable, Nagaoka created this used bookstore at the back of his store to foster greater cultural awareness. He started by collecting unwanted books from townspeople.
Nagaoka told us about an incident that occurred in Agui as an illustration of what can happen when a community’s cultural awareness doesn’t change.
“About five kilometers from here, there’s a large estate that belongs to a Chita cotton wholesaler. It had a wall about three meters high that ran for 20 or 30 meters. I walked beside that wall as a child on my way to school every day, and I thought it was such a nice, emblematic part of the Agui landscape. Over the years, however, the wall began warping and twisting due to its age. Neighbors started contacting the town hall, worried it might collapse at some point. So the owner came and talked with me about the wall. I and some others went together with the owner to the town hall’s industry and tourism department to ask for help in saving the wall, but there was nothing they could do. They had zero funding, and the town lacked any intention of preserving such things. Even though the staff personally thought the wall was worth saving, the town administration itself couldn’t do anything to help.”
In response to this lack of assistance, Nagaoka launched the Agui Beautification Workshop.
“With the Agui Beautification Workshop, I envisioned a place where people could gather, take in the vista of the black wall that embodies the essence of Agui while talking with civil engineering and public works experts about our townscape. I believed that leading people to notice the beauty in the townscape where they live could be the spark that elicits greater cultural awareness in the community. And based on past experience, I hoped that people might step forward offering funding for such preservation efforts or that a movement might develop among like-minded people to take some action.”
Despite his efforts, the black wall was ultimately torn down. Perversely, his endeavor to bring attention to the issue served only to motivate the many people who considered the wall dangerous to hasten the wall’s demolition.
The D & Department Project began with the idea of wanting to preserve designs that have stood the test of time and the beauty inherent in local areas. Yet, in Agui, it ran into a fundamental problem: nothing can begin without a cultural awareness among the local people themselves that prizes the unique beauty of their region.
“People often say things like: ‘We lose a part of nature every few seconds.’ It’s my sense that in Agui, a heritage building is pulled down every month. It feels like our townscape is turning into a giant vacant lot. The only way to stop this is to increase the number of people with a preservation mindset. It’s with this idea that I continue to work steadily, going to the town hall and speaking with all kinds of people. Increasing the number of culturally aware newcomers to the town is also critical. The population of people with connections to the town and the population of people who stay here is important as well. Even if just one person with creative sensibilities and cultural awareness comes to this town, it makes a huge difference.”
Motoda Maki is the owner of Bering Plant, a café in Nagoya’s Atsuta Ward. After frequently visiting dnews aichi agui, she relocated to Agui and now also operates Bering Plant Agui, the in-store café at dnews.
In this spirit, Nagaoka started the Saké to Meshi △○□ bar next to dnews aichi agui. He says that since the bar opened, more people have started considering moving to Agui.
The Agui Yatai Sakaba Saké to Meshi △○□ bar next to dnews aichi agui. “People living within walking distance have recently started dropping by for a drink. That’s a development that’s made me really happy,” says Nagaoka.
“Everything is truly grassroots, going one tiny step at a time,” Nagaoka says with a laugh. Nevertheless, he finds joy in even small changes that come about from his perseverance.
“For example, after we thinned out the bamboo grove, some people in the neighborhood shared some food they had made with us. When I hesitated to take it, they insisted, saying: ‘You’ve created a beautiful spot for us.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Oh, now they say it’s a beautiful spot.’ [laughs] Does it mean that they have a sense of aesthetics, an awareness of culture? Maybe they just meant ‘Thanks for cleaning up,’ but they said it with a sense of delight, so that made me happy. After this, I built a long bench so people can sit and look at the bamboo grove. Now, kids sit there and face the bamboo. That gives me a nice feeling too.”
The long bench Nagaoka built in front of the bamboo grove
“Tokyo has its role, and it’s important, of course. But after coming here, I felt Tokyo wasn’t the place for me anymore and just took off. There’s something really compelling about the rural lifestyle. It’s not that I want to live in the countryside; I want to create in the countryside. In a place like this, the language of creation I’ve used before doesn’t get across, and there’s little interest in cultural things. I used to think I could control everything, but in truth, it’s impossible. But there’s a deep thrill in creating from such a fundamental level.”
Part of that thrill, for Nagaoka, is what comes from relationships.
“Living in this town, you run into the same people all the time. People call out to you as you walk around town, as you drop in at the convenience store. What emerges from these relationships is quite interesting. When a population is too large, it’s hard to feel these responses. In artificially created spaces, someone might say ‘Thank you,’ but you often can’t see their face. Here, though, you can see the person and see how they say something or write something for you, and that’s rewarding.
“Yesterday, for some reason, it occurred to me that the concept of keeping a bottle on reserve at a bar is quite amazing and I was actually moved by it. [laughs] Keeping a bottle on reserve is all about maintaining a relationship. It’s like saying, ‘I like your place, so I’ll keep this relationship going.’ So I set up a bottle-keep system at the bar next door. If I witness a customer say ‘Keep this bottle for me’ right in front of me, I’ll be incredibly happy.”
Nagaoka says coffee tickets are another way to maintain relationships with customers. The shop bustles with locals on weekdays and people from out of town on weekends and holidays.
We found it intriguing that, having worked on various creations as a designer and art director, explored approaches to design as a design activist, and uncovered and promoted the essential qualities of various places, Nagaoka now has returned to his hometown to engage at a more fundamental level — focusing on relationships between people and between people and the land and nurturing cultural awareness. When we describe this to him, he says, “I think that’s interesting too.” Then he continues.
“But having said that, I still want to create. Eventually, I want to make things here. But the stages prior to making things are very, very long. Which is also fascinating.
“When I was in Tokyo, I used to write out plans for the future. I’d think: ‘This is how it has to go and to get there, I’ll do this and that while making use of this resource and that resource.’ Everything was goal-oriented. But I don’t do any of that now. It’s about facing each day head-on and tackling challenges one by one.”
We mention at the end of our visit that our trip through Aichi was a journey exploring the fermentation of this land. “This place, right here, right now, is fermenting too,” he says. “If people take notice of us, in the sense of cultural fermentation, that would be wonderful.”
What will emerge and be communicated from dnews aichi agui from now on? The Agui kids that sit on that bench gazing at the bamboo grove — what do they think about and what kind of adults will they become? We will definitely keep an eye on this town, as its fermentation progresses.
Nagaoka is a design activist, born in Muroran, Hokkaido in 1965, and founder of the D & Department Project, a chain of stores focused on “long-life” design. While working toward establishing a base in all 47 prefectures, he has spearheaded initiatives such as d design travel — a series of travel and cultural magazines with a design perspective, and d47 Museum — Japan’s first design works museum. Through retail, food and beverage, publishing, tourism, and other activities, he recontextualizes the 47 prefectures’ fundamental characteristics and long-lasting, locally-rooted designs, promoting them nationwide. Nagaoka won the 2013 Mainichi Design Award and has appeared on television programs like Jounetsu Tairiku [A Continent of Passion] and Cambria Palace. He is the author of The Eye of Kenmei Nagaoka (Heibonsha) and other books. He opened the dnews store in his hometown of Agui, Aichi in 2021. He currently splits his time between Agui and Uruma, Okinawa.
www.nagaokakenmei.com