FabCafe Fukushima Opens in Iitate Village, Fukushima

FabCafe Fukushima is operated by the company Zutto Soko Inc., which runs ZUTTO SOKO, an experimental base for dialogue with the environment, in Iitate Village. ZUTTO SOKO occupies a former home improvement store that closed as a result of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The building has been put to use as a cross-disciplinary environmental lab, where village residents have gathered with researchers, scientists, students, and artists for ongoing exchange and collaboration.

With the opening of FabCafe Fukushima, ZUTTO SOKO is working with Loftwork and FabCafe Global, drawing on their support for network building with creators and companies in Japan and overseas, branding, communications, and project development, to advance co-creation around environmental themes further still.

Iitate Village, where ZUTTO SOKO is located, sits between Fukushima’s Hamadori coastal region and the Abukuma area, surrounded by forested hills and farmland. It is a member of the “Most Beautiful Villages in Japan” association, a ‘satoyama’ landscape where nature and human activity are part of the same everyday life.

Since the 2011 nuclear accident, Iitate Village has seen a wide range of activity aimed at understanding the local environment and rebuilding daily life, including radiation measurement, soil and forest surveys, and experiments toward reviving agriculture and food production. Alongside local residents, people have come from outside the village as well, among them researchers, scientists, students, and artists, each bringing their own expertise and interests to a growing body of work that rethinks the relationship between people and nature.

Zuttosoko Inc. opened ZUTTO SOKO in 2021 to support this activity and to serve as a base where people from inside and outside the region could work together. The former home improvement store, more than 1,000 square meters in floor area, houses shared offices, studios, and event space. Building materials, furniture, and other supplies no longer in use locally went into making the spaces. Rather than handing over a finished facility, they have added what was needed piece by piece, working with their hands alongside village residents and visitors.

The name ZUTTO SOKO carries the senses of the character 図 (zu): to plan and measure, to give something visible shape, to work out a way toward a goal. Doubled as 図図, the character reads ‘zutto’, meaning continuously, expressing an intention to keep at the work of shaping the environment for the long haul.

Each FabCafe Global location has grown in connection with the culture, industry, and natural environment particular to its place, becoming somewhere that people from different fields and backgrounds meet and where new activities and relationships take shape.

ZUTTO SOKO has likewise been opening the environment of Iitate Village, and the work that continues here, to people beyond the region, through events, tours, and production work. At the same time, first-time visitors have found it hard to tell what actually goes on in the building and how they might take part.

FabCafe Fukushima addresses that by providing an easy way in, a making space with a cafe attached, so that the activity at ZUTTO SOKO reaches more people.

It is a place where people of different backgrounds meet and bring their own questions: specialists and researchers, people who live in the area, travelers passing through, anyone wanting to start something around the environment, companies and organizations. The aim is a place where the environment is approached through the plants, water, soil, food, energy, and daily life close at hand, rather than treated as a distant social problem.

Loftwork and FabCafe Global support the work of FabCafe Fukushima through their networks of creators and companies in Japan and overseas, through project design, and through communications. ZUTTO SOKO creates projects that draw on Iitate Village as a field site, while Loftwork builds connections with companies and practitioners outside the region, with the aim of generating new activity that moves between Fukushima and the wider world.

FabCafe Fukushima hosts occasional events and workshops on themes of the environment and making. Special drinks are served at events, and a self-service drink counter is available at other times. Alongside a distinctive library selected by staff, ranging from natural science and the humanities to manga and picture books, it is a place to spend unhurried time. Enquiries about making and fabrication are welcome at any time.

Venue: FabCafe Fukushima
Opened: July 25, 2026
Location: Inside ZUTTO SOKO, 5-1 Nihongimae, Fukaya, Iitate-mura, Soma-gun, Fukushima 960-1802 (Access)
Operated by: Zuttosoko Inc.
Hours: 11:00 to 17:00 (hours vary on some days)
Closed: Sundays and Mondays, plus occasional additional closures
Cafe service: Open on event days
For current opening information, see the Zuttosoko Instagram account.