FabCafe Osaka holds grand opening in Tenma, Osaka, on April 29th, 2025

Creating a new “formless” culture based on sensibility and emotion

Loftwork Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, President: Mitsuhiro Suwa) will host the grand opening of FabCafe Osaka in Tenma, Osaka, on April 29th, 2025. This latest branch will be the thirteenth FabCafe globally and the sixth in Japan.

Since its founding in Shibuya, Tokyo, in 2012, the creative community FabCafe has expanded globally into places as far as Thailand, Spain, France, Mexico, and Malaysia. By engaging with diverse creators and makers, FabCafe addresses issues pertinent to partners and society at large. The global FabCafe network undertakes a variety of projects by creating close relationships with each branch’s local creative communities, leveraging techniques, materials, and technologies unique to each region.

Osaka, known as “the city of water,” has developed alongside its rivers since ancient times. In particular, the Yodo River has been a lifeline in Osaka’s growth, playing a key role in urban infrastructure as a channel for travel, trade, and flood control. Along with Osaka-based architect and design partner Masahiko Inoue (Marginalio Inc.), FabCafe Osaka will blend city and nature by including Yodo River soil in wall materials to embody Osaka’s history, and by integrating hardwood from the Hida region in its space design. Through these unique materials and design elements, FabCafe Osaka aims to be a place rich with Osaka history and culture, where tomorrow’s creative scene can thrive.

FabCafes are spaces with digital fabrication machines like 3D printers and laser cutters. At FabCafe, people can gather and freely cross the border between digital and real to create the innovations of tomorrow.

The newest branch proposes an experience incorporating the modern art philosophy L’informe, which pursues beauty unbound by form or shape. FabCafe Osaka will challenge extant ways of creating, cultivating a new culture founded on formless emotion and sensibility.

Ahead of the grand opening ceremony on April 29th, a pre-opening period will be held from April 21st to 27th. From the pre-opening oneward, FabCafe Osaka will serve original aromatic, distilled drinks.

FabCafe Osaka will offer a fresh drinking experience based on distillation and utilizing an aroma extraction process. Cafe beverages will provide a taste of the changing seasons, beginning with carefully selected ingredients that embody the local climate and natural environment.

In developing drinks, FabCafe Osaka baristas prioritized savoring the fragrance and emotion of the ingredients. Using select herbs, tea leaves, and citrus from all over Japan maximized the flavor and aroma. For example, one refreshing drink is distilled from tree bark and kuromoji shrubs harvested from forests owned by Hidakuma, an enterprise founded in 2015 by Hida City, Tobimushi, and Loftwork. Another drink combines two Tokushima specialties — Awa-bancha fermented tea and yuko citrus — to create a blend that exemplifies the terroir (climate) of the region.

In addition, the FabCafe Osaka menu will feature traditional ingredients with a modern twist, such as a flowery beverage made with rose extract, and a sparkling rose and roasted green tea mixed drink. These are not simple drinks, but aromatic, emotional experiences that stimulate all five senses.

FabCafe Osaka will be open until 9:00 p.m., serving distilled alcoholic drinks as well as non-alcoholic mocktails; regardless of their preference for alcohol, patrons will be able to lift their spirits with a drink. FabCafe Osaka will elevate the act of drinking itself into a creative experience and introduce a new cafe culture.

In creating the FabCafe Osaka space, Yodo River earth (a byproduct of water purification*) was used in creating wall spray textures. The natural material’s unique texture will create an informe (formless) finish that evokes memories of the city and contribute to this new creative space that embodies Osaka’s culture and history.

Since the building chosen to house FabCafe Osaka formerly housed an auto repair shop, there were many distinctive features like metal crossbraces and switchplates in the original structure. The design team wanted to utilize these elements as much as possible in the space’s reincarnation as FabCafe Osaka. To that end, they employed spray painting instead of traditional plastering to preserve original textures while blending old and new.

*Water purification leaves behind a watery sludge, which is then dried through natural or mechanical processes and recovered for other uses.

Working on the walls

FabCafe Osaka’s interior design partner is Masahiko Inoue (Marginalio Inc.), whose works include the design project “elements” as well as the public space β Hommachi-bashi along the Higashiyokobori River. The project’s lumber supply is all hardwood from broadleaf trees in from Hida City, Gifu Prefecture. Unlike standardized cuts of timber, hardwoods, with their unique bends and twists, are a material that finds comfort in its relationship with the human body in space. For this space, the design team made the daring decision to design a bench using naturally curved hardwood. The bench’s irregular shape creates a unique fit depending on the physique and posture of the person sitting on it, leading to a different sense of comfort for each person, exemplifying the concept of l’informe.

Moreover, broadleaf forests house complex ecosystems ranging from tall trees to medium shrubs and undergrowth, all of which nurture the soil with their roots and falling leaves. True to the concept of l’informe, the forest is home to beauty unbound by form, where diverse forms intertwine and coexist without clear structure or rules. Hidakuma, a company dedicated to creating new value from forest resources and rebuilding sustainable relationships between local people and the forest, was responsible for coordination, furniture manufacturing, and direction based on this lumber’s characteristics. FabCafe Osaka will be a space where forest and city, nature and body connect not in form, but in sensitivity.

In the future, FabCafe Osaka will hold workshops about drinks using distillation equipment, as well as food-related events that appeal to the five senses. From May onward, there will also be events where people can mingle, such as the Kissa Shirankedo (I Dunno Cafe), an event that transcends social and class differences to facilitate discussions about career design in the creative community. Another planned event is Aru Society, which interrogates the importance of human creativity and sensitivity in an age of AI through the lenses of culture and nature.

From its core concept of l’informe, FabCafe Osaka aims to create a community space where creators and visitors can gather and make new ideas through physical experiences that speak directly to the emotions, senses, and intellect.