July 1 – Aug 24, 2026 · Komoro, Nagano, Japan
$80 USDT / day
24-hour access to all ZuCity Japan facilities - coworking, lounges, parties, dinners, and workshops. Explore community coliving, bleeding-edge biohacking, and traditional rural lifestyle experiences.
Build Month is the hands-on preparation phase for ZuCity Japan's annual popup city. Over 8 weeks, volunteers and community members transform raw spaces into functional coworking areas, event venues, living quarters, and creative installations. It's part construction site, part art residency, and fully community-driven.
We're building inside a network of abandoned properties we've acquired in Komoro, Nagano — a castle town at the foot of an active volcano, 90 minutes from Tokyo by shinkansen. Every wall you paint, every floor you fix, every garden bed you dig becomes permanent community infrastructure. This isn't a weekend volunteer gig — it's sweat equity in a place you can come back to.
Build furniture, structures, and functional spaces from scratch using local and recycled materials.
Aesthetics, floor plans, antique and thrift shopping for unique pieces to furnish the spaces.
Murals, glow-in-the-dark walls, moss installations, and creative expression throughout the venues.
Mold inspection, floor replacement, structural fixes, and deep cleaning of all venue spaces.
Design and build the backyard garden and food production systems for community self-sufficiency.
Cook, eat, and bond together throughout the build process. Shared meals fuel shared purpose.
Most popup cities rent a hotel, run events for a week, and leave. All that money evaporates into someone else's business. We're doing it differently — community-owned infrastructure means every dollar spent on Build Month compounds into assets the community keeps forever. The properties we buy for $2k–$30k become coworking spaces, galleries, maker labs, and homes.
Build Month participants get first access to the popup city, discounted rates through the app, and the kind of bonds that only form when you're covered in paint at 2am arguing about where to put the cold plunge.
July 1–14
Floor plans for all venues, aesthetic direction, and procurement of antiques, materials, and furniture.
July 13–24
Deep cleaning of all floors and walls, mold inspection, walk-in fridge audit, furniture rearrangement, and structural assessment.
July 27 – Aug 24
Move-in day for coworking equipment, basement floor replacement, private club construction with sound-proofing and moss walls, AV setup, and WiFi installation.
Komoro is a castle town in Nagano Prefecture with 1,300-year-old temples, top-100 cherry blossom spots, dozens of onsens, and local soba so famous Tokyo named a chain after it. Karuizawa — the Aspen of Japan — is 20 minutes away. After a day of building, you're soaking in a mountain hot spring watching the sun set behind an active volcano. Not a bad commute.
Build Month leads directly into ZuCity Japan 2026 (Sept 4 – Oct 5) — the annual popup city with four themed weeks covering d/acc, DeSci, longevity, and community governance. Stay for Build Month and the popup to experience the full arc from construction to community. Learn more about who we are and how we buy abandoned properties.