ZuCity Build Month 2026 — Build A New Neighborhood in Rural Japan

What is Build Month?

We're birthing our own neighborhood (Brooklyn 2.0) from 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 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, part world-building - 100% community-driven.

What You'll Build

Build Month happens at the same neighborhood that hosts the ZuCity annual popup — four properties within a 5-minute walk of each other in Komoro. You'll spend the summer turning raw spaces into the venues, kitchens, sleeping rooms, and gardens that 200+ people will inhabit in September.

Every project compounds: a wall you frame becomes a recording booth that hosts a podcast, a garden you plant feeds a community dinner, a floor you sand carries the next year's residency. Read more about our akiya thesis or see Komoro.

Activities

Carpentry

Build furniture, structures, and functional spaces from scratch using local and recycled materials.

Interior Design

Aesthetics, floor plans, antique and thrift shopping for unique pieces to furnish the spaces.

Art Projects

Murals, glow-in-the-dark walls, moss installations, and creative expression throughout the venues.

Repairs & Restoration

Repainting walls, laying new flooring, deep cleaning, and other fixing ups around our spaces.

Garden & Farm

Design and build the backyard garden and food production systems for community self-sufficiency.

Fun Times

Late night dinners, board games, sumo competitions, mini raves, massage circles. Whatever we have energy for after a long day

Why this matters

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 homes, coworking spaces, community centers, galleries, and labs.

Build Month leads directly into ZuCity Popup 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. Build Month participants get first access to the popup city and discounted rates through the app.

Programming

July 1–14

Design & Planning

Floor plans for all venues, aesthetic direction, and procurement of antiques, materials, and furniture.

July 13–24

Clean & Repair

Deep cleaning of all floors and walls, mold inspection, walk-in fridge audit, furniture rearrangement, and structural assessment.

July 27 – Aug 24

Building

Move-in day for coworking equipment, basement floor replacement, private club construction with sound-proofing and moss walls, AV setup, and WiFi installation.

Help build ZuCity Japan

The setting

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.