Japan: this care cafe is a real-life version of the worry-solving grocery store.

Take care of the cafe, create a friendly community social space, information exchange center and resource integration platform with service design, carefully take care of the needs of multiple stakeholders in the community, carefully create each service contact point, and create a moving experience. Reproduce the strong ancient and early feelings of the traditional grocery store, and turn Motian District into a comfortable and livable community.

This is the 49th article in "imagine a City."

Take you to discover more unknown features of the city.

The most uncommon thing in this life is that the old man is as sad as a child.

I don't know if you have seen a similar title: "China is entering the aging era with a running posture" and "irreversible! In the future, the problem of aging in China is even more serious than that in Japan! " .

Whenever we mention the issue of providing for the aged, we are always inadvertently worried, because the word seems to be equated with "burden", which leads to boredom.

On holidays like May Day, we have compact and fashionable play arrangements, and accidentally forget the old people at home.

However, a coffee shop in Japan has solved the problem very well.

Jane Jacobs's insight into the vitality of the city's streets marks the unique wisdom of the city's traditional shopping streets, arguing that the shopkeeper is an important "public figure" and that the corner store plays not only the role of the store, but also the social center of the neighborhood, acting as a neighborhood club and meeting place.

How can the shopping street in the declining community of Tokyo, Japan become a community-oriented service system and turn into a friendly and livable community? This article will lead readers to get a glimpse of the service design of "Care Cafe".

Urban capillarity "Shop Street"

Sangshima, Moda District, Tokyo, is a quiet community 10 minutes' walk from a nearby subway station, where bustling crowds of workers and tourists rarely flow. "Kirakira Orange Store Street" is the center of this community. It miraculously escaped the disaster of the Kanto earthquake and the Tokyo air raid, so it retained the long house of the Taisho era and the architectural facade of the Showa era, and became one of the locations for filming the old street.

△ "Kirakira tangerine shop street", an old street full of time charm

The 450-meter-long shopping street, although there are shops closed by the recession, there are also unshakable old shops and new young shops, which are the focus of shopping and life for local residents.

"Care Cafe", a platform for community care.

On April 4, 2015, "Sumimamekafe" opened at Orange Shopping Street, a "Care Cafe" set up by Create Care Co., Ltd. The origin of the name "Modou Coffee" not only expresses the meaning of "coffee beans", but also conveys the meaning of the "mini version of Motian District" cafe, hoping to try to sell local goods in Motian District. Guide customers to the stores in Motian District and the shopping street where these goods are sold.

The simple and warm wooden decoration in the △ store

The cafe specializes in spaghetti cuisine, and customers are welcome to bring in takeout drinks from other stores in the mall. The cafe nailed an extra plank under the open window facing the mall to display freshly baked bread sold by another bakery in the street.

There is also a special area in the cafe to display products from other shops on the street. The floor-to-ceiling window door leading directly to the street can be rotated directly to make the wall become an air hole, combining the store space with the street, where people can see the goods on display in the store, and customers in the store can also enjoy the sky and summer breeze introduced from the street. the economic spaces of indoor and outdoor / private and public sectors crisscross with each other.

The △ stomatal wall gives off a seductive smell

However, unlike medieval Paris, this kind of stomatal street surface has not led to economic competition among merchants. Through welcoming takeout food and consignment sale, cafes have become the product catalogue and collaborative marketing hot spot of the whole shopping street.

In addition, beneath the superficial economic benefits of catering and merchandise sales in cafes, there is a profound service design:

1. The caf é provides a space for carers to catch their breath, take care of information and exchange information, as well as chat rooms to meet the needs of the elderly in the community, as well as job-hunting attendants.

2. The coffee shop management team with professional licenses to take care of waiters and social workers will assist the Shop Street Autonomous Association to train the staff of other stores, build knowledge of degenerative symptoms of the elderly, and make use of the opportunities for the elderly to go out shopping, dine, stop and chat to identify the early needs of social welfare intervention.

3. Take care of the coffee shop and link with the "elderly support Integration Center" in Motian District to publicize health care activities and medical service messages. Integrate the resources of Japanese intermediary insurance and transfer them to the community.

Caf é s not only invigorate the economy of the whole shopping street, but also become a user situation observation and service support network for elderly care. For this reason, when the cafe applied to enter the mall, the mall autonomy specially reduced the rent to 1/4 of the price to help the cafe amortize the initial decoration cost.

Humanized "friendly space"

In order to facilitate the access of wheelchair guests in the limited store space, the cafe is equipped with foot-stepping lifting platform, and the configuration of table and chair aisle also takes into account the mobility of wheelchair.

△ foot-stepping lifting platform

In order to take into account the privacy of both sides of the media inside, and to let the family members waiting outside rest assured, the conversation room is separated by bookshelves, potted plants and movable screens into a human space that can be vaguely viewed. The flexible and decorated cubicle also integrates the conversation room with the cafe without being obvious. the floor-to-ceiling window next to the conversation room can be rotated and opened, so that people in the conversation room do not have to leave through the main entrance of the cafe, ensuring the privacy of both sides, while not disturbing the diners in the store.

Elastic compartment of △ chat room

The autonomous forces of "Orange Shop Street" in Motian District, together with the catering and care professionals of "taking care of cafes", on the one hand revitalize the economy of declining shopping streets, but also build a humanized network of care for the elderly.

Take care of the cafe, create a friendly community social space, information exchange center and resource integration platform with service design, carefully take care of the needs of multiple stakeholders in the community, carefully create each service contact point, and create a moving experience. Reproduce the strong ancient and early feelings of the traditional grocery store, and turn Motian District into a comfortable and livable community.

As the saying goes, an old man in a family is like a treasure. Accompanying the elderly is not only as boring as we imagine staying at home, with the creation of more and more humanized community space, we can even bring our Baoqu hi tea.

Look forward to opening such care cafes everywhere!

Source of picture and text | possible design, Motian's work, social worker

Picture and text editor | tinnitus

This issue [imagine a city] focuses on

Japanese "take care of cafes"

"imagine a City" as a special topic, using images and words to show bits and pieces of several cities, the focus of attention, in addition to the changes brought by urbanization to the appearance of the city, and the resulting urban planning problems, more importantly, under this change, the living space state of local residents leads to the understanding of the real situation of the city. There are many stories in our city.