Will Reuse of Old School Buildings Save Japan?

Osaka – Sunday, April 4, 2010

In a recent evening TV news programme, how reuse of facilities such as school buildings started to be implemented was featured. This kind of reuse if revolutionary in Japan where they tend to rebuild facilities and houses rather than recycle and reform and value just-built new buildings unlike, for example, European cities with long history.

1. What is the background of reusing facilities?

The background of reusing facilities such as schools is the problems the Japanese society has, which are low birth rate, aging society and lack of working mothers, meaning the need of activating the community/society. Although they seem to have nothing in common, the three problems (keywords of activating the society) have one thing in common. That is “facility”, and each keyword symbolizes shortage or excess of facilities.

1) Low birth rate means closing of schools thus demolishing of school buildings.

With low birth rate, increasing primary/elementary (and junior high) schools have been closing. Three primary/elementary schools in the local community of the author’s workplace has integrated into one, meaning two schools closed by simple calculation, on March 27, 2010. This is not only in under-populated province, but is actually happening nationwide including in big cities such as in Tokyo as well.

2) Aging society means shortage of nursing homes.

With ongoing aging society, Japan is shortage of nursing homes for elders, which has been a serious problem, together with shortage of care workers, and have started “importing” care workers from other Asian countries such as Indonesia. New nursing homes have been built but the supply is still below demand.

3) More working mothers means shortage of day-care centres.

With more working mothers, Japan is also shortage of day-care centres. This has been a serious issue; it is common for women to wait for months to find one. Thus this is one obstacle for “diversity” initiation in Japan. This became even more prominent last year when pandemic (swine) flu broke out. Many schools in Japan closed and working mothers without have anywhere/anyone to look after their children had to stay home when they really needed to go to work. (Working at home is still extremely rare in most Japanese companies).

2. What is the idea? How was it implemented?

The idea implemented is reusing of old facilities, in particular, school buildings. Old primary/elementary school buildings that became unnecessary due to closing of schools are re-used as other facilities. Some of the examples are as below.

1) Reuse old school building as a ham factory.

One example is reuse of old school building as a ham factory, which is unexpected but logical from the requirement of a ham factory and characteristics of typical school buildings. Ham factories need well-ventilated storage/warehouse that can takes in abundant sunlight, and old school buildings are ideal because they have many large windows. A ham factory owner interviewed said that he is more than satisfactory with his new factory reusing an old school building.

2) Reuse old school building as a nursing home for elderly and nursery (day-care centre)

The other example is reuse of old school building as a nursing home for elderly (two floors: first and second floor) and nursery (one floor: ground floor) in Tokyo. Nursing homes for elderly and nursery are both extremely short especially in large cities so this solution is very logical and effective.

School is ideal for reusing as nursing home for elders for many reasons. First, many large windows let sunshine and light in. Second, wide corridors enable use of wheelchairs indoor similarly to hospitals. Third, veranda (sometimes at rooftop deck) allows residents enjoy fresh air and outside view. Old school buildings happen to have these requirements or nice-to-have factors that are not usually found in other facilities. It costs 140,000 yen/month for a person to live in the nursing home, which is reasonable and can be paid by pension.

School building is also good to reuse as nursery. This is logical because the target of both school and nursery are children; the only difference is the age group.

Co-location of nursing home and nursery (same building and premises) has a merit. Enders can interact with children which is extremely good because it would stimulate their monotone life cycle and helps them activate their brain. This helps them maintain sound physical and mental health. Also, children also benefits from interacting with elders because someone would have to take care of them and care worker alone does usually not supply enough manpower. Furthermore, unlike the old days when many children used to live with grandparents, most children do not have opportunity to interact with elders and learn from them, and co-location of nursing home and nursery provides such an opportunity.

3. What is the significance of reuse of old schools?

Tokyo now allows the re-user to utilize both the land and building for free for 20 years in order to encourage further reuse of old school buildings, which are otherwise to be demolished. This has much significance, both from financial and environmental perspective. It is calculated that this would have positive impact of 190 billion yen. Also this is of concept of 3R (reduce, reuse and recycle) of environmental preservation. This could trigger change in attitudes and views of Japanese people on effective use of assets of the community = facilities. Last but not least, this solves multiple problems that the Japanese society currently faces and need to solve immediately for its sustainability.