gemacht visits a cheesecake outpost nestled in Sangenjaya district, Tokyo: ‘cafe The SUN LIVES HERE’. Amongst copies of aspirational publications such as Popeye, Casa Brutus, and Kinfolk, the coffee shop vibe is inherently communal, warm and inviting yet also draws upon a larger global identity. When I first spoke with Sagara Kyohei four years ago, his vision of brand, quality, and lifestyle was clear. I revisited to interview the founder, SK, on his style and to discuss the flagship product, ‘CHILK’, being realised today.
FH: To begin, can you share an insight into the concept of 'cafe The SUN LIVES HERE' - what has driven you to create such a place? // [はじめに、「カフェThe SUN LIVES HERE」のコンセプトへの洞察を共有できますか - あなたがそのような場所を創造するきっかけとなったのは何ですか?]
SK: I opened the store because I wanted to create a pleasant space with a warm feeling like sunshine. During the day-to-day operation of the cafe, I encountered the question “What is truly valuable?” So, the idea of creating a unique product with true value was born, and that is the current cafe. // [私は「陽だまりのように、楽しい空間を創りたい」という思いから開店しました。. カフェを日々運用していく中で、「真に価値があるものとは何か」という問いにぶつかりました。. そこで、「真に価値のあるユニークな製品を創りたい」という思いが生まれ、現在のカフェがあります。]
FH: How does 'cafe The SUN LIVES HERE' fit into the Tokyo Cafe Scene and what do you hope people experience when visiting? // [「cafe The SUN LIVES HERE」は東京のカフェシーンにどのように適合していますか。]
SK: FIT - Unique products are the hallmark of our shop. I think that we have gained support from customers not only by offering coffee but also by offering products that we want to talk about and give to someone. HOPE - I want to provide meaningful downtime to customers. In order to do this, we cherish truly valuable products, the experience, and the journey. One knows our store online, buys a train ticket and spends time at the cafe. I want to add value to the whole process. // [FIT - ユニークな製品が当店の特徴です。. コーヒーだけでなく、誰かに話したくなる、誰かにあげたくなる製品を提供することにより、お客様から支持を得ていると思います。 HOPE - 私はお客様に対して「有意義な暇つぶし」を提供したいと考えています。その為には 「真に価値のある製品」と、「そこにたどり着くまでの過程と空間」を大切にしています。. インターネットで当店を知って、電車のチケットを買い、カフェで時間を過ごす。その全ての過程に価値を付け加えたいと思っています。]
FH: Your 'CHILK' product has been described as cute and certainly has a very inviting appearance - what was your inspiration to create this product and differentiate the branding? // [あなたの「CHILK」製品はかわいいと言われていて、確かに非常に魅力的な外観をしています - この製品を作成してブランドを差別化するためのあなたのインスピレーションは何でしたか?]
SK: Many customers asked me, “Where can I buy souvenirs in Sangenjaya?”. That is the reason I wanted to create a cool and truly valuable product for Sangenjaya. However, since Setagaya Ward is an urban area, there are no primary product industries (agriculture, dairy, rice, etc.) so we decided to associate “Sangenjaya” with the concept of focusing on the ingredients. ( 三 means "three", so CHILK is 3 layers) // [多くのお客様に「三軒茶屋のどこでお土産を買えますか?」と聞かれたのがきっかけです。. 三軒茶屋にあう、「カッコイイ」そして「真に価値のある製品」を創りたいと思ったのがきっかけです。. しかし、世田谷区は都会なので一次産業の製品(農作物、酪農、米 etc)がありません。. そこで、素材にこだわってコンセプトに”三軒茶屋”を関連付けることにしました。.]
FH: How do you make such a product, from the ingredients used to the process chosen to make it and how do you keep it so fresh? // [どのようにしてそのような製品を作るために選ばれたプロセスに使われる原料から、そしてどのようにあなたはそれをそんなに新鮮に保ちますか?]
SK: CHILK is a three-layer cheesecake. After baking the bottom two layers in the oven, they are left to cool in the refrigerator. Then the top layer of rare cheese goes on. It is a very time-consuming product. Commitment to the ingredients: 1) A rich luxurious cream using only raw milk from healthy dairy cows that graze on the green grass from the Neji area of Hokkaido. 2) Yogurt made with 100% raw milk grown by producers using non-GMO feed. 3) Cream cheese from Tokachi, Hokkaido with a good balance between richness and sourness. 4) Homemade mild sour cream // [チルクは3層のチーズケーキです。下2層はベイクドチーズケーキです。オーブンで焼いた後、一度冷蔵庫で寝かせます。その後、一番上の層を入れます。一番上の層は、レアチーズケーキです。とても時間のかかる製品です。【素材へのこだわり】1.放牧牛の濃厚な生クリーム. 北海道根釧地区で、青草のみを飼料として放牧された健康な乳牛の生乳のみをしようした贅沢な生クリームです2.生乳100%ヨーグルト. 非遺伝子組み換え飼料のみを使用した生産者が育てた生乳のみを使用してつくったヨーグルトです3.北海道十勝産のクリームチーズ. 北海道十勝産のコクと酸味のバランスが良いクリームチーズです4.自家製のサワークリーム. 当店で手作りの角の取れたマイルドなサワークリームです]
FH: What can we expect from the future of your cafe and products? How do you plan on sharing with more and more people? // [私たちはあなたのカフェや製品の未来から何を期待できますか? どうすればもっと多くの人と共有する予定ですか?]
SK: In the future, I would like to deepen value while cherishing the rarity. // [今後は、「希少性」を大切にしつつ価値を深めていきたいと考えています。]
Disclosure: face to face conversations were supplemented with a full transcript that was later translated. // FH
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Shoes and boots were the mainstays of a 19th-century factory set in the periphery of Northampton, a town known for its male footwear heritage. Today, topping a fifth of its heyday production at 1000 pairs per week, the workers collective has survived by shifting from single style mass production to a multi-variant craft.
Keeping a pure design using classic tools, Solovair takes pride in its European sourcing and use of vegan synthetic materials. Whether sold under their own brand or privately, modest roots continue by using the same fully functional equipment that put together the first pair of Dr Martens' boots, from a time they were made under license.
Over 100 unique processes per foot are mastered by a team focused on quality and not quantity. 'Clickers' tessellate double-sided cutter shapes to reduce material wastage, whilst being mindful to workaround the natural imperfections. Resultant fabric segments are sewn up after a process of skiving to thin out edges and set in their final three-dimensional form by being pulled over a foot-shaped 'last'.
A welt, of Goodyear invention, is sewn around the base of the upper part and separately to the sole which is then fused together by slicing a heated plate between the two plastic surfaces, melting along its path. Final trimming and polishing completes the footwear ready for branding and boxing.
Source Motion, Solovair // Stills, Text & Curation, FH //
All roads lead somewhere and are best when overlaid with universal communication to inform direction, segregate flow and safely allocate space. Hard wearing solutions exist to apply indelible lines and symbols to the road. Paint can be applied semi-automatically at speed via vehicle attachments such as a bucket metering system or spray nozzle. Alternatively, a handheld stencil is filled and manually manoeuvred to fill a solid area. Fine, non-linear designs can be traced by an autonomous chalking robot to deliver consistently accurate, faster and safer make-ready for roadside workforces.
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Bicycles are a key part of human transport history and, with a largely unchanged fundamental design, will play an important future role too. Adoption is only rising with improving infrastructure, the proliferation of city hire schemes, and a wider shift toward sustainable consciousness. Folding bikes streamline this further by bridging public service gaps where final mile trips would otherwise be fulfilled with private alternatives.
At Brompton, every compact folding bicycle is made to a custom specification falling within 1 of 6 million combinations. The main frame starts with a batch of prefabricated steel tubes, rods and hinges loaded into jigs. Experienced welders employ the fine skill of brazing, blow torch heat applied to adjoining surfaces and molten brass acting as a glue, to create fine jewellery-like work in progress pieces. Nuanced interpretation is needed for balanced heat transfer across different profiles and thicknesses. Sub-assemblies are then incrementally combined as individual welders mark their unobtrusive coded signatures at each stage for complete traceability.
All parts are blast-treated ready for the paint shop and join a conveyor hook system travelling to an isolated room where electrostatically-charged spraying takes place to fully decorate the bare metal.
Manual operation continues on a separate line for wheels whereby fine spokes are threaded by hand into hubs and loosely connected to a rim. Loading into an auto-tensioner ensures accurate balancing before wheels roll onto a buffer carousel awaiting end state tyre fitting. Final assembly happens against the clock with a rhythmic rotation of specialist stations affixing smaller parts and fine tuning the two-wheeled cycle. // FH
Indo carpets are conceived from elaborate illustrations through a seemingly binary process. A matrix pattern is overlaid with unique designs and then transposed to the loom by means of song. Villagers thread each cotton vertical and dyed-wool row through weave-knot-comb cycles to the rhythm of their voices. A wash and dry session sets the fibres before multiple trim and thinning rounds begin to reveal the finished article. Rare mistakes do not go unnoticed and are preserved to highlight the technique’s fragility, albeit maintaining value. This handcraft is both a community cornerstone and sustainability statement intended to sweat the dexterity and harmony of people, in place of relentless, polluting machinery. // FH
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