27才で車中泊旅を初体験、以降ハマる。Webマーケッター・ライターとして活躍し、"好きなときに、好きな場所で、旅するように暮らす"を目標に「VANガール」としてVANLIFEの魅力を発信中! Twitter: @VANGIRLJAPAN
Van Lifers special feature explores the inspiring lives of the next-generation people living in vans. Vangirl Kaori Sakai talks with Akiko Takeda (武田明子) about her traveling design company, Yohaku Design, in a mobile house. Be amazed how Akiko keeps her day job as she goes car camping all over Japan!
This has been my life for 3 years. I used to work for graphic design firms in Tokyo for ten years until I started feeling suffocated going to the same office over and over again. I didn't really want to quit working so I thought the best option was to bring my office with me while traveling across the country, so... voila! now I'm a traveling designer.
Because I wanted to have my own space that I could use anytime and take anywhere. I usually work long hours and didn't want the distraction you get with a shared office. Right now, I'm based in Yahaba, Iwate in my mini office inside my mini-truck-turned-mobile-house. I originally lived in a MOVE Canbus and pushed the backseats down before working, but I felt cramped and uncomfortable in it after a while. Eventually, I moved to an actual mobile house mini truck in April of 2019.
Yup. I gave a talk one time in Shibuya and was asked by one of the attendees about my dream. I said I wanted to build a house on the back of a mini truck and have my office there, and as soon as I said that another person told me about the mobile house builders, SAMPO Inc. I got in touch with them, sent my design (I made a pretty detailed sketch indicating things like round windows), and they turned it into a reality in just a month and a half.
I've been used to driving small cars so I didn't think I was up to driving big and bulky RVs. Not to mention mobile houses are cheaper to maintain and provides more security because the inside is harder to see from the outside. Right now, my mobile house works both as a hotel and workspace while I travel, but hopefully in the future I'd be able to hold meetings inside as well. Mobile offices are still a novelty so people get too excited and loud when they see it, so it can't be a place for a meeting. (Laughs)
The interior looks so fancy you wouldn't imagine it's mobile! I understand why people clamor over it.
Every day is awesome! It's basically like having a grown-up toy. You can color it as you like, craft build your own furnishings, and hang out inside. There are so many things I can do, only the sky is the limit. I named it "ROOOM," which is one of the English translations of "余白" and I added an extra "O" to kind of emphasize the "vacant" meaning. ROOOM is the materialization of the margin in my life.
I love the solar panel and fake grass on the roof. Sometimes people go up there with me and hang out when the weather is good. It's an amazing feeling.
Having a meeting on the roof brings out the child in you. Really cool!
Also, I really love that ROOOM is photogenic. I took a lot of pictures at Lake Biwa and Hanamaki Airport and my favorites are definitely the ones with it.
I think the van life is the new way of living for anyone right now. It's fun, healthy, practical, you meet a lot of people, and... did I say it's fun? You may be thinking that it costs a lot of money to start, or worried about everything going wrong at the beginning, but just try renting a small car and customizing it and see where it goes from there. Let's create work through van life together!
27才で車中泊旅を初体験、以降ハマる。Webマーケッター・ライターとして活躍し、"好きなときに、好きな場所で、旅するように暮らす"を目標に「VANガール」としてVANLIFEの魅力を発信中! Twitter: @VANGIRLJAPAN