A neighborhood and its empty homes pull toward each other like gravity.

An Archive Map of Vacant Houses, Now Live

Konel led the development of "Vacant House Map," a website dedicated to documenting empty properties across the city, commissioned by the Vacant House Lab — a Kanazawa-based organization. The platform takes an unconventional approach to real estate discovery, centering on the gravitational pull between vacant houses and the communities that surround them.

Issue

Abandoned houses form the open margins of a neighborhood.

Vacant houses are not merely idle assets, they are the breathing room left within a city. How they are used can dramatically reshape the atmosphere and landscape of a neighborhood. Activities rooted in vacant properties play a vital role in community building, yet many sit neglected today, their potential left untapped. For these spaces to come alive again, thoughtful stewardship is essential.

Creation

A Gravitational Map of Vacant Houses — Reimagining the City as a Solar System

By positioning Kanazawa Castle as the sun and vacant houses as orbiting planets, this map is designed to visualize each property's relationship to the city — while intentionally obscuring exact locations. Built as a collective archiving platform, it allows anyone to freely submit entries, gradually building a community-driven record of vacant homes across the city. Each contributor's involvement is rendered as a gravitational force, making the organic spread of civic engagement tangible. Rather than prioritizing accuracy, this is an interface that captures relationships and presence.To evoke the passage of time between vacant houses and the city itself, a screensaver was also developed — a clock modeled after the roads and rivers of the urban map.

Direct mailers were also produced to draw local residents into the gravitational pull of vacant houses.

Direct mailers were also produced to invite community members to participate. The front face presents the guiding philosophy behind the Vacant House Lab, while the back is designed as a gateway into the vacant house map — creating an entry point for everyday people to connect with the project organically.

Technology

A Design Philosophy That Protects Through Deliberate Displacement of Location Data

Submitted vacant house data is intentionally displaced from its true location, reflecting only a general sense of distance and direction relative to Kanazawa Castle. This approach eliminates the risk of precise identification while preserving enough geographic context to remain meaningful. The result is a proprietary mapping logic that keeps the platform open to community contribution without compromising safety.

Future

Toward a Vacant House Infrastructure That Scales Across Communities

This project is envisioned not as something fixed to Kanazawa, but as an adaptable platform — one that can take root anywhere by designating a local landmark as its gravitational center. By reframing vacant houses as nodes in a relationship network rather than isolated points, the platform surfaces the unique cultural gravity of each community. Looking ahead, a franchise-based rollout is also on the horizon, with scalability extending well beyond Ishikawa Prefecture.