Panasonic sets up community studio in Tokyo

Osaka [Japan]: Panasonic Corporation on Monday announced that it has set up a new community studio called Relife Studio Futako in Tokyo, in cooperation with Culture Convenience Club Co., Ltd. (CCC) in the planning, to serve as a contact point for customers in the home electronics and housing fields.

This new facility, which will open on March 10, is located on the second floor of the home appliances store of Tsutaya, a CCC group company, in Futako Tamagawa in Tokyo.

The new community studio combines Panasonic’s technologies, products and services cultivated in its home appliances, equipment and housing businesses and knowledge of CCC that is offering lifestyle ideas through books and other cultural content. The new facility provides a space in which visitors can discover new ideas for housing and lifestyles through exhibitions, hands-on workshops and interactions. They can also find innovative ideas to improve quality of life.

Relife Studio Futako is strategically located in Futako Tamagawa, which borders Jonan, Josai and Kohoku in the metropolitan area where there is high demand for new homes and renovations. The Futako Tamagawa Tsutaya Electrics store, where the studio is housed, is drawing in customers in their 30s to 40s with families. These factors make the new facility a strategic base in the Tokyo area for Panasonic to create new customer contacts. Through this facility, the company aims to strengthen customer interaction to generate demand for the living and housing businesses, working with related Panasonic group companies and their clients in the region.

The new facility consists of the Studio Area and Salon Area. The Studio Area presents ideas along Panasonic’s concepts of RELIFE, or new styles of living, that the company proposes based on lifestyle analysis of visitors to the Tsutaya store. In the Salon Area, lifestyle experts provide services and information about living. The activities in the studio are directed at the “premium age juniors” aged 35 and above, as well as the “premium age” who are 55 and up – the prime target of existing RELIFE projects.

Visitors can find ideas for living spaces from exhibits that integrate home appliances and housing equipment with books, sundries and interior goods. In addition, they can find products before they’re ready to go to market and prototypes under development, in a move that supports commercialisation of such products. In cross-industry collaboration, Shiseido’s skincare products “WASO” and Tokyo Nishikawa’s bedding brand “&Free” join the exhibit. Talk shows and workshops focusing on ideal living and housing will be held to offer new insight from people both inside and outside the company.

Panasonic aims to make RELIFE Studio Futako a touchpoint for two-way communications on new lifestyles, as well as supporting the creation of new businesses and revitalising local communities by listening to the voices of local residents and customers, and utilising the knowledge of outside experts, in addition to the technology, ideas and services offered by different industries and fields.

Through this new community studio, Panasonic aims to provide a better living space enabling each customer to enjoy high quality living from every aspect of their daily lives.

For the premium age junior generation who treasure their relationship with their families and friends, Panasonic proposes a RELIFE of dining that starts with people gathering and chatting, then preparing and eating meals together and enjoying exchanging stories around the company’s “Irori Dining.” This dining style is inspired by Japan’s traditional “irori,” or sunken hearth, a focal point for family gathering.

For the premium age generation who appreciate nature and love to live a life surrounded by greenery, Panasonic proposes a RELIFE centering around its My Home Resort bath that treats the senses like a spa in the middle of nature. Combined with Japanese culture of enjoying the bath, this will tap into nature’s healing power to refresh your body and soul.

For people in the premium age who pursue a life with a sense of richness, Panasonic presents a RELIFE that allows for a time for reflecting on yourself and improving your beauty and soul without minding the eyes of other people. Panasonic’s Salon a la Maison vanity room creates a private space in your home.

Panasonic also has in mind those in the premium age generation who want to get the most out of their hobbies. A RELIFE centering around the Panasonic XM1 electric-assisted mountain bike, which invites them to get out and see things they’ve never seen or experienced before, allows them to play stylishly whether sports or other outdoor activities.

For the premium age juniors who seek a life with a sense of richness, Panasonic recommends a RELIFE that lets them look and appreciate things and their beauty as they are. This concept centers around Kmew’s “Solido” recycled interior design boards that have natural texture and Shiseido’s WASO skincare products born of the goodness of “washoku,” or Japanese cuisine, that brings out the flavor of the ingredients themselves.

For the premium age juniors who want functional and convenient lifestyles and the quality of their surrounding environment, Panasonic proposes a RELIFE that fosters a good night’s sleep in an environment with the warmth of nature. This concept combines Panasonic’s device network control technology for creating an ideal bedroom environment including temperature, humidity, lighting and acoustics, and the expertise of Tokyo Nishikawa, a bedding expert that develops products from a sleep and life science perspective.

Panasonic wants to inspire the premium age and premium age junior generations who pursue high-quality living and have their own policy, by introducing people who have developed such innovative products as Panasonic’s Irori Dining and Private VIERA portable TVs, as well as developers of the prototypes of Ambient Media Player and “Kyo-zutsu” speakers (by GO ON x Panasonic Design). Their stories as to where they started and how they made them with what vision will give these generations a hint for improving the quality of their lives.

In line with the above themes, CCC will be providing ideas and selling books, sundries and interior goods in the new facility. (ANI)