Sugamo: Top-Notch Design for Grannies

20 Sep 2007 Category: Conscientious Design, Features, Japan

Sugamo: Top-Notch Design for Grannies

The entrance of Jizo Dori in Tokyo's Sugamo district, often called the "Harajuku for Grannies".

It’s a fact that Japan is an ageing society. So, where, if not in Tokyo, can you have entire areas to satisfy every age group’s most special needs: Harajuku, home of the PingMag headquarters, is commercially equipped with everything Japanese kids might want – idol singers’ photo shops, fast food restaurants lining the streets and dekotora, loudspeaker trucks, blaring out the latest J-Pop singles while circling around. On the other hand, just a couple of stops by JR train, there is an area known as Harajuku for Grannies: With its many barrier-free shops, the Sugamo neighbourhood of Tokyo attracts mostly elderly crowds. In our today’s PingMag, we compare Harajuku for youngsters with Sugamo for grandmas and examine deeper the design distinctions in both neighbourhoods.

Written by Ryoko
Translated by Rie Ishimi

1. Aspects around the stations

JR Harajuku Station is just one stop after Shibuya’s youth centre on the outer track of the Yamanote line. The building itself is built in the classic style of an old Japanese rail station, and is rather small in size compared to the high amount of traffic that passes through every day. However, as this is a fashion-conscious town for youngsters, in the station there are coin lockers you can lock with your mobile phone as key. We might nearly say that this is one of Harajuku’s unique characteristics.

On the other hand, Sugamo Station is the seventh stop from Harajuku Station on the outer track of the same Yamanote line. Our first impression of the station is that it has many open spaces and good facilities! Its walkways and stairs are wide enough, and physically-disabled people who need to use a wheelchair or a cane can walk comfortably. Elevators, escalators and benches for a little break are easily found.


Classic (and rather small) JR Harajuku Station filled with people. Is there no elevator because it is used mostly by young crowds?

Coin lockers on the way to the Meiji-Jingu exit: You can comfortably use your mobile phone as a key to open and lock these.

Sugamo Station: not quite fancy, but open and accessible!

As courtesy to elderly passengers, there are a lots of places to rest in the station.

2. Information displays in the station

Harajuku is a popular shopping spot for kids from all over Japan. Some travel long distances to visit their favourite shops, that is why the signs for displaying fares to other stations are rather complex and include a lot of other stations and small numbers. The sign is overhead, so you have to look up to get the information you need.

At Sugamo Station, since most of the people using this station are elderly, there is a big hand-written rate table and guide board just at eye level – and we could nearly feel their consideration to them. However, one thing which bothered us is the height of the ticket machines. We thought they are too high for small grannies…


The rate table at Harajuku Station. Lots of information in small numbers and symbols!

…and the rate table at Sugamo Station: eye-friendly for grannies.

The ticket machines which seem just a little too high for the elderly

3. Aspects in front of the stations

One foot out of the Harajuku Station and apart from the crowd in front of the station, it appears almost invigorating. The reason is: There is a forest just behind Harajuku Station. If you live in the city, you might know that this forest actually covers a wider area. So, it generates negative ions and purifies the air!


Lots of green seen from the platform of Harajuku Station.

The tree-lined street of Omotesando with many pedestrians. This railing serves as a bench.

Green!! Omotesando Street in Harajuku.

On the other hand, there is no greenery around Sugamo Station – but the pavement is flat and we find very few distractions such as advertising boards. Places to rest are all over this neighbourhood and are covered with roofs to provide shelter from rain and sunshine. How practical! Textured bricks are laid everywhere on the streets to prevent slips and spills in bad weather. Moreover, bicycles in a cycle parking space in front of the station are lined up in extremely good order. This is really amazing, as bicycle parks in Tokyo are often pretty chaotic.


Open space in front of the Sugamo Station.

Many temples and spaces to rest in Sugamo.

The more than orderly cycle parking space in front of Sugamo Station.

Now, we get to the point which concerns us a lot: When we measured the duration of the green lights at the pedestrian crossings in front of the stations, we got interesting results!

Crossing in front of Sugamo Station:

Crossing in front of Harajuku Station:

Pedestrian walk in front of JR Harajuku Station: crowded with fast walking shoppers.

While the duration of the crossing’s green light for pedestrians in front of Harajuku Station is very short, around 20 seconds, it is much longer in Sugamo, around 45 seconds! We assume this is because Sugamo’s ageing visitors walk slowly and Harajuku’s young crowds walk quickly…?

4. Advertisements and signs around the area

A billboard in fashionable Harajuku.

Lots of advertisements for fashion brands in Harajuku.

The signs in Harajuku consisting of high impact fonts.

To our surprise, advertisements also differ in each area. While we find a lot of advertisements for fashion brands and magazines in Harajuku, many advertisements in Sugamo consist of information for the daily life and advice for the ageing generation. Also, while texts in a lot of signs in Harajuku consist of English or Japanese written in the Roman alphabet, many signs in Sugamo show simple Japanese Kanji. While we find a lot of high impact fonts in Harajuku, elegantly plain fonts like kanteiryu [see picture below] are used often in Sugamo. Therefore we draw the conclusion that advertisements are different according to each age group and also the overall effect they have on the appearance of each district.


The signs in Sugamo include useful information. This one is for a druggist – with information about constipation!

Our favourite font in Sugamo: the Japanese kanteiryu font.

This traditional Japanese font is even used for this sign saying “No Cars Allowed”!

5. Shopping aspects

Probably the landlords want to have as many shops as possible in their buildings: In Harajuku, there are a lot of “semi-basement” shops that are halfway under street level and require visitors to go down four or five steps to enter. Young people seem to like this hideaway-kind of place. And the buildings with those semi-underground shops are always very busy.

For some reason, there are many ‘semi-underground’ shops in Harajuku.

On the other hand, most of the shops in Sugamo are barrier-free, giving easy access to people with canes, walkers or wheelchairs. Moreover, the layout of each shop is open and the height of the counter is rather low, and they provide an atmosphere that shop staff and customers can easily communicate.


Most of the shops in Sugamo are barrier-free.

They value communication between shop staff and customers. And the shops in Sugamo have open floor plans.

6. The restaurant menu

Harajuku is famous for its crepes. As the word ‘crepe’ shows, we can find a lot of Katakana and English in the restaurant menus in Harajuku. Young people are curious about food from other countries and prefer something new to Udon or Soba, the typical Japanese lunch dish.

A signboard for a trendy restaurant in Harajuku with English and Katakana.

However, what can be found in the restaurants in Sugamo are lots of plastic food samples in a display case. These three-dimensional samples are much easier to understand for elderly people than a menu with small letters.

Amazingly realistic plastic food samples outside a shop in Sugamo.

Today, we compared two neighbourhoods; Harajuku for young people and Sugamo for grannies. You might have already found further distinctions regarding the designs in these two hippster areas. If you spot something additional, please let us know at once!

66 Comments

  1. don’t tell anyone, but it’s really cheap to live in sugamo, and youre still just minutes from the yamanote. (SHH!)

    Posted by: nate on September 20th, 2007 at 10:09 pm

  2. Is there cheap hotel lodgings in Sugamo too? Might stay there a few nights for my next trip.

    Posted by: Cyberpukish on September 21st, 2007 at 12:25 am

  3. Besides, I’d also prefer 3d plastic samples instead of text

    Posted by: GK on September 21st, 2007 at 1:06 am

  4. Aren’t these “design distinctions” just a case of Harajuku being constantly developed over the years in response to influx of crowds and Sugamo not so? A valiant, if pointless, attempt to portay effects as causes and vice versa.

    Posted by: calligraphykid on September 21st, 2007 at 2:37 pm

  5. By the way, if you look at the railing on Omotesando-doori more closely, you’ll discover that it’s designed NOT to serve as a bench.

    Posted by: calligraphykid on September 21st, 2007 at 2:39 pm

  6. I loved Harajuku

    Posted by: Okinawa on September 21st, 2007 at 4:39 pm

  7. Calligraphykid, I’ve been told by Japanese directly, that Sugamo is Obachan no Harajuku. They had trouble explaining why, but the connection is there…

    Posted by: Spikydamn on September 21st, 2007 at 6:09 pm

  8. How funny. In my country the aged are used as biochemical fuels and lubricant to power our vast agricultural enterprise. Oh well, to each their own…

    Posted by: Ass is Crass on September 21st, 2007 at 6:15 pm

  9. Why not just come out into the sticks. Or you just can’t get away from Toyko?

    Posted by: Anonymous on September 24th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

  10. Why not just come out into the sticks. Or you just can’t get away from Tokyo?

    Posted by: Anonymous on September 24th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

  11. [...] has an article about the design of a district (Sugamo) in Tokyo for grannies. Share [...]

    Posted by: Global Voices Online » Japan: District For Grannies on September 25th, 2007 at 4:52 pm

  12. Ignore the haters. Regardless of the cause, there are obvious differences between the young/old areas of Tokyo. I find it rather fascinating! The areas of Japan I’ve always visited are either super-traditional or else super-modern… nothing really catering to the older generation.

    Posted by: Nathan on September 27th, 2007 at 8:17 am

  13. Haha, this is rather amusing seeing an article about a place I stayed at for 2 months this summer. Indeed Sugamo and Harajuku’s lifestyle is completely different. “Obaa-chan no Harajuku” is a very fitting title. Sugamo is definitely a residential area, period. I guess the easiest way to describe it with English terms is that it’s basically the suburbs. But by no means is Sugamo “the sticks.” To those who make comments like that, you’ve never been to Japan’s true countryside, have you? Also, ever heard of living outside of the main city? People do that a lot, even New Yorkers (not all of them live in Manhattan, etc).

    Even though Sugamo’s lifestyle is slower than that of Harajuku’s (Harajuku, Shinjuku, Shibuya — lifestyle is just fast paced); the people there are also much more considerate too. If anyone ever stops by Sugamo, I recommend going to the street with all the traditional sweet shops. You might get lucky with a sweet obaa-chan who’d give you a free dango ^_~

    Posted by: Jiayi on September 28th, 2007 at 3:58 am

  14. [...] a very interesting article from Pingmag that takes a look at how the Japanese managed to design a whole new town to be more [...]

    Posted by: Common People » Blog Archive » Usabililty for the Aged on September 28th, 2007 at 6:08 pm

  15. Can I reiterate my earlier point that just because Japanese people call it “Obaa-chan no Harajuku” doesn’t automatically mean that every supposition in this article is true.

    Where are the interviews with young Harajuku shoppers to show that they actually prefer basement stores and that these aren’t just the result of high demand for retail space? Why is there no comment from JR about its ‘design distinctions’ for Sugamo and Harajuku Stations? Is it because they may be just incidental? Do older people flock to Sugamo for its Showa-retro typefaces or is this just because the elderly are considered less important by the marketing industry and so are targeted by less sophisticated advertising?

    Far from being a hater, I actually think this was an original, inquisitive piece of design homework that just unfortunately happens to make some unsubstantiated claims and tries to turn simple economics into a unifying design policy. That’s all. Excuse me for injecting a note of reality into PingMag’s day.

    Posted by: calligraphykid on October 2nd, 2007 at 12:09 am

  16. In Sugamo, you can buy lucky red underpants. So Jdorarams tell me.

    That was an amusing article! Its interesting to see the place of design in a particular precinct’s culture.

    Posted by: oliphant on October 3rd, 2007 at 3:39 pm

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