Urban Farm DB
← Back to cases
RooftopActive

Machinaka Saien

Osaka, Japan · Operator: 東邦レオ株式会社

Overview

An empty-handed rooftop rental garden offered on near-station rooftops in central Osaka. Run by Toho Leo, it provides a place where even beginners can casually enjoy growing vegetables and building community in the city.

Citizen participation

A plot-based rental garden on convenient near-station rooftops where even beginners can grow vegetables empty-handed. Basic tools such as hoes, watering cans, stakes and fertilizer are kept on site for free use, with support staff advice and events building community.

Operating model

A rooftop rental garden proposed and run by Toho Leo, a company with a track record in urban greening, operated on a membership basis through plot fees and using idle rooftop space as a place for citizen gardening and community.

Impact

Converts idle rooftop space into citizen gardens, expanding casual access to farming and community in the city center, and is featured as a representative example of urban rental gardens.

Land tenure

Lease

Idle rooftop spaces are leased and developed by Toho Leo as rooftop rental gardens.

Crops

  • vegetables

Scale

大阪都心の駅近ビル屋上などに展開する屋上貸し菜園。手ぶらで通える区画制

Sources(2)

Related cases

Rooftop
2017

Urban Farmers Club (Shibuya)

JPTokyo, Japan

An urban-farming NPO that began on a Shibuya rooftop, building farms and rice paddies on rooftops and urban gaps around Harajuku, Shibuya and Ebisu so that citizens can cultivate together and turn Tokyo into an 'edible forest'.

CommunityFood educationCompost+2

urbanfarmers.club+1

Rooftop
2019

Kameido Sengen Nursery Rooftop Garden (with MyFarm)

JPKoto, Tokyo, Japan

A licensed Koto-ward nursery in Tokyo built a full rooftop vegetable garden on its sunny roof in autumn 2019. Moving up from ground-floor planter boxes, children experience food education by sowing, observing, harvesting and cooking. MyFarm runs the monthly garden lessons, making it an urban model for pre-school children learning the link between farming and food.

Food educationCommunityDIY

myfarm.co.jp+1

Rooftop
2009

Soradofarm Ebisu (rooftop rental garden)

JPTokyo, Japan

A membership rental garden opened in 2009 on the rooftop of the Atre Ebisu station building directly connected to JR Ebisu Station. A rooftop-greening company converted an underused downtown rooftop into a come-empty-handed kitchen garden for citizens, pioneering rooftop-garden rollouts across Japan.

DIYCommunityFood education

shibukei.com+1

Rooftop
2011

Aozora Noen

JPKadoma, Japan

One of Kansai's largest rooftop farms, opened in 2011 on the roof of the Bears commercial building in Kadoma, Osaka. With about 900 square meters and 100 plots themed on food education, it turned an urban rooftop into a place for community farming and exchange.

CommunityFood educationDIY

aozoranouen.com+1

Machinaka Saien — Urban Farm DB