The paper examines how small towns and communities in Japan are being reinvented, or ‘re’-made not only by architects but also by an emerging group of young, often urban-rural migrants, who are actively engaged in self-build and DIY methods. Japan is one of the first countries to enter a post-growth society with a stagnant economy and rapidly aging and decreasing population. Traditional revitalization efforts have included investing large amounts into public building projects such as the museum and resort boom in the 1980s which proved to be unsuccessful with the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s. Since then, small-scale approaches focusing on participatory and socially engaged methods are seen as a promising alternative. Since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake there is a small but growing group urban-rural migrants who are choosing to move to rural areas, renovate vacant houses into homes, shops and ateliers and creatively revitalizing the social and physical rural landscape. The subject of study is the everyday vernacular comprised of buildings which are not seen as historic monuments worthy of protection. These buildings are currently at risk of being abandoned especially in rural areas with the current number of vacant houses in Japan exceeding 8 million in 2013. The study adopts ethnographic methods involving visiting projects and interviewing key actors involved in the renovation and documenting the resulting structures. In addition, the fieldwork includes participating in several DIY projects as a volunteer regularly going to construction sites. Through this firsthand experience the hopes and motivation of people engaged in DIY projects as well as the opportunities and challenges they face reveal changing attitudes in Japanese society. In addition, the architectural transformation process such as how deign decisions are made and executed are an alternative to traditional top-down processes redefining the role of architecture and architect in contemporary Japan.