The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2023–2025
Dentsu's HERITAGE DATABANK scans Gunkanjima into 3D data that funds its own conservation
Dentsu 3D-scans crumbling Gunkanjima into open data, then licenses it to games and film sets so fees fund its conservation — Spikes Asia 2025 GP.
Dentsu Inc.
What it had to solve
Gunkanjima, the abandoned coal-mine island off Nagasaki that UNESCO listed in 2015, is decaying and largely off-limits; only about ten days of photography were possible, and conventional preservation budgets were tiny. Dentsu's challenge was to make conservation sustainable rather than charity-funded.
How it works
Gunkanjima, the battleship-shaped coal-mine island 18 km off Nagasaki, was abandoned in 1974 and listed as part of the UNESCO 'Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution' in 2015. Its concrete apartments are collapsing and most of the island is closed to visitors, so conventional preservation is both urgent and nearly impossible to fund.
Dentsu's HERITAGE DATABANK, launched in 2023, treated the island not as a monument to protect but as data to productise. With Nagasaki City's cooperation, a team scanned the entire island over about ten days at ultra-high resolution — including no-entry areas and the insides of structures — creating a complete digital twin.
The data then went to work: the 'Shibuya Gunkanjima Exhibition' (January 2024) let visitors virtually land in forbidden zones and dissect individual buildings; virtual-production background assets for filmmaking went on sale in July 2024 with part of each licence fee returned to the city as conservation budget; and in January 2025 the permanent Fortnite stage GUNKANJIMA ARCHIVE opened the whole island — restricted areas included — to players worldwide.
The loop — digitise once, license to games, film and the metaverse, return fees to conservation — won the Digital Craft Grand Prix at Spikes Asia 2025 and an ACC award. The project turned an inaccessible, decaying island into a globally playable asset, and positioned Dentsu as the architect of a conservation model other municipalities and temples began exploring.
Why it lands
- The insight reframed heritage as data — one scan, many industries, instead of one museum, one poster.
- The revenue loop made conservation sustainable and turned players and filmmakers into funders.
- Digitising no-entry zones created experiences that even visitors to the real island cannot have.
- Choosing Fortnite and virtual-production sets put the archive where young audiences already are.
- Timing — 50 years since the mine closed, ten years of World Heritage status — gave the launches a news hook.
What it did
The project won the Spikes Asia 2025 Digital Craft Grand Prix and ACC honours, with juries citing the self-funding loop. Gunkanjima became explorable worldwide — forbidden areas included — and the model expanded toward other heritage sites, reframing preservation from a cost centre into a business.
What you can take
Don't fund preservation with donations — make the asset itself a product: digitise once, license the data to many industries, and let usage revenue flow back to conservation.
Since then
The Fortnite stage became a permanent, free-to-play archive of the island, and the team said the model was built to be copied by other municipalities, temples and heritage sites — talks were already underway. For Dentsu, HERITAGE DATABANK became a flagship of 'creative transformation': an agency product rather than a campaign, winning the Spikes Asia 2025 Digital Craft Grand Prix and proving a World Heritage asset can generate its own preservation budget through games, film and virtual experiences.
Sources
- メタバース プロダクション、世界遺産「軍艦島」の3Dデータをバーチャルプロダクション向け背景素材として7月5日より提供開始
- 電通、「Spikes Asia 2025」においてDigital Craft部門でのグランプリ、Grand Prix for Goodを含む、12の賞を受賞
- Spikes Asia2025が発表に、日本からは3作品がグランプリを受賞
- 長崎の世界遺産「軍艦島」を3Dデータ化、禁止エリアも体験できる展示を渋谷で
- Updating Conservation with World Heritage 3D Data! The Challenge of HERITAGE DATABANK
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