民家学校 大平宿

September 18-20 stayed three days in a hundred-year-old Japanese folk house in 大平 (Odaira) in Nagano-Prefecture.

神向寺さん (Mr. Jinkoji) cooking over an open fire indoors.

民家学校

June 5-6 attended the Minka (民家) course sponsored by the Japan Minka Revival Association (日本民家再生協会). "Minka" means folk house in Japanese. On Saturday, we helped with the renovation of a minka in Yamanashi Prefecture. Last fall I helped with the rethatching and making the bamboo base for the earthen plaster walls. This time we plastered the finish coat with Keisodo (珪藻土), a plaster described in a previous posting. On Sunday, we visited several renovated Minkas in the morning. Structure of thatch roof. Irori (囲炉裏), charcole pit. Silk worms. In the afternoon, we attened a lecture given by Amamiya-san (雨宮氏), a carpenter who uses traditional tools and refrains from using power tools as much as possible. Shed built by Amamiya-san.

Japan Minka Revival Association

September 22 attended a workshop in 塩山(Enzan), Yamanashi Prefecture sponsored by the Japan Minka Revival Association (JMRA). "Minka" means house in Japanese, but refers to traditional Japanese timber-framed homes with wattle and daub walls. Takeru YOKOKAWA, a friend of mine who I met at the international ecovillage conference in Tokyo this past April, has just been appointed school principle of a Minka School associated with JMRA. The main teacher is 大沢匠先生(Mr. Ohsawa), a architect living and working in Kamakura. The workshop consisted of two parts, 竹小舞(takekomai) and 茅葺屋根(thatched roofing). Takekomai is the wattle of Japanese earthen plastered walls.Before the second world war, many rural Japanese villages were self-sufficient in terms of roofing materials. Each individual home would cultivate its own reed field and harvest yearly. The year's harvest would be gathered and used to re-thatch one or more buildings in the community. Thatching was done as a community.

However, most of the reed fields are no longer cultivated and there are very few thatch roofers. Japanese thatched roofs are framed with poles and bamboo lashed together with straw rope. Also great for taking naps.

大山千米田

August 1st through the 7th, working as a staff member at Toshiba Youth Conference for a Sustainable Future 2009, sponsored by Toshiba and organized by BeGood Cafe, the event organizer that organizes the International Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo each year. As a part of the Youth Conference, high school students and teachers from Thailand, Poland, the US, and Japan gather for one week to discuss environmental issues. This years theme is "Halve CO2 Emissions by 2050 - Achieving the Best Mix of Energy Resources". Today we visited the former residence of Mikio Mizuta (1905-1976), founder of Josai International University and Japanese ｐolitician. The residence was built 150 years ago and is a well preserved example of Edo era architecture. We then visited 大山千米田 Oyamasenmaida in Kamogawa City, Chiba Prefecture. Oyamasenmaida consists of roughly 250 terraced rice paddies (pictured above).

囲炉裏、修道院、うこっけい

On May 13 and 14 visited Sei in Chiba Prefecture with Kazuko and Takeru. Sei lives in a timber-frame home built in the Edo era, several hundred years ago. His parents are retired and keep chickens, goats, and a garden. Sei also gardens, produces sea salt, and makes miso and soya sauce. Dinner around a Irori.

On May 15, visited a 修道院, a catholic monastery of sorts, in Kanagawa Prefecture. The building emphasizes natural materials and the grounds incorporate edible landscaping and vegetable gardens, minor grains, and chickens.

June 17 we had a silky fowl dressing and cooking workshop at the research studio.

Iide-Town in Yamagata-Prefecture

March 13 traveled to Iide-Town in Yamagata-Prefecture, the birthplace of sustainable rural planning in Japan. My advising professor is Itonaga-sensei. Itonaga-sensei’s professor, Aoki-sensei, began working with Iide-Town over 30 years ago. Yamagata-Prefecture is located in rural, northern Japan and receives significant snow fall. This is a photo of a traditional two-story thatched roof house, where in winter it is not uncommon to exit the home from the second story.
Maeno-san, a doctorial student who graduates this March has taken a duel position working with the Iide town government and post-doc at Nihon University. His doctorial research dealt with developing sustainable local community energy systems utilizing mainly biomass. We visited a demonstration “green” home in Iide which utilizes radiant floor heating and a pellet boiler. Adjacent to the home is an insulated “ice house” where packed snow and perishable goods are stored. Within the ice house is a “cold exchange” coil which connects to the home’s radiant floor piping, and in summer can act as an air conditioning system.

This is an insulated storage facility, divided roughly in half, and located adjacent to several large greenhouses. Snow is packed in one half the building while perishable goods are stored in the other half. This eliminates the need for summer refrigeration.

2007-09-22

On Saturday, September 22, Junya OOBA, a friend of mine, and I visited the construction site of Mr. UEDA, a timber frame builder and architect. UEDA has an architect’s license (of the highest degree in Japan), but works mainly as a timber framer.

The Japanese art of timber framing is known as 宮大工 (Miyadaiku), which literally means temple carpentry. Due the natural abundance of trees and high humidity that rusts nails, Japan has a long tradition of timber framing.

Traditionally, 荒土壁 (aratsuchikabe), that is walls of bamboo and mud plaster, are built between posts. Junya checks out the plaster mixing station: trough, mud, chopped straw.

As commercial building materials become the norm, traditional timber framing is not being included in modern building codes. Mr. UEDA is a member of a study group that actually runs experiments to provide data to building officials.