A sophisticated beautiful presentation describing the traditonal houses of the Japanese style. Gives the whole idea about the infrastructure of the houses. Once a topic of the British Council for the schools to be made

1. AASHAY’S
PRODUCTION
presents

3. Housing in Japan
• Housing in Japan includes modern and
traditional styles. Two patterns of
residences are predominant in
contemporary Japan: the single-family
detached house and the multiple-unit
building, either owned by an individual or
corporation and rented as apartments to
tenants, or owned by occupants.
Additional kinds of housing, especially
for unmarried people, include boarding
houses (which are popular among college
students), dormitories (common in
companies), and barracks (for members of
the Self Defense Forces, police and some
other public employees).
• An unusual feature of Japanese housing
is that houses are presumed to have a
limited lifespan, and are generally torn
down and rebuilt after a few decades,
generally twenty years for wooden

4. INTERIOR
DESIGN

5. TRADITIONAL HOUSES
• Traditional Japanese housing does not
have a designated use for each room
aside from the entrance area (Genkan)
kitchen, bathroom, and toilet. Any
room can be a living room, dining
room, study, or bedroom. This is
possible because all the necessary
furniture is portable, being stored in
oshiire, a small section of the house
(large closets) used for storage. It is
important to note that in Japan, living
room is expressed as i-ma, living
"space". This is because the size of a
room can be changed by altering the
partitioning. Large traditional houses
often have only one ima (living
room/space) under the roof, while
kitchen, bathroom, and toilet are

6. • Somewhat similar to modern offices,
partitions within the house are created
by fusuma, sliding doors made from
wood and paper, which are portable and
easily removed. Fusuma seal each
partition from top to bottom so it can
create a mini room within the house. On
the edge of a house are r kaō , wooden
floored passages, that are similar to
hallways. R ka and ima are partitionedō
by sh jiō , sliding and portable doors
that are also made from paper and
wood. Unlike fusuma, paper used for
sh ji is very thin so outside light canō
pass through into the house. This was
before glass was used for sliding
doors. R ka and outside of the houseō
are either partitioned by walls or
portable wooden boards that are used
to seal the house at night. Extended
roofs protect the r ka from gettingō
wet when it rains, except during
typhoon season where the house gets

7. • For large gatherings, these
partitions are removed to create
one large meeting room. During a
normal day, partitions can
create much smaller and more
manageable living spaces.
Therefore, kitchen, bathroom,
toilet, and genkan with one
multipurpose living space create
one complete Japanese housing
unit. However, the bathroom,
toilet, and even kitchen can be
communal. (See Sentō.)
Therefore, the minimum Japanese
housing arrangement, which is
still possible to find if one is
looking for the cheapest room to
rent, consists of just genkan

8. Genkan
• One characteristic of a Japanese
home is the genkan, or entryway. It
includes a small area, at the same
level as the outside, where
arriving people remove their shoes.
As they take off their shoes,
people step up onto a raised floor.
They point the tips of their shoes to
the outside. The rest of the
residence is at the raised level of
this floor. Adjacent to the lower
floor is a shelf or cabinet called a
getabako (geta box) in which people
may place their shoes. Slippers for

9. Toilet
• The toilet in Japanese
housing is located away
from the bathroom and
separate from it. It usually
is in a small stall-like room
with only the toilet in it.
When entering the
bathroom, one
traditionally replaces
their house slippers with
plastic "toilet" slippers,

10. Kitchen
• The modern Japanese kitchen features
appliances such as a stove, a narrow fish
grill (broiler), and an electric refrigerator.
The stovetop may be built-in or may be a self-
contained unit on a counter-top, and it is
usually gas-burning, although recently
induction heating (IH) stovetops have become
popular. Common units of all types of stoves
include two to four burners. Broilers
designed for cooking fish are usually part of
the stove and are located below, and unlike
many Western-style grills, are not full width.
Built-in ovens large enough to bake or roast
are uncommon; in their place, work-top
multifunction convection microwaves are
used. Most kitchens have electric exhaust
fans. Furnishings commonly include
microwave ovens, hot water boilers, and
electric toaster ovens. Built-in dishwashers
are rare, although some kitchens may have
small dishwashers or dishdryers. The kitchen

11. Bathroom
• Japanese housing typically has multiple rooms for
what in Western housing is the bathroom. Separate
rooms for the Japanese toilet, sink, and ofuro
(bathing room) are common. Small apartments,
however, frequently contain a tiny single bathroom
called a unit bath that contains all three fixtures. A
small sink may also be built into the top of the toilet
tank – there is a tap, with the top of the tank forming
the sink, and the water draining into the tank – which
runs during the flush cycle; this is particularly
common in mid-20th century buildings. The room with
the sink, which is called a clothes changing room,
usually includes a space for a clothes-washing
machine. The room containing the bathtub is
waterproof with a space for washing, and often for
showering, adjacent to (rather than in) the tub. As a
result, bathwater is neither soapy nor dirty, and can
be reused. Many washing machines in Japan come with
an extension pipe to draw water from the tub for the
wash.
• Hot water usually comes from a gas or kerosene
heater. The heater is usually located outdoors (at
least in warm climates). Its gas supply may be from a
municipal utility or from tanks on site. The typical
Japanese water heater is tankless and heats water

12. Washitsu
• Many homes include at least one
traditional Japanese styled room, or
washitsu. It featurestatami flooring,
shoji rather than draperies covering the
window, fusuma (opaque sliding vertical
partitions) separating it from the other
rooms, an oshiire (closet) with two levels
(for storing futon), and a wooden ceiling.
It might be unfurnished, and function as a
family room during the day and a bedroom
at night. Many washitsu have sliding glass
doors opening onto a deck or balcony.
• Other bedrooms, as well as living rooms,
dining rooms, and kitchens, are in a
Western style. They usually have modern
synthetic floor coverings. Ceilings are
typically also synthetic, and might be
white or beige. Windows usually open by
sliding laterally, although many kitchen

13. One room mansion
• A one room mansion is a Japanese
apartment style in which there is
only one small room and usually a
compact bathroom. It is a
functional equivalent of the
Western-style studio apartment.
These styles of units are most
often rented by single individuals
due to their extremely small size
which makes it hard for more than
one person to reside in them. Most
of Japan's city apartments have
rooms such as these although
family units (around 60 to 90
m2/18 to 27 tsubo; 650 to 970
sq ft in size) are more common,

14. Modern Houses
• Housing is typically listed in real state
advertisements in the format of a number of
rooms plus letter designators indicating the
presence of common room areas, for example: 1R
or 2LDK. R designating room, L for living room, D
for dining room, and K for kitchen. In this
format, the bathroom and toilet are not
mentioned but are included with the exception of
some very small 1R or 1K's. L, D and K are not
really separate and are part of or next to the
kitchen. An LDK is bigger than a DK. The number
before the letters indicates the number of
additional multipurpose rooms. Often the rooms
are separated by removable sliding doors,
fusuma, so large single rooms can be created.
• Additionally, advertisements quote the sizes of
the rooms—most importantly, the living room—
with measurements in tatami mats (jō in Japanese,
traditional mats woven from rice straw that are
of a standard size: 180 cm by 90 cm (5 feet, 10
inches by 3 feet) in the Tokyo region, and 191 cm
by 95.5 cm in western Japan): "2DK; one six-

15. Construction
• Many single-family residences are
constructed by nationwide
manufacturers such asMatsushita
(under the name PanaHome),
Misawa Home, Mitsui, and Sumitomo
Forestry. Some such companies
maintain parks with model homes to
show to prospective buyers. The
builders of a condominium may open
a unit to show prospective buyers;
alternatively, they may construct
a separate model room elsewhere.
Makers of appliances similarly
operate showrooms to display

16. Construction materials
• For freestanding houses, wood
frames are popular. Two-by-four
construction is an alternative to
the native style. Houses may be
clad in siding or faced with
ceramic tile. Interiors often have
drywall, painted or with a wall
covering. Tile is a common roofing
material; it may be fired clay or
concrete. Clay tiles often bear a
color and a glaze.
• Large buildings are typically
constructed of reinforced
concrete. Roofs coverings include

17. Housing regulations
• The usual maximum allowed height of a
wooden building in Japan is two stories. Some
wooden houses may have lofts, but these may
not be used as bedrooms, only for storage
space. Steel and concrete buildings may have
more stories, but usually they only have two.
Basements are uncommon in private homes but
common in high-rise buildings.
• The ratio of built-upon area is regulated
according to a system called kenpeiritsu ( 建ペ
イ率 ?)involving the floor area of the house
and the area of land the house is built upon.
The area is restricted to being, for example,
80% of the area of the land.
The kenpeiritsu varies according to the
location of the land.
• The taxable value of a house is controlled by
its building material. Wooden houses are
considered to have a lifespan of twenty
years, and concrete ones to have a lifespan
of thirty years, and the assessed price
depreciates each year contrary to housing

18. EARTHQUAKE
RESISTANT
BUILDINGS
IN
JAPAN

19. • In Japan, ancient buildings, of relatively high
elevation, like pagodas, historically had
shown to been able to resist earthquakes of
highintensity, thanks to the traditional
building techniques, employing elastic joints,
and to the excellent ability of wooden frames
to elasticly deform and absorb severe
accelerations and compressive shocks.
• In 2006, Italian scientists from CNR patented
[28] a building system that they called "SOFIE
" [29], a seven-storey wooden building, 24
meters high, built by the "Istituto per la
valorizzazione del legno e delle specie
arboree" (Ivalsa) of San Michele all'Adige. In
2007 it was tested with the hardest Japanese
antiseismic test for civil structures: the
simulation of Kobe's earthquake (7,2 Richter
scale), with the building placed over an
enormous oscillating platform belonging to
the NIED-Institute, located in Tsukuba science
park, near the city ofMiki in Japan. This
Italian project, employed very thin and
flexible panels in glued laminated timber, and
according to CNR researchers could brought

20. CONSTRUCTION
OF
EARTHQUAKE
RESISTANT
BUILDINGS