Tsukubasan Country House

This remodel was a stick-frame house originally imported from the US and constructed from a kit. The clients wanted a more open first floor plan with an overall emphasis on creating a Tuscan-style image, and prioritized the use of natural materials.

Tuscan Style Remodel

Modern Itakura-style Home

A Japanese vernacular house constructed in the "itakura" style: the shear walls are constructed from tongue and groove boards slid into a groove in the 4 x 4 columns that make up the vertical structure. In the formal rooms of the first floor, gypsum board is installed over the wood or in some cases replaces it, but in the second floor the walls are simply left as wood. The wood is Japanese Cedar (sugi), so it's quite aromatic. The visible columns in this house are a somewhat more expensive and higher quality Japanese Cypress (hinoki), but the covered columns and most of the beams are solid sugi. The beam and column joints of this building were all hand cut by the master carpenter, and assembled on site. The exterior is traditional exterior plaster with a wood "skirt" over the bottom 1.2 meters, to protect the plaster.

This building was constructed for a quite wealthy family, but is in total around only 2000 square feet in size, and is otherwise very modest by American standards, illustrating the strong cultural pressure in Japan not to stand out. 

Mikage Kitchen