The 5 peculiarities that houses in Japan are made of

Japanese houses outside large urban centers are extraordinary to Westerners because of their simplicity and marked austerity. There is no excess, every object has its own place and, together, acquires its own meaning.

O awesome.club talks about the basic concepts and quirks of Japanese homes that make them so unique and surprising.

The Japanese don’t usually fill their homes with extra furniture and knick-knacks. Ideally, in the room, called “ima” in Japanese, there must be nothing but the mats (cane and rice straw mats, with which the entire floor is covered). They also use this as a unit of measurement for the surface: a traditional environment includes 6 of them.

Other household items might include a tea table with rugs to sit on, a dresser, and futons (cotton-stuffed mattresses that are used in place of beds). Often these sofas are stored in special cabinets built in place and called “oshiire”, which have the same color as the walls and are therefore not visible. All of this helps to create an open space effect, where nothing disturbs or distracts. This concept also has another indisputable advantage: the minimum of furniture and other household items does not allow the accumulation of dust and dirt, which makes cleaning considerably easier.

In a traditional Japanese house, there are no inner walls in the traditional sense. Instead, lightweight sliding doors called “fusumas”made of wooden or bamboo boards and rice paper.

These ports are easily removed and, thanks to this, it is possible without much effort to change the plan of the house, making several rooms or changing the limits between them. Also, because of the little furniture and mobility, a room can be used as a bedroom at night and as a living room during the day.

But the bathroom and toilet in large houses are often in different spaces and, moreover, this room may have two chambers. In the first is the sink and shower, and in the second, the hot tub. Everything is installed according to the importance that the Japanese give to bathing procedures: dirt is cleaned in the shower, but the traditional Japanese bath, in the hot tub, aims to provide rest and relaxation.

The indispensable companion of Japanese homes is the garden. You can enter it directly from the house by opening the sliding doors called shōji. When weather conditions allow, the garden doors can always be open.

The proximity to nature is guaranteed by the materials: wood, bamboo, rice paper and cotton, which are used in the construction of houses for certain reasons: first, they are cheaper and more accessible than bricks or concrete and iron. Secondly, in Japan there are often earthquakes and rebuilding that “paper” house after a catastrophe is easier, and the chances of dying under the rubble are less.

Another characteristic of the Japanese house is the Plenty of dim lights, which enter the home through the outer walls made of a translucent material and are dissipated by their lattice structures. An analogous effect is created by lamps made of bamboo and rice paper.

The main interior of a Japanese house is not the external beauty, but the comfort and tranquility of the resident🇧🇷 There are no flashy, bright colors and a plethora of trinkets that Western department stores offer. All decorative objects are in one place, in a special cubicle called “tokonoma”. There they put the most valuable and beautiful things: engravings, netsuke figures, ikebana, scrolls with hieroglyphics, among others. This helps a person to relax and rest, as these few beautiful things in the house bring thoughts and contemplations.