well we have drunk from is a roofed structure, with room for three or four people to haul water, wash vegetables, or fill tubs. A shallow wooden splash basin catches runoff, which drains into a simple stone-lined channel leading to a small pond. This pond, partly functional, partly ornamental, is manmade, and it is carefully sited to collect drainwater from the entire site, though many farmhouses are sited to take advantage of existing natural ponds.
Considering the heavy rainfall that Japan experiences, providing adequate drainage is high on the list of farm design requirements. The homestead is therefore provided with two sources of water, one potable (the well), and one for general use (the pond). Wastewater is collected to become part of the general use. Some villages have the additional benefit of nearby natural rivers and streams or engineered water supplies, use of which may be approved for households. Many villages have communal washing streams, and it is not uncommon to see baskets suspended in the irrigation culverts running alongside homes, to cool and preserve vegetables. But unlike the communal systems, household water supplies must be provided and maintained by each individual family.
The dirt-floored work yard occupies a little more ground area than the main house. It is a true multipurpose space for almost any farm activity that is better done outdoors. We see wash hung out to dry and racks of vegetables drying in the sun. This is also where carpentry and repairs take place. One end of the yard is devoted to a small kitchen garden and a compost heap for mulch. In particular, though, the area must be large enough for threshing and winnowing large quantities of rice after harvest.
The house is over one hundred years old, and it bears its age handsomely. Venerable and spacious, in materials and coloration it is fully of a piece with its surroundings. The thick thatch roof is massive and enveloping. Its eaves descend almost to eye level, providing a generous roofed space all around the exterior of the building. This intermediate space, the dobisashi, is ample enough for many kinds of work and shelters a variety of implements from the elements—fruits and vegetables can easily be strung up to dry here as well. For part of its length it shelters the engawa, the raised veranda, and the depth of the eaves allows someone seated there to converse easily with someone outside while both are sheltered from sun or rain. It is a simple arrangement, beautiful in its function and accommodation, and perhaps unique in the world.
Farmhouse walls come in many types. The materials used on the exterior surfaces are chosen for local cost and availability, appropriateness to local climate and weather, and the durability required at that particular location on the house. The lower walls of the large farmhouses in the mountainous, snowbound Hida region, for example, are usually covered in cryptomeria bark, giving them a moisture-resistant and easily replaceable surface. Vertically battened wood siding is common in several regions as well, and in the Akita region of the far north, the walls are thatched like the roofs for extra insulation from the cold. But the most common wall treatment by far is a mixture of clay and straw that is applied between exposed half-timbers as wattle and daub, and this is how Shinichi’s house is made.
From time to time one sees farmhouses that have a layer of hard white plaster added over the clay undercoat, resulting in a strikingly contrasting patterned wall like those of temple residences, and the homes of samurai and wealthy townsmen. But Shinichi’s farmhouse presents a face of earth to the world—sandy ochre expanses framed by tough structural timbers, all beautifully aged and eroded by time and patched with use. The walls of the few work areas under the eaves have been reinforced with panels of split bamboo, but even with this third material there is a wonderful harmony of earthen hues.
A simple wood-paneled sliding door gives access to a single generous ground-level opening, the o-do, and it is only in the details of its frame, as well as in the carved brackets that lend extra support to the eaves, that we see any truly decorative embellishment. On the other hand, the tight and skillful rope-work visible on the underside of the eaves, binding the poles and purlins of the roof to other, smaller elements, expresses a design spirit rooted in logic and economy but allowed to elaborate into an almost luxurious care and finish. Everything about the exterior of the house demonstrates a similar decisiveness, appropriateness, and awareness. Shinichi leads us inside.
inside a remarkable place
We find ourselves in a large, dark, earthen-floored space. Smoke wafts from a partly visible firepit to the apex of the roof high above, and the entire space is steeped in the smoky aroma. The atmosphere is damp and quite cool, even now at the height of summer. Sounds are muted by the earth beneath our feet.
We are in the doma, the earth-floored vestibule, starkly functional and ancient in spirit. This is a workspace, and the implements of farming life are arrayed on the wall like emblems: rakes, scythes, baskets, strainers, ropes, boxes, pestles, overshoes, hats. There is ample storage space for tools and food. A few of the larger farm contraptions like pumps and looms take up some floor space, but almost everything else finds a place off the floor. Rakes, ropes, tools, baskets, and racks are in nooks and crannies to our right. Straight ahead are an earthen stove and a back door, with assorted storage shelves and containers nearby. To the left is a raised, floored space with a suspended ceiling made of thin bamboo poles. Massive, squared wooden posts flanks the raised floor, but no wall or other divider separates it from the doma.
The floor of the doma is more carefully constructed than it appears, and it is very durable. Layer upon layer of clay mixed with lime have been laboriously pounded down and allowed to cure, leaving a surface more like concrete than plain earth. It is easy to clean and sheds water well, and after years of use the surface has taken on a pebbled texture, soothing to the eye and soft underfoot. This texture is all the more apparent because the only significant natural light comes through the wide door through which we have entered, a low-raking light that is diffused upward by the sheen of the floor and that puts its irregularities in high relief.
The Japanese have used these pounded earth floors since they began to build three thousand years ago, and the firepits and lashed and thatched roofs bear an identical pedigree. In fact, the doma sometimes goes by the name of niwa, “garden” or “courtyard,” implying that it began as a truly outdoor space. This degree of continuity, with design solutions being continually refined but surviving from neolithic times into the early modern period in clearly recognizable form, is remarkable and probably unprecedented among literate civilizations.
Shinichi seems to be proud and a bit self-conscious of his doma, which takes up nearly half of the overall interior area: proud because it is ample and generous and speaks of generations of hard work; self-conscious perhaps because it is nevertheless
