In this series, we are in Machida, Japan where we are participating in a new Japanese house build. The house design is based on a very traditional Japanese building style. The architect, chose a more classic design with his client and utilized a lot of natural land features to help increase the comfortability of the house itself. The positioning of the house along side a hill provides cool air during the summer months and a protection from too much loss of heat during the winter months. It is difficult to juggle the somewhat extreme climate fluctuations in Japan. The hot and humid summer months and cold and dry winter months are equally as long and difficult to comfortably adjust to.
The house has a two stories with the common living area situated on the first floor. The 1st floor has a large 12.5 tatami great room and a dining, kitchen, and tea area are adjacent to the large great room. Also downstairs is a full bathroom with the toilet room separated. There is an outdoor terrace space that faces the hillside which will provide cool and shade during the summer months. The second floor is available space for rooms or storage. This house is designed for communal family living where all members of the family will reside in the same room.
In Part 2 of the House No. 2 build, we are continuing the raising of the timber frame from the second floor to the roof. The joinery starts to get more difficult as there are several pieces that need to slide perfectly together in order to set a wooden pin.
Hi everyone, we're at the Murakami house. This is day two. We're going to build up the second floor
and also the roof so
stay tuned
They're adjusting the footings on the foundation of the house
And uh, they're so accurate with it. They're making lines to mark the center so that the weight is distributed evenly
Japanese carpenters are very precise. They'll even make one millimeter adjustments just to make the structure perfect
They always make a
a makeshift floor using just a
I think this is 15 millimeter plywood
That way they can walk and they can set up the roof
So these holes are 30 millimeters
The hole is 30 millimeters wide
But the nuki is about 27 millimeters wide
And nuki is these cross members in the walls in a Japanese house
So you need to have them centered in a beam. So some of these nukis match up right in the middle of the beam
So they're trying to make it even so the overlap is the same
And they're going to stick wedges on both sides and it's going to lock them in
And you also want to pick a side
Because it is 27 millimeters
You want to put it on one side or on the other side, so we're always pulling it
So you can see how there's no gap here
But the other side will have like about a three millimeter gap
And that'll keep the wall even
Nuki are installed by sliding through a 30 millimeter hosel hana or through mortise
This house is using nuki that is 27 millimeters by 150 millimeters
We try to push all the nuki to one side and you can choose whatever side that you want to push the nuki towards
But we try to push it all to the one side and then lock that in place with nails
We install kusabi or wedges to lock the nuki in a vertical position
These kusabi can be either installed above or below the nuki
I did the hosel cutting
Hosel is when you cut the tenon
And it's a machine that has four saw blades and it cuts it right all at once
But we did it in a single day. We cut all these hosels
Yeah
These beams are a little bit wider
so
The machine that they have at the shop is not big enough to support it
So you have to go to another shop and use their tool
But we got it done really quick with that machine
I don't know how many joints are in this house
How's it going?
Still a little bit more
Foreign
