Type: Restored kominka (old folk house)
Location: Tsu-shi, Mie
Method: Traditional Japanese wooden construction
Tsuchikabe walls reinforced by bamboo laths
Total floor area: 174.4 m2
Completed: 2018
Design/construction: Seyseysha

This old Japanese-style house which was built in the middle of the Meiji period in Tsu-shi, Mie is renovated.

The house sometimes flooded because of the rising of a north river before a bank constructed after the war. Almost all floor framing, containing the base of a pillar and ashigatame (horizontal ties that interconnect the bases of posts and provide resistance against lateral load), was decayed markedly and also the bottom of the tsuchikabe walls came down.

No matter how damaged the old house built through traditional construction methods is, it can revive again by exchanging a damaged place for a new one.
The same is true of this house. The construction of granite cornerstones called ishibadate remained as it was. After I jacked up the pillars, I spliced at the base of them and exchanged ashigatames, joists, and floorboards under tatami-mats for new ones. The falling tsuchikabe was repainted after I repaired the bamboo laths.

The house can revive without degradation in construction quality. It will probably continue to live for a long time.