Intermediate Space

In the traditional Japanese house, the distinction between in­terior space and exterior space is not clearly defined. Nature is drawn into the house, rather than excluded from it, by a variety of means such as shoji, bamboo screens, and the entranceway or veranda. Similarly, the interior can be extended beyond the walls of the house with the same devices, as people attempt to live as one with nature.

A comparison of Arab, American, and Japanese house plans will show that the Arab house is constructed around a court­yard, with thick walls built to the edge of the site. In the American suburban house plan, there is often no hedge to designate the boundary. The house, with reinforced doors and windows, is merely surrounded by a lawn. The Japanese house, in contrast, has a hedge around not just the edge of the lot, but the perimeter of the building as well.

The enclosure around the Japanese house is "soft," as opposed to the hard walls of the Arab house, and the open area around the American house. Or, put in another way, the distinction be­tween the public and private areas in the Arab and American plans is clear, and one knows whether one is inside or outside a house, whereas the Japanese house has a certain ambiguity.

Three Types of Enclosures

Arab house American house Japanese house

The Japanese house is surrounded by a "soft" natural barrier

Privacy

Although the Japanese house plan may lead to some ambiguity, Japanese architecture nevertheless attempts to protect a certain space from the exterior environment. And vague though it may be, there is still some kind of division between the two zones, determined primarily by whether one is wearing shoes or not. The feeling that Japanese houses afford little or no privacy is due to the fact that, although the number of barriers is rich in variety, they remain thin and light. But this poses no problem to the Japanese, for there is a certain refinement about a soft, bare­ly perceptible light seeping through a shoji paper door, or the sound of rain just on the other side of a latticed window.

In fact, privacy is preserved not physically but through distance, and Japanese refer to the most private part of the house, or the most sacred part of a shrine, as the "deep, inner recess." Unlike Western brick and stone design schemes which call for an interior and exterior divided by walls, a hierarchy of space has emerg­ed in Japan. The open space around the innermost, private bed chamber is divided into several rooms by the use of movable partitions. From this innermost room is a continuum of space through the rest of the house to the area below the eaves, to the garden, and even beyond the garden in some cases when distant scenery is included as part of the overall design.

Plan of Japanese house and garden (cross-section)

The Garden

In comparing photographs of Western gardens and Japanese gardens, one notices that in many Western plans the garden is viewed from outside and the building placed against that background. Japanese gardens, on the other hand, are intended to be viewed from an interior space against the background of a wall or fence. This is because Japanese gardens are designed in concert with the room interiors, giving full consideration to sight lines from the rooms, the corridor, or a special viewing platform.