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Home & Interior Design books:
Building the Japanese House Today

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Manufacturer: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."

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Built like a piece of fine furniture, the traditional Japanese house is universally admired for its clean lines, intricate joinery, and unparalleled woodworking. Focusing primarily on a new guesthouse in California, this elegant volume shows how a classic Japanese house can be built to offer the warmth and comfort that modern homemakers require.

Len Brackett, rigorously trained as a temple carpenter in Kyoto, has spent decades adapting the ancient Japanese design aesthetic to Western needs. Here he demonstrates step-by-step how both the traditional live-on-the-floor house, as well as models that accommodate furniture, can be constructed to provide such modern essentials as central heating, insulation, computerized lighting systems, and the latest electronics. This practical and inspiring guide-with gorgeous, clear photos and diagrams-is an indispensable resource for those who'd like to live in a Japanese home, for professionals who want to build them, and for any reader who delights in Japan's age-old aesthetic traditions.


PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS:

Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 728.370952
EAN: 9780810959316
ISBN: 0810959313
Label: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
Manufacturer: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 2005-10-01
Publisher: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
Studio: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."


SIMILAR ITEMS:

• Japan Style: Architecture+Interiors+Design
• The Japanese House: Architecture and Interiors
• Measure and Construction of the Japanese House
• The Japanese Bath
• Shoji: How to Design, Build, and Install Japanese Screens


CUSTOMER REVIEWS:

Excellent reference, a much needed addition to the field -
Building the Japanese House Today fills a void that has frustrated me for several years. It is difficult enough to find english language books on traditional Japanese architecture, much less those that have practical application in today's society. This book is a case study of one building project.

If this book has a flaw, it is that it reads too much like an advertisement for East Wind, Inc., the timber framing company whose work is featured in the book. That said, there is enough technical and philosophical discussion to make this an excellent companion volume to, say, Heino Engel's Measure and Construction of the Japanese House.

This book is no DIY manual, but there is more than enough information to make this book a valuable addition to the library of an armchair architect or timber framing student.

Unique find -
This book is full of the most beautiful pictures of close up japanese residental architecture. It goes into tradational japanese rooms and how to adapt it to fit modern day needs. It goes through building materials and intricate explanations on elevation levels, roofs, sliding doors, japanese bath and more. It's definitely worth the price if you're interested in japanese architecture or plan to have a japanese style house.

A Revelation of Beauty -
I should like to urge anyone contemplating the making of a house today to pause and study this book. Live with it for awhile before you proceed. Building a house is more than a personal satisfaction. It is an opportunity to create a work of serene and lasting beauty.

It is only rarely that a book falls into your life as a genuine revelation. Building the Japanese House Today is such a book. It is as if a gentle breeze from the East scattered all the remains of the broken promises of modernism, and replaced them with the new-worldly grace of this centuries-old traditional architecture.

Len Brackett is a Californian who served a full apprenticeship with one of the finest temple carpenters in Japan twenty-five years ago. Upon his return to the United States he set up shop building classical Japanese houses in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere.

Mr. Brackett quickly discovered that his clients had their own ideas, and that modern building departments and locally available materials made other requirements. It was then he began a kind of second builder's apprenticeship--to Making it Work in America Today. This book details the results: structures and spaces of a rare, ethereal beauty, at once classically traditional and yet surprisingly modern, descended directly from the Japanese.

Four hundred years ago, when the first Europeans laid eyes upon traditional Japanese houses, they described them as so fine they seemed to have been built by the hands of angels. Such exactly describes the impression one has of Mr. Brackett's houses. They succeed better than any houses I know at marrying an old world architecture with the opportunities of new world modernity. They are traditional Japanese houses, certainly. But they harmoniously agree with the lives we live today.

The book is straightforward. It tells the simple story of a modest building built by an honest craftsman. But what almost explodes off its pages is the possibility it represents of a new-made house culturally and spiritually worth living in.

Anyone interested in traditional Japanese architecture will be interested in Mr. Brackett's book. But I hope it finds in time a much wider circulation among those whose interests lie closer to home. It is a book about living, about what it means to lead a beautiful life that is true to our time, and how such a life may take shelter and sustenance from the house in which we live.

A knowledgeable and "user-friendly" study of domestic Japanese architecture -
Superbly illustrated with photography from Aya Brackett, Building The Japanese House Today by Peggy Landers and Len Brackett is an outstanding collection of beautiful and decorative architectural designs drawn from the Japanese traditional and contemporary architectural ideas and ideals. Deftly co-authored to provide a wealth of usable and informed perspectives, Building The Japanese House Today offers such particulars as preliminary design decisions for building a Japanese home; design directions based on living with or without furniture a chart showing the relative proportions of components of the traditional house; lumber selection, drying and milling; design and construction of a Japanese bath; technical drawings showing how to make traditional architecture conform to western building codes; sources and contacts for materials and craftsmen; and twenty pages of professional plans and diagrams to guide readers through the simple and elegant procedures of construction. A core addition to any professional or academic library Architectural Studies reference collection, Building The Japanese House Today is very highly recommended for non-specialist general readers searching for a knowledgeable and "user-friendly" study of domestic Japanese architecture.

Informative Guide! (Adds a touch of logistical reality to creating a dream home) -
For anyone who has dreamed of building a Japanese style house, this book is a must! The book takes you through the construction of a building from start to finish. All the things the customers and builders had to consider in construction. (From design, to permits, to materials,to assembly and finally finishing) This is a good way to get an idea of what building a traditional or westernized version of a Japanese house would entail, in terms of time and resources. It would also provide a neat book for house design to see the way traditional Japanese design styles have been incorporated to fit into American style homes.

One of the authors, Len Brackett, is the owner of East Wind which does Traditional Japanese Architecture and Woodworking. The beautiful woodwork this company does is extraordinary!! Len spent more than 5 years in Japan as a temple carpentry apprentice. The book also included an interesting chapter describing him time there. For more information on East Wind, (and to get a better idea of what the book describes) try visiting their website eastwindinc.com

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