Traditional Japanese house: rooms, materials and miniatures

The rooms, materials and words of the traditional Japanese house, from the genkan to the engawa, then the wooden kits that recreate it in miniature.

A traditional Japanese house is a wooden building with a raised floor, whose rooms are covered with tatami mats and separated by sliding panels rather than fixed walls. A wooden veranda, the engawa, often runs along it and opens it onto the garden. Every element has a precise name and role: the genkan for taking off your shoes, shoji to filter the light, fusuma to reshape the space, the tokonoma to display a chosen object.

Today, this vocabulary lives on in miniature. Several wooden kits recreate a tatami room, a shoji door or a stone garden, for you to build yourself and then light up in the evening. Our selection of Japanese miniature houses brings these scenes to build together.

The essentials

• The posts carry the roof: the walls can slide or open depending on the season.
• Two families: the minka, a rural house, and the machiya, a townhouse typical of Kyoto.
• Seven key elements: genkan, tatami, shoji, fusuma, oshiire, tokonoma, engawa.
• In miniature, choose by your patience: from 3 to 5 hours to a weekend of building.

What does a traditional Japanese house look like?

These houses fascinate people far beyond Japan. To delight someone who loves the country, our Japanese gift ideas range from everyday objects to scenes to build.

The rooms and elements of a Japanese house

The table walks through the house from the entrance to the garden.

Element	What it is	Its role
Genkan	Entrance at ground level, below the floor	Where you take off your shoes before stepping up into the house
Tatami	Thick rice-straw mat covered with woven rush	Covers the floor of the rooms and serves as the unit for measuring their size
Shoji	Sliding panel with a light wooden frame, covered in translucent washi paper	Lets soft light through while preserving privacy
Fusuma	Opaque sliding panel made of thick paper, often decorated	Separates rooms and closes off closets
Oshiire	Deep closet closed with fusuma	Stores the futons and bedding during the day
Tokonoma	Slightly raised alcove in the main room	Holds a hanging scroll and a flower arrangement
Engawa	Wooden veranda running along the house	Creates the transition between indoors and the garden

The tatami-covered room is called the washitsu; its size is counted in mats, for example a six-tatami room. To bring these principles into your own home, our tips for Japanese-style decor take it from here.

Why do people take off their shoes in a Japanese house?

The genkan marks the passage between the street and the home. Tatami mats serve as floor, seating and bed all at once, so they're protected by leaving shoes at the entrance. The genkan also sits below the floor level, which makes this transition very visible.

So you never walk in shoes on a mat you'll be sleeping on that night. In miniature, it's often this detail that makes a scene believable: a step, a pair of sandals at the foot of the floor, and your eye instantly understands it's in Japan.

Wood, paper and garden: the materials of the Japanese house

Three materials are almost enough to describe the traditional Japanese house:

• Wood, left visible. It's the main material, often left exposed. Japanese carpenters traditionally use local species such as hinoki, Japanese cypress, or sugi, Japanese cedar, joined with mortise and tenon and very little metal.
• Paper and light. The washi paper of the shoji diffuses daylight without glare. At night, sliding wooden shutters, the amado, close off the facade.
• The garden, an extension of the house. You look at it from the engawa, like a painting framed by the open panels: stones, moss, a pruned pine or maple, sometimes a pond and a stone lantern. In dry gardens, raked gravel and a few rocks evoke water and mountains.

It's this soft, filtered shoji light that lit miniatures try to recapture once the LED is switched on.

What's the difference between shoji and fusuma?

Both slide. Shoji are covered with translucent washi paper that lets soft light through while preserving privacy. Fusuma are opaque, made of thick, often decorated paper: they separate rooms and close off closets, like the oshiire where the futons are stored.

An easy way to remember: shoji let the light through, fusuma block it. One faces the outside or the veranda, the other separates two rooms or closes off a closet.

Finding the Japanese house in a miniature you build

A wooden Japanese miniature house uses this vocabulary on a small scale. The parts arrive pre-cut, with no cutting or painting, along with illustrated step-by-step instructions in English. Precision tweezers come free with the kit, and the LED lighting is built in: the power source is listed on each product page.

Four houses each capture one feature of the Japanese house:

• The Cherry Blossom House, the closest to a lived-in home: a tatami bedroom upstairs, a dining room on the ground floor, a small garden and a lantern by the gate.
• The Bonsai Pavilion, with a shoji door that actually slides, a cherry blossom folding screen and a stone lantern.
• The Cherry Blossom Parlor, a two-story teahouse whose terrace opens onto a stone garden, in the spirit of the engawa.
• The Kyoto Bazaar, which follows the machiya principle: a shop on the ground floor, living quarters upstairs.

For slimmer scenes to slip between two books, our Japanese book nook collection rounds out the choice.

Which Japanese house kit should you choose for your patience level?

No experience needed: the parts are pre-cut, the instructions guide you through every step, and the build works very well over several sessions. The piece count isn't enough to predict the build time: the Kyoto Bazaar and the Cherry Blossom Parlor both have 478 pieces, but the first takes 5 to 8 hours to build while the second takes a weekend. Go by the level and build time listed on each product page instead.

To get started, begin with the simplest format in the series.

For a few evenings, the miniature machiya adds an upper floor and two lit areas.

For a weekend, the most complete house brings together almost all the vocabulary in this article.

The Cherry Blossom Parlor, also advanced level, completes the series with its terrace opening onto a stone garden. To compare the smaller formats, our collection of Japanese book nooks details each option.

Mistakes to avoid

Four mix-ups come up often, about the real house as well as its miniature version.

• Confusing shoji and fusuma: the first is translucent and filters the light, the second is opaque and separates rooms.
• Thinking the walls hold up the house: it's the posts, which is what lets the walls slide.
• Choosing a kit by piece count alone: at 478 pieces each, the Kyoto Bazaar and the Cherry Blossom Parlor don't take the same time.
• Starting with an advanced-level house: a beginner kit like the Bonsai Pavilion teaches you the basics before a weekend project.

Going further

You can recognize the Japanese house by its wooden frame, its tatami mats, its shoji and fusuma panels, its tokonoma and the engawa that opens onto the garden. Find it among our Japanese miniature houses and, in a slimmer format, in our Japanese book nook collection.

• For someone who loves Japan, read our Japanese gift ideas.
• To choose a Japanese scene to slip between your books, read which Japanese book nook to choose.

All the Japanese scenes to build are waiting for you on nooko.fr.