{"id":704,"date":"2020-04-12T17:17:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T17:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eien.one\/?p=704"},"modified":"2020-07-15T13:53:40","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T13:53:40","slug":"japanese-tiny-houses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/japanese-tiny-houses\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Houses in Honbetsu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I am working towards living a self-sufficient life in nature, I was surprised to hear that there was a tiny house company close by. The company is called KOYA Lab<\/a> and it’s based in Honbetsu, only about a one-hour drive away from Memuro. Toshi and Kondo-san, whose parents actually live in Honbetsu, drove me there in order to check out KOYA Lab and later drop me off at Sophia Farm. We met with the company’s boss, who was friendly enough to answer all our questions and take us to both of his tiny house sites. For context, while the tiny house movement is already big in the west, in Japan this company is still a kind of trail blazer. Here tiny houses or trailer houses are still quite unknown.<\/p>\n

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Two Room Industry Tiny House | KOYA LAB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This design is focused on providing on-site living quarters for two individuals. The TH has two identical square rooms on the left and a slightly bigger bath room plus storage on the right. Without solar panels, it still requires connection to the water and electricity grid. Granted, it does seem like a very practical solution for remote work, since the tiny house can be pulled to a desired location easily and is set up within minutes. This kind of use case comes close to the German “Bauwagen” concept, wherein construction site workers set up their mobile heated trailer houses to be used as offices or break rooms.<\/p>\n

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Industry Model Cubicle Interior | KOYA LAB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is, what the interior of one living quarter looks like. If it were me, I wouldn’t have incorporated a genkan (entrance area for shoes) quite as big. The minimalist design lends itself to the different preferences that a changing set of tenants would require. It’s also a principle you will find in Japanese interior design, where due to a lack of space rooms need to be usable in many different ways. Thus the main quarters are often used as living rooms and bed rooms alike. The futon is neatly put away into the wall cabinet first thing in the morning.<\/p>\n

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Family Model Tiny House | KOYA LAB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After inspecting the first tiny house, we drove for half an hour into nowhere. Hidden away on a cliff on the outskirts of Honbetsu, lies the second model. This tiny house design caters more towards camping use by outdoor enthusiasts, particularly families. The idea is to rent the tiny house for a couple nights and enjoy the starry sky. The price of 400$ a night might be much too expensive for me and likely you, but it was nice to see a radically different approach and set of challenges. One particularly interesting feature of this design is the detachable frame. The walls are not directly mounted onto the trailer base, but rather to a container frame, which also has legal implications. For example, since the TH can be lifted off with a crane, it does not count as part of the trailer, which means it is not subject to the usual inspections when registering the trailer for road usage. Another benefit is that you can put down your tiny house on any concrete groundwork to use the same trailer to move multiple different houses.<\/p>\n

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Family Model Entrance | KOYA LAB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On behalf of the Boss, sorry for the messy look. It must have been rented out during the last couple of days. Still, we are grateful of course! As you can see, the house sports a loft area, which is nice for sleeping, but in this case quite annoying for cooking, since even average sized human beings will not be able to stand up straight in the kitchen. Yet, you will find all necessities for living: a full bathroom, queen-sized sleeping space, kitchen, and small living\/dining room. In case you’re wondering, why such a narrow space and low ceiling were chosen, let me elaborate. According to Japanese road law, trailer houses may only be up to 2.5 meters wide, 7.5 meters long, and only 3.8 meters tall, while weighing less than 3.5 tons… Yes, you will need to get at least a little creative.<\/p>\n

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Family Model Kitchen | KOYA LAB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is a glimpse around the corner. A nice and sleek design. Maybe not what you expected. Naturally, gas is used for heating and cooking, because of its availability and affordability. From what I’ve seen, there is Tokyo apartments with smaller kitchens.<\/p>\n

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Scenic View from a Cliff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let me leave you today with this scenic view of the surrounding scenery. Apart from that one house, mountains and wild life are all around! I’d like to use this post to thank KOYA Lab for showing me around and sharing their secrets. I learned a lot about the particular challenges of tiny house building in Japan and got lots of inspiration at the same time. Furthermore, thank you to Toshi and Kondo-san for informing me about tiny houses in Honbetsu and secondly actually taking me there \ud83d\ude42 Peace!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I am working towards living a self-sufficient life in nature, I was surprised to hear that there was a tiny house company close by. The company is called KOYA Lab and it’s based in Honbetsu, only about a one-hour drive away from Memuro. Toshi and Kondo-san, whose parents actually live in Honbetsu, drove me…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[62,58,59,61,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1023,"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/1023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eien.one\/jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}