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Last year, I set out to do a research on a quasi-typology of Japanese homes called "9 tsubo houses" under the guidance of the esteemed Ken Tadashi Oshima. In Japan, a tsubo is a useful measurement system that departs from the conventional, oftentimes rigid and somewhat arbitrary, metrics/units; it instead utilizes the space equivalent of two tatami mats. This space is thought to be adequate for the body to perform the most essential task: sleep. If a tsubo means one person can sleep comfortably within its space, four tsubos can afford four people sleeping, and so on. While of course residents do more than sleep in their daily life, all activities may be mapped back to how an average body lays down. To this day, when renting or buying a home, Japanese people still use tatami and tsubo in their estimation.
Then came the House of Nine Tsubos. After WWII, the defeated and devastated nation of Japan aspired to rise from the ashes. But first, it had to solve the biggest problem that by then had haunted many countries the world over, let alone one that was almost leveled to the ground: mass housing. A Japanese architect and university lecturer named Masuzawa Makoto had a hypothesis and later proved it that a house as big as 9 tsubos - a 3x3 square floor plan - is a sound solution to the balance between affordability and quality in housing. He built a 1:1 prototype and moved his entire family in, in turn creating a new phenomenon in residential design. This type has been explored by numerous Japanese architects, each with their own modifications and alterations.
My research compares the original 9-Tsubo House with that by Abe Hitoshi - also an esteemed architect and university professor in architecture. The research not only goes in depth of how the prototype has evolved through various iterations but also conveys the bigger picture of the housing market, space utilization, and social concepts in the postwar world.
You can read the full essay here.
