Assembly type Japanese-style room [HAKO-IE]

Outline* The shown information is the one as of the awarded date and might has been changed.

Outline: People have long created private spaces by setting up folding screens. This designer capitalized on the age-old custom by applying skillfully adapted techniques of traditional carpentry (used to create box-like structures in Japanese furniture and Buddhist altars by enclosing the ceiling and floor between special beams) to develop a build-it-yourself Japanese-style room called Hako-Ie, or "box house." It is taken for granted in our current golden age of prefab construction that one needs power tools to assemble a house, but this "box house" combines the techniques of expert carpenters through history who specialized in temples and shrines (as found in the castle-town of Aizu, where the manufacturer is located) to defy this preconception in a small yet authentic Japanese-style room that can be assembled without power tools. Crafted of fine materials and requiring not a single nail or screw, it is sturdy enough to be assembled and disassembled repeatedly.
Producer: ASAO SAKAMOTO President SAKAMOTO URUSHIMANYUFACTURING CO., LTD
Director: ASAO SAKAMOTO
Designer: ASAO SAKAMOTO; 坂本朝夫
More information: http://www.eyes-japan.co.jp
Already on the market: 2007/8/1

Evaluation

This is an assembly-type Japanese-style room that you can set up inside a room. It's a temporary partition that might seem rather fake, but this Hako-ie ("house in a box") is a real room, made with tasteful materials and fine techniques, with painstaking attention to the smallest detail. Naturally it has tatami mats, as well as an arched ceiling, a lacquered tokonoma corner, and even a wooden veranda. It can be assembled or disassembled in an hour and requires no nails or screws, just a hammer and battens. It is only three mats in area, but offers a high-quality space in which people can relax in comfort.