Japanese houses compared to European ones

[Anguz]

What a great topic!

I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and am living in a colonial town named Taxco, in Mexico. My father is an architect and I've always been interested in construction, so this topic is very attractive to me. (^_^)

The city where I was born is very european in style. This town is colonial, but not so much anymore. It's been changed a lot by ignorant and stupid people. Also, Mexico in general tends to imitate America a lot in several ways, including building, with the added latin touch.

By latin touch I'm not just talking decoration, but also badly done in many cases, starting with planning. Of course, this is by no means true all the time, but has been in the apartments I've lived in so far (;_;)

On the other hand, old colonial houses are very nice, even if not well distributed and with their mistakes. You can usually forgive those, the house is often cute. Sadly, many are being remodeled -and totally screwed up- by the sons of their original owners when they inherit them, or by the guy buying it for the land, not the house.

I was planning to go live in Hokkaido, since I love Japan and cold weather, in an old japanese house, until my wife changed her mind. She wasn't very sure since we don't talk japanese yet, although we both are good with languages. So a year later, since I'm still here, I might just build my own house. (~_~)

I'm planning ot build it in a colonial way, with some japanese touches. Specially the way the bathroom is and also the not walking with shoes inside the house, which btw is something you didn't mention, probably because you're so used to it by now.

I find the japanese way of bath particularly attractive and will build my own that way. There aren't deep tubs here either, but I can build one with bricks. What I don't know how to do is the water heating to keep it hot. Could someone over there tell me how the piping is done or how the ones sold are build so I can reproduce it? (^^;)

The way wood is used in almost any other place in the world is nice, sadly not common here. When you go buy wood, the one you'll find is still humid and not treated. The treated wood, or old enough so it's dry, is hard to find, at least where I am. Japanese, from what I understand, either have treated wood, or let it rest in a lake for years and then some more outside, until it's ready for use.

Here you can see furniture, door and window frames, and other wooden things, all twisted and/or cracked after a while. Some people have them repaired after a few years. When the repair is done with the same wood, it's fine, but often they add new wood that'll end up the same. Stupid... (-_-)

Doors here, the old ones are thick and heavy and nice, the newer ones are either triplay, empty, things, or are made of metal, like iron. The iron ones are a frame, with an extra support in the middle, and covered with a sheet painted black of course "to make them look colonial"... ba~ka. I've been told reasons, but I still can't understand how they became popular or why some more silly people even use them indoors now (><;)

I find the paper japanese doors very attractive, although I don't know if I could list all the advantages or disadvantages they have. On one hand, you can probably fix them easily putting new paper, on the other they probably need fixing more often. I don't think they insulate much, either cold, heat or sound. I don't like lack of privace, so I most probably won't have those in my house here, but could stand them in Japan.

The traditional roofing here is tiles, but now they're building some houses without them, which I don't like, because it doesn't follow the colonial look the town should preserve. those that do the tiling, don't do it the old way though, they put a cement roof and the tiles on top, which could probably be done to look right, but they can't bother with that (ｬ_ｬ)

I find the tiled roofs in japanese houses very beautiful, specially in old houses. Those tiles do look like they can last for a long time. The ones here do last, but break easily and need repairing. Here the tiles are the U shaped ones and need to be alternately put face-up, face-down, etc, where the japanese ones, from what I can see, are S shaped and are placed one next to the other, like ~~~ with the borders overlapping.

Then there's neighbours, but that would be a WHOLE separate chapter... don't even want to get started on that one (--#)

Floors here are rarely made of wood, or covered with it. In Buenos Aires it wasn't strange to find houses with parket, or some wooden flooring, but here it's very un-common and if found, it's not pretty, sadly, at least not the ones I saw. Depending on the owner, the floor varies a lot (one of the apartments Il lived in was whole done with bathroom tiles, the slippery ugly kind, ugh).

I Japan it's either wood or tatami, from what I've seen, looking nice and practical. I understand that they can be very cold in winter though, but then there's slippers and cushions hehe. I also read that newer places are replacing normal wood on floors, with a very thin sheet of treated and hardened wood, which is placed on the concrete.

About walls, I don't like them thin either. I'm planning to build mine with adobe and color them in Photoshop... hehe, sorry, couldn't resist it. Color them with lime, the old way. Depending on how much land I can afford, I'll build them extremely thick, or just very thick. Since adobe is free if I make it, the cost is not an issue, only the space. It's very insulating too.

Many cheap apartment buildings here are built in a similar way some japanese ones are, from what I've read, and the sound insulation is not very good in these, so probably not good in those either. You just talked about temperature insuation, but with the neighbours you get here, you need the sound one too. This is probably not the same issue in Japan, although big cities have noise of their own despite the well-manered neighbours.

Closets, hmm, I'm used to the plackards too, they're used in Buenos Aires. They're not that common here. depending on the house, it goes from just furniture (which can be colonial or modern, well or bad made, pretty or ugly -more often it's modern, bad made and ugly-) to a metal bar where you hang the clothes from, just in a corner of the room, sometimes with a top made of cement to put stuff on, and you can also put stuff on the floor, of course. I like the japanese closets better, or whatever the name I can't remember, because they're so spacious.

The bathroom/toilets are another topic I rather not cover right now (--;)

Sorry for the long post! Sorry I couldn't comment more on the European houses, mainly because you said most of it. I thought some of you might find it interesting to know how it compares to some of the ones I've seen here. I'm sorry if I said too many ugly things, it's just that I've seen so many, but it doesn't mean there's well made houses or apartments. You can find them in all they ways they can be made, I just find it very intersting to comment on the extremes, specially if a big average is on it.