Ch. 5, p.233–237

May 25, 2025

232-233
234-235
236-237

I expect this post will probably be the third or fourth last installment. The Pritzker jury (rightly) noted Yamamoto’s “concern for community” but, in doing so, they allow us to understand, pigeonholed and diminish him as the guy who designs group housing. Now, as we are only a few pages from the end of this book, it’s clear that designing group housing is only the means by which he proposes resetting the relationship people have with each other, their community and ultimately, The State. These 1,800 or so words contain a couple of excruciating translations of Jeffersonian sentences quoted in Japanese. Now I’ve almost finished, I notice for the first time that, at the back of the book [our “front”], Yamamoto has provided a full list of references, their editions, and any translations.

7. How a Local Society Thinks

It is national policy for housing to be a consumable asset

Jefferson said that “One objective is fine if one works as a ward” and “it is clear that the ward is the best tool for other purposes,” but it is extremely difficult in today’s Japan to create a ward. This is because we who live in the space of society do not feel that we need one. Freedom is in the personal space that is one house = household. We are not living in a space where we cannot say who is happy and who is free as there is no participation in public rights.

“The freedom of a citizen is in their private life.” It has been internalized. The system of mutual separation that is one house = one household has also been internalized. As I’ve already written, we are used to happiness as being enclosed within the four walls of one’s own house and surrounded with closets and beds and tables and chairs, dogs and cats and flowers and vases.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.78) This is because we don’t want anything more. In addition to being excluded from any kind of fre

edom (in how to live) beyond that. In addition to being excluded from participation in governance (as the exercise of public rights), people living in this one house = one household system have no awareness that they are excluded. We think that our daily lives have nothing to do with participation in governance. “Persons living in the one house = one household system have no awareness that they govern themselves every day.” (Arendt, On Revolution, p.406)

This is deeply connected to how we with no awareness can live next to people yet have absolutely no relationship with them. Living conducted within four walls has no connection with others. One house = one household is designed to rob us of the (shared perception of) reality of living by not allowing us to be seen and to be heard by others. (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.87) As I’ve already written, a person being robbed of this reality also means that they are robbed of the will to participate in governance.

“The space in which this will to participate in governance is stolen is merely a product in societies that are economically organized.” (ibid., p. 50) It is simply a package product in a market society. Housing isn’t something that exists for the person living in it, it exists for profit on a national scale. At present, housing is a product for private purchase. This is government policy. It must become something more than a consumer asset. Housing is consumed at astonishing speed because the speed of this consumption contributes to the national economy. The situation in Japan has greatly accelerated since about the year 2000.

Residential typologies at one with economic activity

A 1995 report of the Housing Land Deliberative Council stated that “Housing services are for private consumption. … it is of primary importance to leave this to personal choice…” It goes on to say that “The role of housing policy is to seize the housing market so that it can sufficiently exhibit its market function”. The year 2000 Report recognized that “in principle, the acquisition and use of housing land should be performed through citizens’ own efforts” and made the direction of leaving housing to the market even more clear.” (Yosuke Hirayama, Incomplete Cities, p.47) It is a declaration that the government will not contribute in any way with respect to citizens’ acquisition of housing. The Housing Land Deliberative Council is a consultant organization for the In passing, we as architectural designers are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. It is a national organization that determines the principles of housing policy, and has the authority to make proposals to related administrative bodies. It is the organizsation whose deliberative council, in its report, recommende household id house = oned that housing policy was for market activation, and that citizens should acquire housing through their own efforts. Housing is seen as having to be a private possession acquired through private effort. Housing policy has definitely become economic policy. The later year 2000 “Asset Liquidity Law” (for the adjustment of building assets by the securitization of real estate), there year 2000 “Housing Living Foundation Law” (mechanisms for housing-related contractors.gto participate in hosing supply) and other legal provisions have worked to make an environment in which it is easier for private developers and housing manufacturers to sell. In is an environment that weakens those without purchasing power. Residents become mere consumers. This living environment is one in which resident participation in governance is totally absent. The system of housing supply according too one house = one household is operated and managed so as to contribute to the national economy but this system of one house = one household is beginning to collapse from within. This is apparent in one aspect. Although I used the term from within, this does not mean it is occurring because of will of the persons within the system of one house = one household.

Rather, the residential system of one house = one household is already failing. At present, the number of persons living in oyo ne household in the 23 districts of Tokyo is 1.97 (according to the Municipality of Tokyo home page, January, Heisei 26 (2014) “Household and Population taken from Municipality of Tokyo Resident Registers”. Housing has become unable to bear the burden of sustaining itself as a circulatory processes of life. It is indeed a critical situation. What kind of housing should architects be envisaging and what kind of housing they should be proposing were two topics set for the graduate students at the National University of Yokohama, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. It was intended to be housing proposed to replace the system of one house = one household and indended to produced proposals for residential space from the will of residents to decide and to do things for themselves. This would be of absolutely no use to the conventional thinking of dedicated residential housing on dedicated residential land. This is because it is not just a place for living, or a place for those circulatory processes of life, or a place for having. privacy. The sphere of local society must be a space that allows for participation of public rights.

It is a space like a ward and so must be a space that allows for a diverse range of activities. The very spaces themselves in the residential districts invented by 20tjh century architects and designers, are abnormalities. They are spaces in which residents and their private lives are sealed into. They are spaces that exist for the sole purpose of maintaining privacy. They are spaces that rob people of a political life. There is no diversity. The meaning of diversity is not dedicated residences.Instead, it must have the meaning of a stage on which diverse activities can take place. The sphere of local society must become a stage for political activity. It is a place where people can decided for themselves what they want to do, and then do it. Economic activity that replaces economic activity for the sake of production, must take place there. It is necessary to have spaces such as these. Wards are places where it is possible to produce things and also to sell them. Originally, they were places where living in the city meant conducting economic activity in the same way as mediaeval cities were autonomous bodies. Until recently, Japanese cities were like this, with economic activity united with living space. The housing typologies in which economic activity snd residential space were united took the form of the townhouse as its basis. They were the equivalent of the bodega and the boutique of the middle ages. In Japan, cities were configured from machiya that had elements of both anresidence and a store meant to be seen. (Fig. 9)

**Figure 9:** A *machiya* ink Kanda during the Edo Period. (Source: Satoaki [?] Okuyama, *Japanese Houses in the Edo Period*. The city is configured from shops.

Why did so many houses configure the one urban environment? It is because the parts meant to be seen were spaces relating to the public realm. They were spaces relating to the urban side. In other words, they were thresholds. There was a strict division between this space and the inner space where private life was conducted. (Fig. 10) These residential spaces that are not dedicated residential spaces have a completely different spatial configuration from dedicated residential spaces where the absent of a threshold means it is not possible to participate on community (political) life of the city, as long as there is no related activity [that compels it]. In other words, the buildings are designed so as to allow participation in autonomous urban communities. In many different parts of Japan, this housing type combining housing and economic activity spontaneously arose as a type completely different from the post-WWII Japanese public housing [that was to replace it]. Housing such as this is an urban housing archetype.