The Japanese forestry technique known as “Daisugi technique,” has been producing environmentally friendly wood products for over 700 years, thus providing adequate timbers for house and boat building construction — and its all done without cutting down any mature trees.
It is an amazing 14th century forest preserving technology, where the extraordinary “Daisugi” technique that was not only born in Japan, but to this day it is fully enjoyed by all forest lovers, arborists and forest miners, as well as the agricultural managers of Japan’s vast lush forests, spread throughout this island nation, providing the full cover of this Earth’s living green skin in this blessed nation with the incredibly fecund, rich volcanic soil.
Indeed, Japan is one of the most forested countries of this Earth, and the carefully applied “Daisugi technique” has consistently provided the protection, that the forest and the trees need, so that they will be maintained for many future generations ahead of us.
And the secret is that the trees, need not be cut down — but rather simply “pruned.” That’s the “Daisugi technique” of tree growth and forest management.
Pruning trees, as if they were giant bonsai trees, is not only preserving the dense forests of Japan, but it also provides an incredibly beautiful array of Green Trees as the coverage of the whole of the country in the main and throughout the separated islands, in this blessed archipelago surrounding this Pacific Ocean’s green country, bounded by the Sea of Japan, it’s inland sea, and the stormy waters off the eastern side of the rising sun…
Obviously the highly intelligent Japanese people since the Edo period and the restoration, have saved all their forests, by applying this “Daisugi technique” as a Forest management technique to the entire family of cedar forests covering this mountainous country. Still, the much needed timbers & house building woods, can be obtained without loss to the primary Ecosystem, and the mined wood, is uniform, straight and without any knots — practically perfect for the wooden home construction industry, and all other wooden furnishings, human habitation necessities, such as hearth-fire wood, pyrolysis for biofuels, and even modern wooden ship construction technologies, alongside a multitude of other applications.
This forest preservation technology known colloquially as “Daisugi technique” is nothing sort of a miraculously effective “pruning” which is a rule of this Artful “Daisugi technique” that allows the tree to grow, and germinate while using their wood, without ever cutting the primary birth-tree down.
Indeed it is an extraordinary technique of forest preservation and maintenance, that is more than providing for the wooden house building trade, and all other wood industry applications, that are essential in all of Japanese society, culture, and also environmentally sensible ship-building industry.
I’ve seen the most extraordinary wooden temples, pagodas, forts & palaces, humble shops, ordinary and extraordinary houses, and beautiful wooden ships, in all areas of Japan, these past few weeks — and I came to admire the Nippon Architecture so much – that I wish to built a wooden Japanese house like those amazingly serene and beautiful homes, and bring it back home to the States…
This is a typical Satoyama villa, in the “Kanso-Bushido” style home, and that is the main building of the ancient Ozawa family. It was used by the feudal lord of the Matsumoto domain, as a resting place during his visits to and from this major Japanese feudal domain before the Edo & Meiji period of Japan’s restoration in the middle of the 18th century.
This “kanso” building was restored to its original condition in 1913.
The earthen floor has a “kamado” fireplace, and the living room has a 13-meter-high atrium with magnificent “zelkova” beams, that support the whole edifice, using pegs and tongue & groove construction, without iron nails or metal trusses of any kind.
Perhaps the sunken hearth can be the centre of the House, but the cedar wood hot bath is the Geisha’s domain, where a Man can really feel the Samurai code of living simply, yet elegantly, by accepting the bath as a treaty of Love, with his Concubine…
The bedroom, can be Westernized with proper bedding furniture, or it could be kept with the classic tatami straw bale mattress, futon, and cotton down covers…
This is an example of the “Yamato” (大和) style home structure, which in Japanese, means “great harmony” or “great peace,” and is an archaic name for Japan, and especially for the Yamato Province, situated around the present-day Nara Prefecture, where the first emperor of Japan is said to have founded the country in the 8th century BCE…
Yours,
Dr Churchill
PS:
Approach to strength of character is the “Bushido” and the House of the warrior who chooses to live by the Code, is aptly named, “Hearth in the Way of the Warrior.”
What’s not to like ?
Pretty cool eh ?
