Building a Custom Japanese House | Life in Kyoto | Ep. 10

In this episode, we take a look at the latest update on our house and garden build in Kyoto, Japan.

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[Music] so it’s uh been quite a while obviously since we’ve put out an episode here on YouTube or the Bonsaiu platform about our house build here in Japan as well as the ASA saying Kyoto bonesai garden build So we’ve been really busy over the last few months with the start of construction having happened back in January and the house is moving along really really nicely and things are coming together very quickly Actually much faster than I anticipated So what I want to do in this episode is walk you through what’s been happening here in Kyoto with the build so far and show you kind of the progress and where we sit in terms of timing for building out the garden and actually opening ASA and Kyoto So let’s head over to the property and check it out and see what’s happening Back at the beginning of 2024 my family and I moved from the United States back to Japan in search of a piece of land to build our nursery on And we found this amazing place in the northeast side of Kyoto which is our favorite city in the entire world So in the month of January that year we signed all the paperwork filled everything out uh paid the money and purchased this awesome piece of land which by the way was a pretty big downsize from where we had been living in the States going from 10 acres there down to an eighth of an acre here in Kyoto But once all of that was done we picked out an architecture firm and began the process of designing our new house and garden So the company that we chose to work with was Desal Kensetsu and the architect was Hiata Sensei who listened to everything that we wanted to have done and worked with us uh alongside Nakamuraan who is our interior coordinator We met with them easily once a week for the last year going through all of the details of how the house is going to be designed from an architectural perspective and from an interior perspective uh and they listened to every single request that we had and eventually they came up with this incredible [Music] design Now this is what’s considered a modern wafu or modern Japanese style home So it has a lot of the traditional aspects of an old home here with modern comforts Now after that full year of planning and designing in January of 2025 we finally broke ground on the land Now apparently the reasoning behind building these mounds below the foundation uh is that it provides additional movement if you will uh for the ground and the concrete if in fact there is an earthquake and rather when there is an earthquake at some point because Japan is such a seismically active country There will in fact be an earthquake at some point in Kyoto But building the foundation this way apparently provides some additional movement for shifting of the ground Uh keeping the house intact in the event of a massive quake In between each of these mounds they back fill it in with concrete And after that concrete has fully dried they then reinforce the concrete and add additional concrete on top of that So all of this was done within about a 5-day period which is absolutely incredible especially for someone like myself coming from the United States Now the profile of the house or at least from the layout here of the foundation you can see that it takes up a large portion of the property but the way that the garden will be designed around this will maximize the remaining land And we’ll be able to have the house the workshop and all of the bonesai on the same property So once the reinforced concrete was poured uh these additional structures were placed around the periphery of the house and throughout the interior as well And these were also backfilled with concrete It turns out these are going to be the uh foundation underneath each of the interior and exterior walls providing additional support All of this metal work around the exterior here will be removed once that concrete dries What I found fascinating through this whole process was just how clean the construction crew kept the location Each day at the end of the day they would clean up every bit of excess concrete put away all of their tools and sweep down the whole property [Music] Now once the foundation was done the lumber was then brought in and the framing for the house was put up And again what’s incredible about this process is that all of this framing was completed by a team of six guys over the course of 2 days Now the only way that they were able really to do that was because this lumber had been precut at a separate location And when they brought it to our property they essentially just did a paint by numbers uh almost like a a giant IKEA build if you will uh with this incredible lumber here But this house that we’re building is what’s called a Kzen Chujutaku in Japanese which means a complete custom home So all of this wood even though it was you know cut somewhere else it is made specifically for this house And this is not u in fact a kit home for example Uh it’s built from the ground up in a custom fashion [Music] Now a majority of the large beams in the house are in fact glue lamb beams So they’re individual smaller pieces of wood that are glued together which gives them much more structural integrity And the construction type of the house is something called essie cooho in Japanese which is kind of a modern take on old Japanese woodwork So there aren’t a ton of nails necessarily that are used in the structure Uh it’s a lot of fittings that are put together But rather than using wood uh in between the fittings to stick them together uh it’s actually reinforced steel So this allows the house to move and shift during a potential earthquake without hopefully falling and crumbling to the ground or cracking apart [Music] [Applause] [Music] Now one thing you might notice about this house build is that there is no basement And that is because of earthquakes here in Japan It’s very very difficult and very expensive prohibitively so to dig a basement in most areas It requires a lot of additional structural engineering that is just not really feasible And in our particular neighborhood here uh it’s actually not allowed It’s by law not allowed to have a basement in any residential home here So this is why we’re building a two-story house up instead of going down into the ground And the trees that we planted previously back in December of 2024 on the back of the property the uh weeping cherry and the large Japanese maple have been doing well over the course of the winter We had quite a bit of snow this year and they seem to be settling in quite nicely on the backside of the property The remaining interior of the house and a majority of the exterior is in fact being built by just two professional carpenters both in their 70s and have close to 50 years of experience each And uh this particular project is a large one So it’s taking them a bit of additional time to finish the entire project So coming up here in the month of April Desowl Kensets will in fact add two additional carpenters So there’ll be four guys building out the rest of the entire house Now as part of building this house out as a modern wafu or modern Japanese style home there will be some very traditional Japanese elements strewn about throughout the house One of which is the underside of the roof of the deck as well as the interior roof in the living room These will both be designed in what’s referred to as a sukia style sauchi So you can see that on the ceiling here there are some uh round beams or round pieces of wood that stretch from the interior to the exterior These are referred to as tarduki in Japanese Uh in fact these are Japanese cryptoaria that have been dried specifically for this job Now the original house build was scheduled to be done in June of this year However when we told the architecture firm uh last fall that we wanted to have the ceiling throughout the house they said that it was going to delay the finalization of the house the completion of the house by about 2 months And we asked why is that the case and they said because these tuki or round beams are custom cut for each project They don’t stock them anywhere in Japan So this requires 2 months for them after they’re cut to be dried out entirely uh before they can be installed in the house Hence the house build won’t be completed until August of this year [Music] So while we’ve been building out the house and the garden I’ve been slowly accumulating bonesai in the background Uh building up what will be the asam bonesai collection A lot of these trees are plants that have some provenance to them So you know plants that have been in the Koku or have won the Taikon 10 or have been shown in the Sakfu 10en or maybe are just trees that I worked on during my apprenticeship that I fell in love with during that period But over the last few months I’ve been acquiring some of these trees and they’re all being housed right now down at Fujikawa Kokayen down in Osaka which is where I did my apprenticeship So let’s head down that way and I’ll show you some of the projects that we’re working on that will eventually be moved up here to Kyoto when we open as Kyoto Bonesai Garden Now for a quick update on the bonesai collection that will be housed at Asan Kyoto uh once we complete the house build and the garden build All of my trees currently are being kept at Fujikawa Kokayen down in Osaka And this spring I spent a number of days down there with the apprentices repotting most of those trees in my collection So we did a lot of work on this Zuisha white pine which is a tree that’s kind of reminiscent of the very famous Duho Zuisha white pine that was originally propagated at Daan nursery up in Nagoya which is in fact where Zuisho as a cultivar originated In addition to the zooie show I had the pleasure of repotting this Japanese red pine which is one that I purchased and restyled for a bonesaiu episode recently on the platform This tree was featured in the 77th Koku 10 and I restyled it in that episode changing the angle as well as the directionality of the tree Now this white pine is perhaps the tree that I’m most excited about having at San Kyoto This is a tree that I’ve admired for probably close to two decades Uh it’s in fact a kicho bonesai or registered important bonesai masterpiece And this tree I saw at Daiwan Nursery back in February of this year when I took my tour group there And I inquired from Suzuki Sun who owns the nursery whether or not this tree was in fact for sale He said it was owned by a customer but the customer would likely sell the plant So I asked if he would call him He did and I ended up purchasing this tree for the ASAN collection All right so I hope you guys enjoyed checking out what’s happening here in Japan as of late I’m going to keep you guys updated on the project as we move forward But like I said we’re looking at uh being able to complete this house and move in sometime in August this year Fingers crossed And then hopefully around the uh TYON 10th this year in November we’ll be able to officially open ASA and Kyoto So like I said I’ll keep you guys posted on all the happenings here Uh we’ll be putting out some information online And in the inter room we’ll be doing some update videos here on YouTube and the BYU platform as well So be on the lookout for that But thank you guys so much for checking out this episode Look forward to seeing all of you next time around And until then take care [Music]