Kyo-machiyas.

What does the word kyo-machiya mean?

It's a blend of Kyoto and machiya. Kyoto, the city, and machiya, meaning townhouse.

There are actually a ton of different types of dwellings that fall under the kyo-machiya categorization.

But in general, they have to be built before the 1950s because of a building standards law that came into place at that time, and the wooden homes need to be put together without nails.

So the question I feel this video needs to answer is what's so special about kyo-machiyas, and why live in an old Japanese townhouse?

Because, I mean, if you're like me, you might have heard that old Japanese homes are poorly built with no insulation.

You can hear your neighbors, they're cold in the winter, and they're tough to maintain.

And what about earthquakes?

Isn't there a reason for that building standards law, and isn't it a good thing that these old places are getting replaced by modern buildings?

To answer those questions, I visited four different families, as well as stayed in a guest house, and even saw a vacant traditional kyo-machiya.

So this is our house.

Yeah, I'm Richard.

I'm Masami.

And while they lived many years overseas, from Africa to the Philippines, they are Canadian and Japanese.

Sorry, I'm Bryn, and I'm originally from Canada, and as soon as I saw the photos online, I just thought, yeah, this looks absolutely perfect.

My name is Cecilia Ramirez, and I'm from Mexico, for a period of maybe two years.

She searched and finally found the kyo-machiya that she wanted to renovate.

She'll also be...

Building everything with the use of natural materials.

I'm Vincent, and I'm French.

Hi, I'm Ayu. I'm Indonesian.

We wanted to live the Kyoto experience and to be in a traditional house, but at the same time, we wanted something quite comfortable, because we are living with two kids of three and six years old.

The fact that it's a beautifully made wood house, I think, was one of the key attractions.

So these are the yoshidos.

It's a traditional sliding partition door.

The idea behind that was, particularly in the hot summers, it lets wind blow throughout the house while giving each of the rooms privacy.

These are actually the flowers from the thousand-yen note, which is a trademark of the maker.

But we also asked him to make these. This is a heron, and this is actually my family crest.

For this week, we keep it very minimalist. We keep it in the traditional Japanese bedroom sense.

So we just have the tatami mats. We store the futons every day in the cupboard.

Dumped it there.

Okay, yeah.

So probably not done the traditional Japanese way.

But that seems about right.

What we really like about the upstairs here is the height of the ceilings.

So you can see these are the original beams from the house.

This is supposed to be my pottery studio, but because of tatami, it's kind of difficult right now.

This we can move around.

See?

Then I can extend this one to over there.

So something dirty things I can drop to the front.

So this is the tsuboni wa.

Traditionally in a machiya, this would be in the center of the house.

You have a long house and it would be in the center.

And the reason they had them, they have an open area and would actually let light into the house.

This one is actually one of my bonsai.

So this comes from my efforts with the bonsai group.

I cannot play.

This one belonged to my grandmother who was from Kyoto originally.

And then probably this is about 100 years old.

Modern homes, they're beautiful, they're functional.

But they don't really reflect the culture of the people who live in them.

Whereas machiya, I think, really reflects the culture.

Yeah, so there's three machiya here.

The guys beside me is a guest house and then it's a family next door.

And then there are some businesses across the street and some families as well.

Just looking at it, it feels like a modern way of finding any Japanese home.

Exactly.

Every once in a while, I kind of go, oh yeah, that's right.

There's a whole world out there.

Yeah, that's really cool.

I like that.

So the stairs are pretty steep.

They're steep, but I don't think that's really unusual for a machiya.

And this is the laundry.

The temple, they're really nice.

And this belongs to the temple as well.

And then this is my daughter's room and it's probably not that clean.

Yeah.

And this is just looking down at the kitchen from upstairs.

Natural beauty of machiya, I absolutely love.

The alternates in Kyoto for me are just so, so unappealing.

They're just really, really horrible kind of cookie cutter homes that kind of emulate

Western style in a way.

And they're just absolutely devoid of soul.

I know what he's talking about.

My house.

Yep.

Bought it three years ago and it's completely cookie cutter.

And nope, I wouldn't describe it as beautiful.

Although I do find it very practical for my family's needs.

So this is our bathroom.

And yeah, as you know, we have Japanese toilet, you know.

Please come here.

This is my favorite place.

You know, it's the bath time.

And in the same time, you can see the beautiful garden.

As we love to cook, it's important for us also to have a big kitchen.

So we decided to put the kids upstairs.

This looks really, really fun place.

We enjoy the fact of being just near the river.

Let's go to Kamogawa.

This is the neighbor's wall.

That's the neighbor's wall?

Yeah.

So this is the back of the wall of earthen wall.

Okay.

And here, of course, it needs to be repaired.

Okay.

And so when you renovate it, you keep it the same style?

Like earthen walls?

Yes.

The walls are composed of a straw and mud mixture, both which used to come from rice fields.

That's bamboo.

Yes.

It's the base for putting the first layer of soil.

So the first three layers are quite rough.

And then the last layers will be the finish.

And this is what I really like about these old places.

You can see the history.

Since Cecilia was so passionate about Keomachias, I asked what she most liked about them.

Everything, the materials, how it's built, also the part of the conservation.

Because it's not just conservation of architecture, but it's also conservation of the urbanism of Kyoto and wood structures, just everything.

Okay.

So let's have a rundown of a basic Keomachia.

First off, they're often called unagi no neruko, or eel beds.

There are two popular theories as to how the name came about.

One theory states that as taxes were determined by the width of the building's entrance, the portion of the building that faced the street became narrower and the building's length increased.

Another theory posits that land plots were divided up into smaller units to bring in as many merchants as possible to help make the city thrive.

So the front part is called mise no ma, or shop space.

It's where craftsmen might put together kimonos, like in Cecilia's place, or sell goods, like at her neighbor's place.

A really friendly guy, by the way.

So they often had dual purposes, long before live-work condos were all the rage.

Along the whole side of the building would be the tori niwa, which is an earthen floor corridor.

This is also where the okudo-san, the kitchen, was located.

And this is what the traditional cooking equipment looked like.

Because it was earthen floors, footwear would be worn in this area.

If you looked up, you'd notice a double-height ceiling called the hibukuro.

This space acted both as a chimney for the smoke from cooking and as a skylight.

Behind the shop space, there would be the kyoshitsubu, or the living space.

That's where you could host guests or simply eat your meals.

At the end of the house would be the engawa.

This is the wooden veranda, and to me, it's very iconically Japanese.

It'll feature a double set of sliding doors.

Based on the weather and the desired amount of wind or light you wanted, you could open and close them to transform the room.

There's even these cute little ones above.

An engawa will have a little courtyard garden called subo niwa.

Many kyo-machiya are right on the street, so gardens out front were rare.

So in the back, this is where you could have some greenery and let some light in.

In quite a few of these house designs I've seen, this is also where you'd have your bath.

If you go up the stairs to the second floor, you might notice a hakokaidan, which literally means box stairs.

With the lack of space, it's a practical way of putting in extra storage.

At the top is generally where sleeping quarters would be.

Tatami rooms with closets where you could store your futons, which you'd put out at night to sleep in.

While a new kyo-machiya can be built from scratch, due to time, money and scale restraints, it is rarely done.

As a result, their numbers are decreasing at a worrying rate.

Roughly two or three kyo-machiya is being demolished each day.

With a current stock of around 40,000, that means by 2050, there'll be very few left.

So that's one of a very big kind of mission that we wanted to accomplish, to preserve as much as we can.

Increasingly, people are coming together to keep these historical buildings, as well as being creative with the spaces.

For example, the four families I visited purchased or rented their homes through Hachisei, ensuring they're preserved.

Other uses for kyo-machiya include guesthouses, shops and restaurants, just to name a few.

Hachisei is a 64-year-old real estate agency, mainly deal with kyo-machiya.

We help foreign customers to buy their own house or a future investment.

And also we have monthly rental.

A good thing is that while it's quite difficult to get a kyo-machiya built from scratch, renovating an existing one is much simpler, especially if you're not changing the structure.

And I find that sometimes the constraints can be a creative boom, where people find such fascinating ways of designing around and living within the limitations given.

These are a group of kyo-machiya that have been renovated.

There are three houses in this complex, and they all have their own unique styling.

As traditional as kyo-machiyas may seem, they have gone through generations of change, so you shouldn't feel that you can't switch up some elements.

While the work is often done by local craftsmen and used local materials, the results can widely vary.

This tatami room was transformed into a meditation slash yoga room, with the walls covered in washi, or Japanese paper.

Here you can see the original wooden beams up top, and some added windows below along the stairway.

An example of a choice you can make is whether to go with hardwood floors or tatami mats.

This one actually has both in the same room.

And sleeping on the floor, you can do that at certain places, but western-style beds can also be had.

One thing I've seen with all places is that they choose to have modern kitchens and bathroom facilities.

To get an idea of renovations that can be done, let's start off by taking a look at Richard and Masami's house.

Another addition that we made is a fitted kitchen.

We've got an oven, grill, hidden dishwasher.

We have these blinds which you can bring down if you want to, if you really want to cover the kitchen.

So this side of Machiya is really fun, actually the design phase.

What you want, how you want things hidden, what you want highlighted and so on.

So this was really fun.

So this actually turns out to be quite a nice place just to sit, read a book.

I've always had the dream to build my own sports bar in my house.

So one of the first projects I did.

And so here we have it at Match Wood.

The contractor who built the house helped me find the natural edge, solid piece for the top.

So the first upgrade we requested before moving in was a heated floor.

So I think that I fully recommend.

Speaking of temperature control, this seems like a good time to address common concerns people have about living in a Kyo Machiya.

We were a little bit afraid before because we were afraid to be like so cold in the winter and so hot in the summer.

Everybody told me not to choose a Machiya.

The old house.

Because it's too cold and it's too difficult to live in.

But we are in March now, so the winter is almost over and we survived.

The construction, you know.

Yeah, the heated floor.

It's really warm in the winter.

And then there's one aircon here and one aircon upstairs.

And they are heavily used.

Just a quick note.

Renovated Kyo Machiyas are often upgraded with both insulation as well as heating and cooling equipment, such as double pane windows, heated floors and aircon units.

Usually Machiyas are quite dark.