Size ... it's what you do with it that counts ... from a survey of recent Japanese buildings, nine houses address wider ambitions than their modest scale suggests.

Size is everything, actually. And, it's precisely what you do with it that counts. Scale and proportion have long been key variables in the pursuit of spatial perfection. While tectonics have traditionally attracted more scrutiny, as detailed attention focuses on the changing form and nature of walls, immaterial spatial subtleties are easily and often overlooked. Most histories of architecture could be said to represent little more than how architects have made walls and put holes in them; relatively little has been written about changing attitudes to space. As Bruno Zevinoted in 1957, we are still waiting for a satisfactory history of architecture to be written; a history that considers spatial responses to evolving cultures. In his opinion, 'historians of architecture have failed to apply a coherent method of studying buildings from a spatial point of view'. From Vitruvius to Banister Fletcher, theoreticians have overlooked its main component; beyond, that is, specific theories of proportion by individuals such as Da Vinci, Corbusier, and Van Der Laan. There is a direct reciprocal relationship between the scale of spaces we inhabit and how we inhabit them. In considering the changing allocation and use of space, beyond merely understanding the techniques employed to create them, clues emerge about the social, political, economic and environmental climate in which they were built; in other words how architects have read context and optimised development, in response to a specific brief, a specific social, political and economic market, and more broadly to specific urban conditions. In this issue, which focuses on one scale of development, a greater understanding is sought in respect of one of the world's most intriguing and rapidly developing cultures--that of Japan. We review some of its smallest buildings, counting the architectural pennies while letting the pounds look after themselves. Even though Japan continues to build big, it is possible to consider a number of broad issues by focusing on its smallest unit of construction, the unit that when collectively assembled makes up the largest proportion of its built fabric: the detached house.

Detached Japan

In Japan the detached house is one of the country's most widespread architectural types; some would say one of the nation's most enduring cultural treasures. Through the stipulation of strict earthquake regulations, every unit is separated from its neighbour by a minimum of 500mm. Combined with an extremely high population density and a serious lack of land, this creates the country's unique morphology: thousands upon thousands of individual dwellings that create an almost impenetrable physical mass. Arriving in Tokyo by train, for example, visitors are confronted with a vision of domestic intimacy that would make most Western suburbanites seriously claustrophobic. Travelling further into the centre reveals that the Japanese city does not have the physical hierarchy that most Westerners would expect; even the most peripheral suburbs have a density more commonly associated with city-centre sites. Before long, however, as the train carves through the seemingly endless suburb, most visitors take this level of urban intensity for granted as more subtle layers of detail are revealed. With fully fenestrated facades facing each other across virtually inaccessible passageways it seems that each house was conceived in complete isolation. Architecturally, little dialogue exists between the faces of these homes, and with further regulations commonly limiting each footprint to a 50 per cent plot ratio, many houses turn inwards to conceal courtyards, atria and internal facades that express more than those seen externally. So, urbanistically, compositionally and spatially, these little gems have much to teach. The Japanese home also reveals how people live and inhabit space, as each home creates, in microcosm, a place where habits, rituals and functions emerge; these characteristics can be applied to larger scale proposals.

Society in microcosm

Scale can trick perception, and is often ambiguous. The foreshortening effect of aerial photography, for example, can make it difficult to distinguish between two similar images; an oily puddle at close range and an entire river delta surveyed by satellite. Patterns too can deceive; micro-chips can resemble Lloyd-Wrightian city plans. In architecture, therefore, it is no surprise that the ambiguity of scale has intrigued influential theorists, most famously in Charles and Ray Eames' 1977 film, Powers of Ten. Others have discussed analogous architectural characteristics when scale becomes difficult to discern, comparing the relationship between a room and a home, and a home and a city, illustrating the proposition that circulation, servicing, geometry, and structure (the frameworks of order) are not scale-specific. The house, and in particular the Japanese detached house, can also be read as a microcosm; not only a microcosm of the city, being the smallest unit of construction within a very distinctive urban fabric--a single cell of a complex organism--but also as a microcosm of architectural ideas. Often demanding more labour and love than larger schemes, the intricacies involved in the resolution of a house are invariably extremely high. In the same way that writers borrow Mark Twain's apology for writing long letters when they don't have time to write shorter ones, architects could quite reasonably assert that more time and effort is required to design relatively small homes. The complexities of designing small buildings are disproportionate. It certainly does not require half the effort to design half as much space. Indeed, if architects' fees are a gauge, designing small private homes is one of their most demanding tasks. Often unprofitable, but more often than not extremely rewarding, many architects produce their best work at this scale. How many architects, for example, can you think of who should have retired after completing their first domestic commission, rarely being given the freedom or having the enthusiasm to improve on their earliest work?

Small in Japan

We are not suggesting that the architects featured in this issue should pack-up their drawing boards and retire. This is an ideal opportunity to feature the work of some of Japan's most promising emerging architects. With the exception of British designer John Pawson, eight growing practices give us a brief insight into the concerns and preoccupations of Japan's next generation of designers; those who are slowly winning more significant commissions, taking the mantle from Ando, Hasegawa and Ito. Japan has recently lost its master architect Kengo Tange (AR May 2005); disappointment and embarrassment were felt by its architectural community in relation to the recent international Expo, Aichi 2005 (which dramatically failed to live up to the visionary work of their predecessors at Osaka 1970, AR June 2005). There is a sense of anticipation about what will now emerge. So, in a small way, these nine projects, ordered in three sets of three, set out to scrutinise new tendencies and approaches to site, type and technique; with Endo, Tezuka and Bow-Wow optimising complex as-found urban sites; Aoki, Power Unit Studio and Kishi experimenting with new (and old) formal types; and EDH, Kuma, and Pawson manipulating highly distinctive and ingeniously detailed boundary walls.