Former Sugihara Residence/Repeated Window for Sericulture

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto Laboratory (Tokyo Institute of Technology)

09 Jul 2021

Folk museum in Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture. This building was constructed by relocating the 1864 private residence of a wealthy farmer in Shimamura (now Kuwashima, Hakusan). Up until the Edo period, on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the main building, the farmers engaged in the process of cultivating silkworm, killing the pupa after they had spun their cocoons on the cocooning frames, and extracting the filaments to make silk. So that sericulture production can take place, high windows are installed between each space to let in light. The sliding doors are located exactly halfway between the standing columns and can be retracted in the intervening space, creating an alternating layout of walls and windows.

Former Sugihara Residence
(Sericulture / Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture)

This article is an excerpt from “Window Workology,” a joint research project concerning windows and the behaviors around them done in collaboration with Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Yoshiharu Tsukamoto Laboratory.