Housing in Japan
Housing in Japan includes modern and traditional styles. Two patterns of residences are predominant in contemporary Japan: the single-family detached house and the multiple-unit building, either owned by an individual or corporation and rented as apartments to tenants, or owned by occupants. Additional kinds of housing, especially for unmarried people, include boarding houses, dormitories, and barracks.
An unusual feature of Japanese housing is that houses are presumed to have a limited lifespan, and are often torn down and rebuilt after a few decades, generally twenty years for wooden buildings and thirty years for concrete buildings – see [|regulations] for details. Renovating houses, rather than rebuilding them, is a relatively uncommon practice in Japan, though its prevalence is increasing, indicating that attitudes towards the use of older houses may be changing.
Japan is located in a seismically active region, and earthquake resistance is a major consideration in housing. The Building Standards Act sets minimum standards for building safety, and seismic design requirements have been strengthened over time, including a major revision in 1981. Post-disaster surveys after the 1995 Great Hanshin–Awaji Earthquake found that buildings constructed to older seismic standards generally suffered greater damage than those built to the 1981 standards. Many detached houses are wood-frame construction, in which seismic performance depends on factors such as the amount and layout of shear walls and bracing.
Housing statistics
Figures from the 2012 Housing and Land Survey conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications indicate that Japan had 53,890,900 housing units at the time. Of these, 46,862,900 were occupied and 7,027,900 unoccupied. Of the occupied units, 28,665,900 were owned by the resident household. The average number of rooms per unit of housing was 4.77, the average total floor area was and the average number of people per room was 0.56. 45,258,000 units were used exclusively for living and 1,605,000 units were used both for living and commercial purposes. Of the units used exclusively for living, 10,893,000 were equipped with an automatic smoke detector. As of 2003, 17,180,000 housing units are classified by the Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication as being located in urban areas while 27,553,000 housing units are located in rural areas.As in America, most Japanese live in single-family housing. During the postwar period, the number of multi-unit dwellings in Japan increased rapidly. In 1990, for instance, 60% of Japanese dwellings consisted of single-family homes, compared with 77% in 1958. Two years earlier, in 1988, 62.3% of the total housing units in Japan were single-family units and 37.7% were multiple-unit dwellings. That same year, a survey carried out by the Japanese economic planning agency showed that 62.3 per cent of the Japanese population owned a detached two-storeyed house.
In the 1980s, a new home in Japan cost 5-8 times the annual income of the average Japanese, and 2-3 times that of an average American. The typical loan term for Japanese homes was 20 years, with a 35% down payment, while in the United States it was 30 years and 25%, due to differing practices in their financial markets.
In 1973, according to one study, 65% of the population of Japan lived in detached houses, while 12% lived in attached houses and 23% in a flat or apartment. A survey conducted by the Management and Coordination Agency in 1983 found that there were 34.75 million occupied dwellings in Japan, of which 46.1% were built of timber, 31.3% of fireproof timber, and 22.6% of ferroconcrete or other nontimber materials. The same survey found that detached housing accounted for 64.3% off all housing in Japan, with the ratio falling in urban areas. In the 23 wards of Tokyo, for instance, multi-unit structures such as apartment houses accounted for 62.5% of all housing in those wards. In terms of tenure, 62.4% of housing in Japan consisted of owner-occupied dwellings, 24.3% of units leased by the private sector, 7.6% of units leased by the public sector, and 5.2% of housing for government workers and company employees.
According to a housing survey carried out in 1993, single-family homes accounted for 59.2% of all housing in Japan. In 1997, it was estimated that about 60% of Japanese lived in detached houses. In 1998, 52% of all dwellings in Japan were found to consist of detached houses owned by their residents, 36% were rented dwellings in apartment complexes, 8% were owned dwellings in apartments complexes, and 4% were rented detached houses. In 2005, 27,533,066 households owned a detached house, while 19,014,478 households lived in apartment houses or flats. In 2008, it was estimated that six out of ten Japanese lived in single-family houses.
According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2008, around 7.56 million houses were empty. It was later estimated in 2019 that approximately 13.6% of buildings in Japan were vacant, referred to in Japanese as Akiya. Some of the properties are also referred to as jiko bukken, and are difficult for realtors to sell or let due to being associated with traumatic events such as murder, suicide, fatal accidents or certain undesirable locations. To combat this, schemes have been put in place by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to promote the renovation and reoccupation of Akiya property, with estate agents maintaining special listings referred to as 'Akiya Bank' to facilitate the sales, renovation and renting of such property. While local Akiya Bank schemes have been in place since the 1990s, renewed interest in renovating property, as well as the advent of the internet, meant that a national scheme was put in place in the 2010s, which remains active to date. A 2024 survey by the Internal Affairs Ministry found that the number of Akiya properties amounted to 9 million homes, with around 13.8% of homes in Japan vacant.
Danchi
Danchi is the Japanese word for a large cluster of apartment buildings of a particular style and design, typically built as public housing by a government authority.The Japan Housing Corporation, now known as the Urban Renaissance Agency, was founded in 1955. During the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the JHC built many danchi in suburban areas to offset the housing demand of the then-increasing Japanese population.
Interior design
Traditional homes
A traditional Japanese house does not have a designated use for each room aside from the entrance area, kitchen, bathroom, and toilet. Any room can be a living room, dining room, study, or bedroom. This is possible because all the necessary furniture is portable, being stored in oshiire, a small section of the house used for storage. It is important to note that in Japan, living room is expressed as ima, living "space". This is because the size of a room can be changed by altering the partitioning. Large traditional houses often have only one ima under the roof, while kitchen, bathroom, and toilet are attached on the side of the house as extensions.Somewhat similar to modern offices, partitions within traditional Japanese houses are created by a variety of movable panels. One of the most common types is fusuma, sliding doors made from wood and paper, which are portable and easily removed. Fusuma seal each partition from top to bottom so it can create a mini room within the house. On the edge of a house are rōka, wooden floored passages, that are similar to hallways. Rōka and ima are partitioned by shōji, sliding and portable doors that are also made from paper and wood. Unlike fusuma, paper used for shōji is very thin so outside light can pass through into the house. This was before glass began to be used for sliding doors. Rōka and outside of the house are either partitioned by walls or portable wooden boards that are used to seal the house at night. Extended roofs protect the rōka from getting wet when it rains, except during typhoon season where the house gets sealed completely. Roofs of traditional houses in Japan are made of wood and clay, with tiles or thatched areas on top.
For large gatherings, these partitions are removed to create one large meeting room. During a normal day, partitions can create much smaller and more manageable living spaces. Therefore, kitchen, bathroom, toilet, and genkan with one multipurpose living space create one complete Japanese housing unit. However, the bathroom, toilet, and even kitchen can be communal. Therefore, the minimum Japanese housing arrangement, which is still possible to find if one is looking for the cheapest room to rent, consists of just genkan and one living room/space.
Modern homes
Housing is typically listed in real estate advertisements in the format of a number of rooms plus letter designators indicating the presence of common room areas, for example: 1R or 2LDK. R designating room, L for living room, D for dining room, and K for kitchen. In this format, the bathroom and toilet are not mentioned but are included with the exception of some very small 1R or 1Ks. L, D and K are not really separate and are part of or next to the kitchen. An LDK is bigger than a DK. The number before the letters indicates the number of additional multipurpose rooms. Often the rooms are separated by removable sliding doors, fusuma, so large single rooms can be created.Additionally, advertisements quote the sizes of the rooms—most importantly, the living room—with measurements in tatami mats, traditional mats woven from rice straw that are standard sizes: in the Tokyo region and 191 cm by 95.5 cm in western Japan. "2DK; one six-tatami Japanese-style room, one six-tatami Western-style room" is an example.
In Japan, multiple-unit blocks are referred to as one of two types:
- Apaato for rented unit buildings, which are usually only a few stories in height, without a central secure entrance.
- Mansion usually purchased type expensive buildings with multiple floors, elevators, and a communal secure gate, with centralized postboxes; they are usually more sturdily built than apaato, normally of reinforced concrete construction.