What should I consider when planning a project? ⌄ You should have a place to build, a list of the modern conveniences that are essential to you and an idea of how much space you need. It’s a waste of time to design a house without a specific place to build it because the siting of the house is so critical to what we build there.



If you’re building a house: We strongly recommend building the smallest house that will provide the spaces you require. We can and have built large houses, but smaller, meticulously done houses are what most people come to us for.



How can I learn more about East Wind? ⌄ We saw a gap in the literature about Japanese architecture that addressed how it was done, so we decided we needed to write a useful book about the process of designing and building a Japanese house.

Building The Japanese House Today, Brackett and Rao, Harry Abrams Press, 2005 is available at your local bookstore, or failing that, at the link shown here.



How much will my project cost? ⌄ Our work isn’t cheap in either cost or quality. It requires a lot of time, even with a well equipped shop and its highly skilled people. Our houses start at $400 per square foot and can go up from there if the client wants.



How should I draw my floor plan? ⌄ Make a list of the rooms you would like to have. Then go back and mark the ones that are essential to you. Next to each room note the dimensions you think you’ll need. As much as possible try to dimension these rooms in increments of 3 feet. (3’, 6’, 9’, 12’, etc). Tatami, the basic module of all traditional Japanese houses, is 3’×6’ feet—and all of our lumber is cut to these lengths. For reference, a standard Japanese bedroom is 4.5 mats (9’ x 9’) or 6 mats (9’ x 12’), whereas an average Western bedroom starts at about 10 mats (12’ x 15’).



Using your room list, sketch out up to ten floor plans. Don’t get too detailed! You don’t want to get too attached to a particular floor plan, so it’s best to do this freehand in pencil. Find some ¼–inch or ½–inch gridded paper and count each grid square as 3’×3’.



Entertain any goofy idea you might have: a lap pool in front of the entry, a lookout tower, a pool in the basement, a garden inside the house—whatever. Cover as many ideas as possible, even the lunatic ones. When you complete one, put it in a drawer and don't take it out again. Don't make different versions of the same thing. Once they are all done, pull them all out and pick the ones you like the most. Send the floorpans you created to us and together we can decide which one to develop.



If you can’t do this, or don’t want to, then we can wade into this with you.



How can we keep costs down? ⌄ We can design houses to maximize the involvement of local contractors. We can build a traditional Japanese live-on-the-floor house, which uses half the square footage of a house designed to accommodate furniture. We can build a wing or the core of a house—usually places where you will hang out, spend a lot of time. The rest of the house can then be built using cheaper modern construction techniques. One doesn’t necessarily need Japanese laundry rooms, storage rooms or garages.

Private areas of the house (bedroom, bathroom, office) can be shoes-off ‘live on the floor’ spaces with little or no furniture. Public and hang out parts of the house (entries, kitchens, living rooms) can be designed for shoes-on and furniture. In this case, there should be a clear split-level transition between the two—a place where shedding footwear is convenient.



What is a typical project timeline? ⌄ Rough Floor Plan

We’ll work together to assess your needs and the location for your house. Using that information, we’ll begin sketching initial layouts for the floor plan.



Drafting and Final Floor Plan

Once we’ve found a design that feels right, we’ll produce a detailed final floor plan for approval.

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Elevations

After we’ve finished the floor plan, we’ll prepare elevations (views of the house from the outside) with your active input and feedback. We will make suggestions, but ultimately we’re not the ones who will be living in this house and we’re not paying for it, so the client is the boss!



Site Plan & Planning Department Check-In

We’ll share the proposed building(s) with the client for approval of what has been done so far. Once the client approves, we’ll have an informal meeting with planning and building officials to make sure they’re generally okay with what we propose. If things are looking good with the planning department, we’ll continue. If not, we’ll go back and revise our site plan.

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Structural Drawings

We’ll work with engineers to produce structural and detail drawings for the project. We’ll also put together sectional drawings and a reflected ceiling plan. Structural and energy engineers are usually required. Sometimes we’ll also need to involve soil engineers and others. This is also when we prepare a set of drawings to submit to the building and planning departments.



Estimate & Build Contract

Once the design is finalized and the project is approved, we’ll prepare a materials list and a Critical Path (CP) schedule. The drawings are a plan for what we are going to build, but the critical path schedule is a plan for how we will build it. This CP schedule details all of the tasks necessary to build the house—both work in the shop and work on-site. It will tell us quite accurately what our labor costs will be. The CP schedule will also include a timeline for subcontractors. We’ll use the materials list and CP schedule to prepare an accurate and predictable estimate and a build contract.

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Down Payment & Scheduling

With the contract signed and down payment is received, the work is scheduled.

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Permitting

We’ll submit all necessary documentation to the local planning department for the formal permit application.



Work Begins

As soon as the planning department issues the permit, we begin work on the project. We use the Critical Path schedule to do the work both in the shop and on site. We update it every two or three days. We can send PDF updates on our progress to the client on a timely basis so they can see how we’re doing. This way they know they’re not on a bucking horse heading for a cliff!



Local Contractor

If the job is not local to our Nevada City workshop, we will help you source a local contractor.



Who operates as the general contractor? ⌄ If the job is local to us, we will serve as the general contractor. We usually work with a local contractor in any site too far from our shop for a daily commute. We will help the client find a local contractor who knows the local building officials, and the best local subcontractors.



Unless the client is sure of the contractor they will hire, we like to be involved to help them vet the contractor. We can usually tell pretty fast if this contractor is really skilled and organized or not. A good local contractor selects and works with the best sub contractors to oversee site preparation, roads, utilities, concrete work and sometime roofing and perhaps any cabinetry we don’t make ourselves.



We have no special skills in concrete work, nor in electrical or plumbing, or site preparation. So we try to limit our involvement to those things that require our special skills, equipment or materials. Any task not requiring those things can be done by a skilled local contractor probably as well as we could, only a lot cheaper, and probably faster too. It's also worth noting that local people don't need to be paid per diem and travel expenses.



Frequently Asked