Products Archives - understand-culture

Kei Cars

A kei jidōsha, light car, may be no more than 3.4 meters long, 1.48 meters wide and 2.0 meters high, with an engine of no more than 660 cc. The class is defined under the Road Transport Vehicle Act. The 660 cc limit dates from 1990. The present length and width took effect in October 1998.

Inside that box, Honda built the N-BOX around its cabin. In a Honda magazine interview, the chief developer of the first N-BOX describes the task: Shitsunai o hiroku suru tame ni, enjin rūmu o chiisaku shinagara, dō yatte kūkan o kakuho suru ka. “To make the cabin wide, how do we secure space while making the engine room smaller?”

Two Mats

Taian, the tea room at the temple Myōkian in Ōyamazaki, Kyoto Prefecture, has a seating area of only two tatami mats. With its anteroom and service space, the area is only about four and a half mats. It is a National Treasure.

According to the temple’s tradition, Sen no Rikyū built it in the camp of Hashiba Hideyoshi, and it was later taken down and moved to the temple. The attribution to Rikyū rests on that tradition.

Capsules

The Nakagin Capsule Tower in Ginza, Tokyo, designed by the architect Kurokawa Kishō, was completed in 1972. Its 140 capsules were attached to two main pillars. Each capsule was a dwelling of about 10 square meters. The building was demolished in 2022 because it had aged.

Japan’s first capsule hotel, Capsule Inn Osaka, opened in Osaka in 1979. Kurokawa designed it as well.

Tower House

In October 1966, the architect Azuma Takamitsu completed Tō no ie, Tower House, in Shibuya, Tokyo. The site measures 20.56 square meters.

Passport Size

In 1989, Sony released the Handycam CCD-TR55. Sony’s history of the Handycam describes it as small and light, pasupōto saizu, passport size, and gives its weight as 790 grams. It won the Good Design Grand Prize of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

Pocketable

Sony’s TR-63 transistor radio went on sale in 1957. It measured 112 by 71 by 32 millimeters, which Sony describes as the smallest in the world at the time. Sony says its compact size gave rise to a new word, pokettaburu, pocketable. It was also Sony’s first full-scale export model.

A Bike for the Trunk

In 1981, Honda launched a car and a minibike at the same time, the City and the Motocompo. The two were developed together. With its handlebar folded, the Motocompo could be loaded into the trunk of the new City.

The 51C Plan

Three floor plans adopted in 1951 were called 51A, 51B and 51C after the year. The 51C plan had a floor area of only about 35 square meters. It came to be regarded as an excellent and highly functional plan, and later apartment layouts took it as their prototype.

The designer Suzuki found that a larger kitchen could also serve as the place to eat. The bedrooms could then be divided, while eating and sleeping still happened in separate rooms. This is said to be the origin of the Japanese dining kitchen, the DK.

Midget House

In October 1959, Daiwa House began selling the Midget House, a small prefabricated building. Among its development conditions were an area of no more than three tsubo, about 10 square meters, and a building time of no more than three hours.

The idea came from the wish to give children a separate study room at home. At launch, a six-mat version cost 118,000 yen and a four-and-a-half-mat version 108,000 yen.

Furoshiki

In December 2005, Environment Minister Koike Yuriko wrote in her email newsletter: Watakushi wa kono tabi “mottainai furoshiki” naru mono o tsukurimashita. “I have now made something called a ‘mottainai furoshiki.'” A furoshiki is a square wrapping cloth.

The ministry explained that she saw the furoshiki, a part of traditional Japanese culture, as a way to start people thinking about a society that cares for the environment. The ministry also held a class on how to wrap things with it.