A Japanese Style of Joinery
It’s hard to imagine an entire house built without nails or screws, but this is exactly what the art of wood joinery in Japan is able to accomplish. With a unique set of skills and tools, people proficient in Japanese joinery use different specialized connections to create incredibly complex structures made only from wood.
Surprisingly, the tools used for this art form are relatively simple. There are no power tools whatsoever. Instead, there are specific tools that are used for specific types of cuts. To match the set of specialized tools are specialized joints created for use in specific situations. Beams are joined together without nails, but the complex connections used in each situation is crafted to suit the particular set of members. It is incredible the complexity with which some of these are designed, but the result is a structure that has impressive strength.
A good example of homes built using this type of joinery are the minka homes in Japan that have a steep thatched roof. These homes were built with this praying hands style of roof to keep off the tremendous snow that piles up in the regions of northern Japan where they were built. Considering the age of some of these houses, it is amazing to see the beautiful wide open spaces in the interior of the buildings – especially considering that the massive beams used to hold the house up are joined together without nails or screws.
The wooden beams used to span large areas were harvested from the hillsides so that they have a certain characteristic curve. This curve was used to provide additional strength to the structure that a straight beam would not be able to support. These homes utilized Japanese joinery in their assembly and despite the complete lack of modern construction techniques, have managed to stay standing for many years. In fact, they are probably stronger than many of the homes in existence today. A visit to any of them will show the time, care, and effort that went into each one.