Asia

Each summer for the past ten years the AA's Shin Egashira has organised a workshop in the remote village of Koshirakura, north of Tokyo. The students attending leave behind a structure designed to improve in some way the lives of the inhabitants. This book documents these workshops through texts, diaries and images.

It was in the late 1960s and '70s that the author, then a student of architecture, rst encountered built environments belonging to the genres of folk or vernacular traditions.

This volume reveals how Japan's culture has changed and contributed to the Japanese built environment - from historic buildings, post-industrialist cities, monastic gardens and modern landscapes, to the contemplative tea huts.

Quirky, surprising and entertaining - with more than 400 houses, Jutaku is architecture at the speed of Japan.