At the moment the market is only selling packaged items. Soon, however, the kitchen will open to serve hot dishes and drinks. Patrons can take meals or tea and enjoy them in the adjacent space.
"See you can sit at that low table outside the market," Hiromi explains.
"But those tables are indoors!" I stammer.
[Beat.] "They're symbolically outside. See, the sliding doors distinguish the different orientation of the spaces."
I scratch my head. Hiromi rolls her eyes again and reaches for some Post-It notes. Post-Its (and envelopes and napkins) are universal tools for quick and dirty explanations of architecture.
"It's based on the traditional Japanese house. You have the interior 'private' space versus 'public' spaces." There's typically a corridor that separates inside and outside, with sliding glass doors on either side of the corridor. Her first Post-It looks like this - it's a plan sketch of the aforementioned threshold. I've added some notes to try to clarify things.
She blocks out the walls and sliding doors, and hatches a band, and some figures. "It's a porch."
"Kinda narrow..."
Eye roll. "It's Not-To-Scale." A term architects use when they run out of paper.
"Usually these houses have a porch beyond the corridor, and people sit there and drink tea when the weather's nice."
"So you just go outside stick your feet over the porch and hang out."
"Yep."
"All in your socks and everything."
Hiromi blackens in the ends of the people's feet. "Shoes. You leave your slippers in the corridor." She draws two pairs of what I presume to be slippers in the corridor.
"Aaaaaahhh."
New Post-It:
"Some houses don't have a porch. What you do is, when the weather's nice, open the corridor doors and sit right there." She draws some speckled blobs. "There are large stones that transition you from the ground up into the house." She keeps drawing. "Fish pond."
"Does every house have a fish pond???"
"No."
[Fin.]
Historic Japanese government house in Takayama. Image by JapanDaveLegend:
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