Abstract
The residential plots and farmlands on the hillsides and foothills of Shitsukawa Village in Miyoshi County of Tokushima Prefecture are separated by stone walls. The plans of farmhouses during the Meiji period were inferred based on Kaokuezumen published in 1884, which revealed that the most common configuration consisted of two rooms. Two-roomed houses accounted for 57% of the houses in the village, followed by three-roomed houses, which accounted for 16.2%; taken together, these two housing configurations accounted for 75% of the plans used for houses in the village. Restoration analysis of house plans revealed that many of the three-roomed houses were subsequently remodeled into four-roomed houses. The average building area (tsubo) for one-, two- and three-roomed houses was 6.75, 13.63 and 16.90, respectively, which meant that compared to the average building area of one-roomed houses, two- and three-roomed houses were approximately 2 and 2.5 times larger, respectively. In two- and three-roomed houses, a toko and a closet were placed at the back of the omote to give the living space a sense of frontality. Among the different plan types, no significant differences were observed in the number of family members per household. The average number of family members per household in the entire village was 5.76, implying that there were 5 to 6 people per household.
