The house and the people live together.

On the spring breeze, the softly drifting petals of cherry blossoms waft into the house. On a summer night, you fall asleep to the chirping of insects next to your pillow. In autumn, golden stalks of rice wait outside to be harvested. In winter, you snuggle under a quilt at the first hint of snow on the roof.
While thick stone walls separated houses from nature in Europe, Japanese old-style houses were connected to nature. All materials such as leaves, wood and soil of which the house is constructed are alive and breathing.
An old-style house soon deteriorates unless people live in it. Even the pillars, shining black, which have supported the house for several hundred years, fall into miserable decay.
In the last half-century, a lot of old style houses have disappeared. Losing such houses means that we lose touch with our heritage and with nature, and we will never be able to get it back.
The houses in Shumei Natural Agriculture Shigaraki no Sato might have suffered the same fate as those others. But, through the enthusiastic efforts of many people two of these old houses have come back to life. Houses breathe.
These two houses tell us this without words.

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