Cowshed-shaped houses in Kuromatsunaicho, Hokkaido, contribute to inviting young families to move to the area.
Five cowshed-shaped houses grab attention of visitors to Kuromatsunaicho, a town with a thriving dairy industry located in the southern part of Hokkaido.
The houses were built by the town’s municipal government, which since 2010 has been working on creating a townscape that maintains the cultural heritage of the farming region.
“The house is designed to match the agricultural scenery,” says Ikuko Fujii, 41, who has lived in one of the houses for two years. “It is warm and comfortable even in winter and I’m happy living here.”
The houses, which look just like cowsheds scattered about the town, have steep-slope roofs so that a mass of snow would slide down to the ground, as snow accumulates to a depth of more than a meter in the area.
Since the municipal government also seeks to increase the number of people moving in to the area where population is on the decline, the houses are rent only to families with children of junior high school ages or younger who attend the local elementary or junior high schools.
Currently, five families – 21 people in total – live in the houses. Each house is a two-story wooden building with three bedrooms and rents for 15,000 yen a month.
“Through the cowshed-shaped houses, we want to preserve the townscape nurtured by agriculture,” says Junichi Sakurai, 35, an official of the municipal government.
In 2009, the government created a plan to improve the townscape and set regulations on the height of buildings and which colors can be used to paint the walls and roofs. In 2011, the town joined the Association of the Most Beautiful Villages in Japan.
(Sept. 19, 2013)