"The Ichinomiya group represents the Eastern equivalent of the rowhouse. It is in a rural setting...Although the individual units are much smaller than their Western counterparts, the grouping is rather typical of Western arrangements. The landscape plays a much more dominant role, however, and the buildings rather easily accommodate themselves to the existing stream and trees....Each unit has a garden defined by a low wall, and a higher wall separates every second unit....There are several different types of units. Built on a module of about 11 feet, the one-story units use two bays—about 23 feet—and the two-story units only one bay. Both types are of comparable size, about 400 square feet, with four rooms each. Only the two-story apartments have balconies, but both have a paved patio on the garden side."

—Roger Sherwood. Modern Housing Prototypes. p60-61.

The Creator's Words

"Whereas the total system in cities is being defined by huge construction work, involving things like highways, over a long period of time, the dwelling unit is changing over a short period, and factory-produced elements over an even shorter one.

"Several questions occur. Can architecture not constitute a long-term structure which can define the system? With factory-produced elements, cannot houses which would be suitable to a shorter time-span be constructed? Is it not possible to find an order which will associate the two? Cannot we conceive of a major structure and a minor structure which, like the trunk and leaves of a tree, are linked, but which change according to different cycles? Can the major structures not have the same possibility for growth as a tree trunk?"

—Kenzo Tange. from Paolo Riani. Kenzo Tange. p24.