Wooden House Production System in Recent Okinawa Prefecture

Abstract

In Okinawa, new wooden house construction starts is very small compared with in the whole Japan. So, wooden house builders in Okinawa have many difficulties, like shortage of lumbers or carpenters. But, from the 1990s, pre-cut lumber shipped from southern Kyushu area have got used in Okinawa. With this new building method, some companies which have no experience of wooden construction moved onto wooden house construction. Most of them build small numbers of wooden houses, and do another business on the other hand. And wooden house building system is influenced by limited distribution channel as well as environmental factor.

A comparative study of wooden house construction in Jeollanamdo in South Korea and Okinawa Prefecture in Japan following World War II

“…However, these studies do not account for the increase in wooden post and beam house production beginning in the 1990s. As an exception, Gondo, Uehashi, and Matsumura et al (2010) focused on the increase of wooden post and beam construction after 1990.…”

“…In Jeollanamdo particularly, the construction of wooden post and beam houses was promoted by the local government (Kim et al 2014). Okinawa Prefecture also witnessed an increase in the construction of wooden post and beam houses beginning in the 1990s (Gondo, Uehashi, and Matsumura 2010). The accumulated knowledge and experience of both regions can also be applied to other regions or countries attempting to support the construction of wooden buildings.…”