Cob: [Fwd: Re: Aizu Gig]

[Darel Henman]

Carl,

This is the cob list.   For data not relevant to cob we should direct
mail directly.
There are a couple of interesting pictures URL'd here some perhaps its
o.k..

Carl Vilbrandt wrote:
> 
> ....... snipped some here and there...
> I have been visiting Aizu for the last eight years and I am just finishing a
> three-year contract that may be renewed. I study with a temple carpenter of
> this region and have built computer models of several temples in this
> region.
That would be interesting to see.

> 
>  Of course I am aware of the use of mud walls in Japan. It seems that mud
> store houses may have been used some 4000 years ago.

It's possible that they used mud applied onto branches at that time? But
I've not heard of it used in that period except for burial mounds.  They
traditionally dug down about a yard into the ground dug in posts and put
branches on it with reeds on top of this.  A one room.  The store housed
then were built up on posts and out of wood like an elevated log cabin. 
A mud mixture may
have been used to seal it and to keep rats out.

Here's how they built around 1200 years ago. (Ignore the garbled text
and look at the pictures.)
One would step down into these dwelling.  They dug down to about the end
of the frost line, to keep a little warmer in the winter.

http://member.nifty.ne.jp/beetle-shiga/yayoi.htm


The bottom three pictures here are tombs and not for living.

http://inoues.net/yamataikoku/ruins/yayoimori.html   


Here's another good one.  
http://inoues.net/yamataikoku/nyumon/wa10.html

> They have uncovered
> 4000 year old rice fields in Aizu along with what appears to be  straw and
> earth covered storage rooms..... a root cellar.
This figure seems contrary to Japanese and Chinese history books, which
state that China had not yet introduced rice and rice farming techniques
into Japan until around the second half of the Yayoi period, 250 A.D.,
which was also when Japanese started to learn to read and write.   Still
a long long time. 

> 
> I have made arrangements to meet a "mud master builder".  I am also very
> aware of its internal structure. The mud mixture makes use of the rice wine
> mash.
I've read nearly all of the earthen plaster books in Japanese, including
the famous research book on Japanese walls written in 1954, and in not
one used the rice wine mash (moromi) used any of the mixes.  The chinese
did used a paste made from mochi rice for their rammed earth walls.  The
sake's moromi(mash) has all of the sugars converted out of it by the
yeast and it has no fibre strength like the rice straw.   I think
somebody is trying to tease you on that point.  Try to give you an
rational explanation for putting organic moromi into a mud plaster.  
They did use a glue made from seaweed to make application easier, but
the result was inferior to the water mixed earthen muds.

> 
> I'm interested in the not only keeping alive as it is by careful recordation
> through computer modeling but promoting its use with advance computer
> designed highbred structures.  Some saki factories have used modern mud
> walls for heat sinks for their warehouses.

Your are right, this has traditionally been so.

> 
> Ferro concrete is too expensive to use as a heat sink by anybody's
> accounting system.
It also doesn't have the physical properties to do it as well as earth.


> Ninety percent of energy in the developed countries is
> wasted on heating and cooling modern buildings. This in anybody's accounting
> terms is unacceptable practice that is not in anyone's terms sustainable.
> The integration of the use of earth in modern structures as a passive heat
> sink is one of the few solutions to this problem.
>
True hope you convince the japanese of this.  You'd have to overcome the
economic barrier first, I fear.

> 
> I am developing systems that grow habitat similar to the building
> technologies and cooling and heating controls that are used by ants.
That's sounds interesting.  I'd like to know about the controls they
used.

> The area still has a lot of saki mesh for now and other natural materials.
Actually, the sake moromi (mash) was traditionally fed to animals.

I a few days ago used my moromi from making mirin and put it in my
sourdough bread.
I seen someone make a cheesecake like dish out of it as well.

> The WTO is destroying the rice farming in the Aizu valley and sake mesh will
> not be so available.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'mesh' and wondered if you meant 'mash'.
There will always be the moromi (mash) left over from sake brewing.  And
there will always be nuka or the rice hulls taken off rice in the
polishing process.

>   Rice farming has been done in this valley for 4000
> years
Remember China didn't introduce rice farming into Japan until 250 
A.D..  This is documented and accepted by historical scholars and
academic institutions.

> I give it 50 or less years and no one will be able to afford to.  I am
> helping an organic rice farmer trying to find a way to fight this...

Good luck to you.   What is the WTO doing to hurt them?  They've been
subsidized for a long time now through artificial barriers by the
Japanese government.  From what I hear they're main problem is that all
of the young folk run off to the fancy colorful city and want to get
away from the drudgery of farm life, so the farmers don't have enough
hands around to help out.  Their immigration law doesn't allow foreign
in easily at all.

> 
> BTW I have been told It takes 70 years to complete a mud store house made
> using the traditional construction methods.

I seriously doubt that.  From my reading a traditional first class
earthen daub/plaster house could take up to two years.  It could be
lived in of course after the first year.  With finishing touches coming
later the the season permitted.

The (dozoh) or storage houses you are presumable referring to where
basically just thicker.  But, 70 years
is an exaggeration  or they just keep on adding little lime reliefs to
it. 

Even the great "Horyuji", the oldest wooden building in Japan, which was
built around 1300 years ago didn't take that long to complete.  (Even a
web search in English will get "horyuji" information.  It's a united
nations tagged world heritage building.

It was after Horyuji was build that the typical Japanese earthen plaster
walls came into being.  They lasted until cement made them uneconomical
and skills degraded which were once needed to blend and make locals
soils suitable for an earthen daub/cob/plaster.

> 
> > Darel Henman
> > Tokyo
> 
> Humm soooo until later ..... here's to mud and rice wine .... Kom! Paeiiii
> :-))


As an aside, I wonder why they call sake, a wine, since wines are to me
fruit based and beers are grain based.


Regards,
  Darel