Koshiita

What koshiita means

Koshiita is boarding fixed to the lower part of a wall, the dado or koshi. The base of a wall suffers from rain splash and knocks, and boarding it protects the plaster or clay above. It is used on both outer and inner walls.

There are several ways of fixing it: overlapping horizontal weatherboarding; sasarako-shitami, horizontal boards held by notched vertical battens; yamato-bari, boards set alternately front and back; and vertical boarding. Charred Yakisugi boards are sometimes used. Records usually specify the method.

Modern schools and public buildings commonly have boarded dados on the inner walls of corridors and classrooms, with plaster or boarding above.

Reading the records and the building

Records mention boarded dados and often how they are fixed. The north classroom wing of the former Ayukawa Elementary School in Yurihonjo, Akita, has classroom walls facing the north corridor with doors at each end and, between them, boarded dados with sliding windows, the long corridor lined with wooden fittings giving a calm space. The north storehouse of the Suga family in Gero, Gifu, a two-storey clay-walled storehouse, is finished in white plaster above a ground-floor dado of sasarako-shitami boarding. The gatehouse of the Mizuho Vinegar works, the Onishi family house, in Kashihara, Nara, has exposed-post walls with a yamato-bari dado and glazed doors, a modern design.

On site, look for boarding on the lower wall finished differently from the wall above; the direction and overlapping of the boards show the method used.