Shikoro-buki

What shikoro-buki means

Shikoro-buki is a roof broken by a step partway down its slope, so that the upper and lower sections are laid separately. The shikoro is the neck guard hanging from the back of a helmet, and the stepped, overlapping form is said to resemble it. The eaves of the upper section project slightly over the lower section, so seen from the side the roof face appears to break in one step.

On a hip-and-gable roof, the typical form separates the upper gabled part from the lower part sloping on all four sides with such a step. The roof of the Tamamushi Shrine, which preserves the appearance of an ancient Buddhist hall, is well known to take this form, and it is regarded as an element of early temple design. Houses of the early modern period and later also sometimes drop part of the eaves of a hipped roof by one step in this way.

Reading the records and the building

Records combine it with the roof type, as hip-and-gable with shikoro-buki or eaves dropped one step in shikoro-buki. The main hall of Shitennoji in Osaka, reconstructed in steel-reinforced concrete on its original site after detailed excavation, is recorded as two-storeyed, hip-and-gable, with shikoro-buki, its exterior based on the main hall of Horyuji; the stepped roof was chosen to convey the look of an ancient temple.

The detached reception room of the Ayakiku brewery, formerly the Izumitani brewery, in Ayagawa, Kagawa, is a single-storey timber building with a hipped pantiled roof whose south eaves are dropped one step in shikoro-buki, showing the method on a small domestic building.

On site, look at the roof from the side for a step partway down the slope. If the roof face divides there, with the upper eaves overlapping the lower section, it is shikoro-buki.