Tsuchibisashi

What a tsuchibisashi is

A tsuchibisashi is a canopy thrown out over an earth-floored area. With a roof but no enclosing walls, it makes a space that is outdoors yet sheltered from rain.

It serves as a work space. The Wada Residence storehouse in Nagano Prefecture, from the 1890s, is described as standing east of the main house, a two-storey plastered storehouse about 5.5 by 3.6 metres entered from the eaves side, with a deep canopy of this kind across its front used as a work space and a miso store attached behind.

It also secures the ground before a storehouse door. The south-east storehouse at the Okawa Residence in Tochigi Prefecture, from the early Meiji period, is described as a two-storey storehouse about 7 by 5.5 metres with such a canopy thrown out on the garden side to the west to form the area before the door, a Sangawara-buki roof standing free of the walls, and white plaster outside.

A storehouse has few openings, so everything passes through the Tomae. Roofing the ground in front of it allows work to continue in wet weather.

Distinguished from a lean-to

A Geya is also a lower roof thrown against the main building, but rooms or a veranda with a raised floor usually sit beneath it. What distinguishes this one is that the ground below stays unfloored.

Records keep the two apart. The Fukuda Residence storehouse in Kochi Prefecture is described as having a lean-to on its east side sheltering the area before the door together with a three-mat watchman's room, and the word used is the other one, because a floored room is included.

On site, look at what is underfoot. Bare earth or a beaten floor continuous with the ground outside indicates this type; boards or mats indicate a room beneath a lean-to.