Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic To reach Higashiyoshino, in Nara Prefecture, one must travel more than four hours by bullet train from Tokyo. The surrounding countryside is deep in cedar and\u00a0cypress trees; 96 per cent of the land is\u00a0forest, in which bears and antelopes still\u00a0roam freely through the vegetation, and\u00a0the small population of 1,322 villagers live in dwellings between the trees. It\u2019s here,\u00a0in this remote outpost, that the British product designer Felix Conran and his partner Emily Smith settled last year, having found an abandoned 140-year-old wooden house. Together, they\u2019ve undertaken a mammoth renovation using\u00a0traditional Japanese carpentry.Conran, 30, is no stranger to rural life. His\u00a0grandfather, the late Sir Terence Conran, founder of Habitat and London\u2019s Design Museum, made his home at the 18th-century Barton Court, a near ruin in Berkshire that he transformed into a country pile in the \u201970s. Conran\u2019s father, the furniture designer Alex Willcock, lived in West Sussex in a Grade II-listed 17th-century residence, Kemps House, also taking on some of the renovation himself. Restoration is in the blood.This is a case study in reviving abandoned housesConran\u2019s own journey to Japan is the culmination of a series of life developments. He studied product design at Central Saint Martins before co-founding the furniture company Maker & Son with his father in 2018. The company, which at\u00a0one point employed up to 250 people, produces handmade pieces in natural materials. \u201cMy life and joy was tied to the success of my company,\u201d says Conran of building the business with Willcock, which they sold in\u00a02022. Having divested himself of the responsibility, the designer found himself relieved of the pressure, but\u00a0at a loss as to what to do. So, the following year, Smith suggested they embark on a three-month holiday in Japan. The road trip, which took them across the Japanese archipelago from the north to Okinawa, proved to be life-changing. Once they reached Higashiyoshino village, the couple\u00a0booked into an Airbnb. \u201cWithin half\u00a0an hour, I was mesmerised by the village, which has a clear stream flowing right through it,\u201d remembers Conran. \u201cEmily and\u00a0I looked at each other and said,\u00a0\u2018Shall we live here?\u2019\u201d\u00a0Their Airbnb host Kazu Sakamoto told them about a number of ancient abandoned wooden houses nearby. \u201cIt was then I had the idea that this could be my profession in\u00a0Japan \u2013 to restore and renovate old neglected houses and turn them into modern homes.\u201d Conran set up a company Ha Partners, named after the Japanese word for mother (\u201chaha\u201d) and Smith\u2019s mother\u2019s Korean family name so that he could work in the country, and returned to the UK to pick up their two dogs before the couple moved to Higashiyoshino last March.Conran\u2019s new home, which he and Smith have named Forest House, is one of his first renovations in this\u00a0new building adventure. It was previously used as a warehouse and cattle shed. \u201cThere are an increasing number of old houses, not only in Higashiyoshino village but across rural Japan, that are no longer in use and left in\u00a0a\u00a0poor condition as it costs money to demolish them,\u201d says Conran. \u201cMy aim is to\u00a0show that it is possible to breathe new life into these neglected buildings, not by restoring them exactly as they were, but by\u00a0appropriating them into modern and lovable houses, preserving as much as can be preserved. It is not a question of why I as\u00a0an English person would do such a thing, but why I as a human being would do this. It\u00a0was a pity to see a house, which has been\u00a0part of the local history and culture, left to ruin. Renovating this place in Higashiyoshino is a case study in reviving other abandoned houses.\u201d\u00a0Intriguing details about the property arrived from next door. \u201cOur 87-year-old neighbour Mr Kizu, who was born in this village and lived here all his life, told us the\u00a0original house had been uninhabited for\u00a0more than 85 years,\u201d he says. \u201cIt would have been easier to demolish it and build from scratch, but then it would have looked as though a spaceship had landed here from\u00a0nowhere. I believe a home should be\u00a0part of\u00a0the progression of local tradition,\u00a0not detached from it.\u201dWhat drew us to the area is the care people put into everyday lifeAlthough Conran is an accomplished designer, he had little experience in restoration work. For these houses, he sought the help of his friend, local Japanese architect Na Yamamoto, who helped him draw up plans for the house. Carpenters and woodworkers adept in traditional Japanese carpentry were then brought in to work with the timbers. \u201cDuring the process of dismantling the house, we discovered the concealed wood joinery. I was amazed by the dextrous skill of carpenters who, more\u00a0than 100 years ago, made these joints\u00a0so they were not visible externally, without a single nail,\u201d Conran recalls. \u201cThe\u00a0techniques they used\u00a0make these structures very strong. Discovering them was like talking to a person I\u2019d never met.\u201dKenta Kitamori, a 34-year-old carpenter who worked with Conran, used traditional kanawa and shachi joints for the beams, and daisen joints for posts \u2013 replicating techniques that have been used in temples\u00a0and shrines for more than 300\u00a0years. The\u00a0exterior walls, meanwhile, were\u00a0treated\u00a0with armour cladding or yoroi\u00a0bari,\u00a0a\u00a0traditional construction method in\u00a0which\u00a0wood veneer is laid in\u00a0slightly tilted layers (like the structure of\u00a0armour). It\u2019s a technique that was developed in the rainy regions of Japan, such as\u00a0Nara, as\u00a0it allows rainwater to\u00a0drain away. Instead of\u00a0acting as a structural wall, however, the walls are a membrane to improve insulation. The original structural wall\u00a0has cedar cladding.The abundant use of cedar and cypress also helps connect the family to their surroundings. Cedar and cypress trees from\u00a0this region are more robust than those\u00a0from\u00a0other parts of Japan. \u201cGenerally, 3,000 trees are planted on a hectare of land\u00a0but, in\u00a0Higashiyoshino, people plant 10,000 per hectare,\u201d Conran explains. \u201cIn\u00a0such a high density, trees can\u2019t grow rapidly and will mature more slowly. This\u00a0creates a denser wood. In the west, cedar and cypress are not considered suitable for building materials, but Yoshino wood is extremely strong.\u201dInside the house, wood is found everywhere: from the window frames to the\u00a0flooring and kitchen, which were all designed by Conran, except for several pieces made by Hiiro Yamamoto, a local craftsman. Entering through the sliding door at the front of the north-facing house, the floor is raised 30cm off the ground, as\u00a0in traditional Japanese houses. The bedroom and bathroom are found on the east side to take advantage of the morning sun, while the dining area and kitchen, on\u00a0the west side, benefit from the warmth of the afternoon light. In the centre of the house, a fireplace was built to resemble an\u00a0irori, the hearth where people would traditionally gather and cook. The most impressive feature, however, are the 3,200\u00a0wood blocks covering the floor, all\u00a0cut to 15cm by\u00a07.5cm in size.\u00a0In the old days in rural\u00a0Japan, the whole village would gather to build\u00a0a single house. While Conran and Smith armed themselves with trowels to\u00a0apply the Japanese keisodo plaster walls (which contain diatomite to\u00a0make them breathable, insulating and sound-absorbent) themselves, a list of local carpenters, woodworkers, plasterers and neighbours helped out in this instance, watched on by 92-year-old Mrs Umemoto, who\u00a0lives across the street.Reflecting on their first year, Conran says: \u201cI am intentionally enjoying each day.\u201d He points to the surrounding landscape. \u201cWhat drew us to this area is the\u00a0care people put into their everyday life.\u00a0People know they are blessed to be in nature. Mrs Umemoto was born here and even at the age of 90-plus, she climbs up the mountain slopes that can be 45 degrees or more, to smell the wild plants and mushrooms, and gather magnolia leaves. She lives an almost self-sufficient life. I\u00a0think that is what a beautiful life is all about,\u201d he concludes. \u201cI learn from those who have the knowledge and wisdom. Every day is a new discovery.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic To reach Higashiyoshino, in Nara Prefecture, one must travel more than four hours by bullet train from Tokyo. The surrounding countryside is deep in cedar and\u00a0cypress trees; 96 per cent of the land is\u00a0forest, in which bears and antelopes still\u00a0roam freely through the vegetation,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":272033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-272032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272034,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272032\/revisions\/272034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}