House Types along Urban Street and their Air-photo Interpretation

Abstract

The Japanese term “Machiya” means commonlly dwelling houses in urban areas, and especially in a narrow sense it means commerical houses. In this paper the authors attempt to classify house types of Machiya and to enumerate them in some districts by using air-photos, and in addition, to discuss some problems of air-photo interpretation of Machiya and general house types.(1) Some types of Machiya were newly classified as in Fig. 1 with the combination of house parts having each roof-ridge and their situations to the street.(2) By using air-photos these types could be enumerated with fairly high exactitude. At this time, various information of house-form greatly contribute to correct interpretation of photo-images. Air-photos can be one of the effective means for house type study when used with the understanding of its advantages and disadvantages.(3) Some examinations of enumerating each Machiya type by using air-photos and in some parts making on-the-spot observations were made of several streets in Sendai, Imaichi, Rifu and Arahama, Miyagi Prefecture. As a result Type A is comparatively dominant in each street, and plays an imporant role in composition of the street landscape. Accordingly, it is further necessary to investigate it's distribution, structural technique and various factors of forming this type.