The Archi Designer Japan website.

       OSAKA -- Osaka-based IT firm Megasoft Inc. has launched a new, English-language website introducing readers abroad to Japan's architectural design and culture.

       The Archi Designer Japan website at https://www.3darchidesigner.com/archidesignerjp/ features a variety of photographs and 3D computer imagery to introduce readers to Japan's architectural designs, and its unique home culture and ways of living.

       According to the company, which develops and sells home design software, while the front doors to entrance halls in homes overseas open inwards, it is standard for the doors to open outward in Japan. This is because Japanese homes require a "genkan" lobby to remove one's shoes upon entering, but many other countries don't have a custom of removing their shoes, meaning they don't need a genkan.

       Washing clothes almost every day, drying them on a balcony or in a garden and having a washing machine in the same room as the bathroom sink are all characteristics of Japanese home culture explained on the site. The company said it was "surprised that deep explanation was needed to explain a sink area to people from abroad." It accordingly devised a plan to shed light on these phenomena in Japan that, from abroad, can be seen as having a marvelous quality, and which would spark interest in Japan.

       "We hope to develop the website into one through which the 'housing' culture can be shared, and where worldwide home and living culture is mutually exchanged."

       (Japanese original by Nozomu Takahashi, Osaka Web Operations/News Flash Group)

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