Japan Miyadaiku Academy

In recent years, record heatwaves have struck Europe again and again. On 26 June 2026, Norfolk recorded 37.7°C, breaking a June record that had stood for 69 years, and on 24–25 June a red alert — the highest level of warning, declared for only the second time in history — was issued for six regions including London. Cities built of stone hold the heat of the day long into the night, and the heat of the home has become a pressing everyday concern.

Under RE2020, France has written “summer comfort — confort d’été” into the requirements for new buildings. As air conditioning spreads rapidly, renewed attention is turning to a sustainable Japanese approach that draws coolness from the architecture itself, without emitting CO2.

Last year, Notre-Dame de Paris rose again, together with the oak roof frame long known as “the forest — la forêt”.

Some 2,400 oaks chosen one by one, wooden pegs in place of metal bolts, the medieval side axe used to hew each beam: because the reconstruction employed exactly the techniques of 800 years ago, it led architects and craftspeople across Europe to look once more at timber and the work of the hand.

The climate challenges Europe now faces, and the rediscovery of traditional conservation techniques: it is where these two currents meet that one Japanese craft has come into focus — that of the miyadaiku, the carpenter of shrines and temples.

Timber joined to timber, a building raised without a single nail. The craft has crossed 1400 years and lives on today. That the oldest wooden structure in the world stands in Japan, and that so many of its shrines and temples have stood for centuries, is thanks to this craft — passed from master to apprentice, from hand to hand.

Since the Japonisme of the nineteenth century, the “beauty of Japan” has continued to captivate architects and designers the world over: the tea room, the stillness of Zen, the empty space of sukiya. Those spaces are born of the same art of timber. In 2020 the craft was inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Timber, moreover, does not change temperature, whether touched at the height of summer or the depth of winter. A sheet of steel burns in August and freezes in January; wood stays constant all year round. In a space of timber the perceived temperature falls by more than five degrees — cool in summer, warm in winter, without depending entirely on air conditioning. Here lies the whole of Japanese wisdom.