Minka Summit 2023
Friday 21st - Sunday 23rd April
Following the success of the first Minka Summit, we are delighted to announce that our 2023 event will be held at the Aichi Prefectural Citizens’ Forest in Shinishiro.
Minka Summit 2023 will include presentations, panel discussions, workshops, tours of local minka houses, our famous “Minka Mall”, meet & greets and keynote dinners – and plenty of opportunities to talk about all things minka.
Language support will be offered in English and Japanese.
Minka Summit 2023 Keynote Speaker
Yoshihiro Takishita
We are delighted to announce that Yoshihiro Takishita will be the Keynote Speaker at Minka Summit 2023.
About Yoshihiro Takishita
Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1945, Takishita was a law student at Waseda University when he and his family befriended John Roderick, a reporter representing the Tokyo Bureau of the Associated Press. Learning that a minka in his hometown was about to be submerged in a reservoir project, they conspired to disassemble and move it to Kamakura, where it was rebuilt and quickly became the Gold Standard for minka restoration and renovation.
After hitchhiking around the world, Takishita established The House of Antiques, selling traditional furniture, screens, ceramics, and other treasures. He also became the preeminent self-taught minka architect, disassembling Gifu minka and rebuilding some 30 of them since 1967, mostly in the Kanto region but as far away as Buenos Aires and Honolulu. Many of these restored minka are featured in Takishita’s Japanese Country Living, an essential book for anyone that loves minka. He is also the focus of Davina Pardo’s documentary short Minka: A Farmhouse in Japan, beautifully adapted from Roderick’s same-named memoirs.
Watch this space!
We will be rolling out information about presentations, DIY demonstrations & workshops, Minka Mall booths, as well as exciting news about the Meet & Greet and Keynote Dinners, Minka Tours, food vendors, and more!
Minka Masters Panel
Minka Summit 2023 Keynote Speaker Yoshihiro Takishita will be joined by Alex Kerr, Azby Brown, Tomoko Kubo, and Panel Moderator Joy Walsh to discuss the preservation of Japan’s traditional built cultural heritage.
Yoshihiro Takishita
Alex Kerr
Long respected within the kominka community, Alex Kerr is a lifelong advocate of minka preservation and rural community revitalization. His own 300-year-old minka in the Iya Valley, Chiiori, is one of the best-known in all of Japan, and his revitalization efforts in Iya, rooted in sustainable tourism and living in harmony with nature serve as a model for other struggling rural villages.
After living in Japan during the mid-1960s, when his naval officer father was stationed in Yokohama, Kerr returned to Japan periodically, discovering the Iya Valley in 1971 and purchasing what would become Chiiori in 1973. He moved to Japan full-time in 1977.
Since Chiiori, Kerr has restored dozens of rural houses throughout Japan. His book Lost Japan (1993) was awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for best non-fiction. His subsequent works include Dogs and Demons (2002) and Another Kyoto (with Kathy Arlyn Sokol, 2016).
Azby Brown
Originally from New Orleans, Azby Brown has lived in Japan since 1985. A widely published author and authority on Japanese architecture, design, and environment, his groundbreaking writings on traditional Japanese carpentry, compact housing, and traditional sustainable practices of Japan have brought these fields to the awareness of Western designers and the public.
In addition to The Genius of Japanese Carpentry, he has written Small Spaces (1993), The Japanese Dream House (2001), The Very Small Home (2005), and Just Enough: Lessons in LivingGgreen fromTraditional Japan (2010). He retired in 2017 from the Kanazawa Institute of Technology, where he founded the Future Design Institute, and is currently on the sculpture faculty of Musashino Art University in Tokyo.
Tomoko Kubo
Tomoko Kubo is an assistant professor of Urban Geography at the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba.
Her publications on urban housing, urban shrinkage, aging city and globalization are
widely evaluated, winning the IGU Early-Career Award 2022 and the MEXTYoung Scientists' Prize 2021. Her latest book "Divided Tokyo: disparities in living conditions in the city center and the shrinking suburbs (2020, Springer), was awarded by The Japan Association of Urbanology in 2022.
Other publications: Kubo, T. and Yui, Y. (2019) The rise in vacant housing in post-growth Japan: Housing market, urban policy, and revitalizing aging cities. Springer. She is a board member of ISA RC43 Housing and the Built Environment.
Moderator: Joy Jarman-Walsh
Joy Jarman-Walsh (JJ Walsh) is a sustainability-focused consultant and content creator based in Hiroshima. Originally from Hawaii, she co-founded GetHiroshima in 1999 and InboundAmbassador in 2019. Since early 2020, Joy has been the host and producer of Seeking Sustainability Live (SSL), a talk show & podcast of interviews with "Good People Doing Great Things in Japan." Many of the most popular episodes focus on the value of traditional Japanese buildings, design, and the inspiration from many kominka projects across Japan.
How to get to Minka Summit 2023
Aichi Prefecture Citizens’ Forest, Horaiji 7-60, Kadoya, Shinshiro, 〒441-1693
By Shinkansen:
Tokyo - Toyohashi 1 hour 20 minutes by Hikari
Osaka - Toyohashi 1 hour 32 minutes by Hikari
(Hikari are once every hour.)
By train from Toyohashi:
Toyohashi - Mikawa-Makihara Station on the JR Iida Line is about 1 hour
The venue is a 15-minute walk from Mikawa-Makihara Station
By car:
Easily accessible by car from the Shin-Tomei and San-en Nanshin Expressways
By bus:
Highway buses from Tokyo and Osaka also stop at the nearby Mokkuru Roadside Station
One hour by bus from Fujigaoka Station in Nagoya to Mokkuru Roadside Station
Video c/o 愛知県民の森マスター
Where to stay
A PDF with detailed information about places to stay (including at the venue) is available to view and download
View accommodation PDF
Local accomodation
Accommodation is available at the venue and nearby Yuya Onsen, as well as other ryokan and hotels in Shinshiro City and surrounding areas.
Yuya Onsen | Image source: Visit Okumikawa
Places to stay at the venue
Staying at the venue
There several accommodation options at Aichi Prefectural Citizens’ Forest:
Hotel-style rooms (from ￥5,500 to ￥7,500 per person approx.)
An area for auto camping (￥3,600 per space per night, plus ￥200 per adult, ￥100 per child, as well as ￥300 for power supply)
Bungalows that sleep six (￥4.000 per dwelling, plus ￥200 per adult, ￥100 per child; bring your own futon and bedding)
Tents for the hardy among us (￥450 per tent; plus ￥200 per adult, ￥100 per child; bring your own futon and bedding)
Large tatami rooms have been reserved for volunteers, so these rooms will not be available.
How to book accommodation at the venue
Please call Aichi Prefectural Citizens’ Forest
0536-32-1262
Please note: The staff at the venue do not speak English. For language support, please contact the Kominka Japan team via email at [email protected]
We thank our Official Sponsors for their generous support of Minka Summit 2023!
Minka Summit 2023 is presented by Kominka Japan, with generous local logistical support from Japan Kominka Association, Aichi Kominka Association, and Inakakurashitai, an Okumikawa-based NPO.