tōriniwa 通り庭

An earthfloored area *doma 土間 or *niwa 庭, which provided access from the front of the house to the rear of the plot in vernacular houses *minka 民家 of the Edo period. The division of the house into an earth-floored area on one side of the plan and an area of living rooms, kyoshitsubu 居室部, with a raised timber floor on the other was a fundamental principle of minka planning. The tōriniwa, however, was associated particularly with the urban vernacular houses of artisans and retailers *machiya 町家, which usually abutted the street directly and often occupied the entire frontage *maguchi 間口 of urban lots that were typically narrow but deep. Under such circumstances, the doma itself became a passage, tōri 通り or tsūro 通路, providing the only means of access from the front street to the warehouses, workshops, rented row houses *nagaya 長屋, etc, that occupied the rear of the plot. 

It was sometimes subdivided by one or more partitions containing intermediate doors *nakado 中戸. This created separate zones, usually a retail zone *miseniwa 店庭, at the front and a domestic service zone okuniwa 奥庭 at the rear. The miseniwa generally had a loft *tsushi nikai 厨子二階 over it, but the okuniwa was usually open to the rafters fukinuke 吹抜け, with a louvre *kemuridashi 煙出 either on the roof or high in the walls for the smoke from the cooking range *kamado 竃 to escape. 

Originally, the tōriniwa was a dark space. By the latter half of Edo period, the smoke louvres doubled as high-level windows. Later still, windows were added as were rooflights tenmado 天窓, improving the lighting conditions not only of the tōriniwa itself, but also of the living rooms at the center of the house. The term is mainly associated with the machiya of Kyoto, but was also used in other districts, particularly in Chūbu 中部 and Tōhoku 東北. Alternatively referred to as tōridoma 通り土間, tōri, and *roji 露地.