From Timber to Structure: Crafting a Daikoku Pillar

At Oak Village, I had the chance to work on a central pillar—daikoku-bashira, the core of a house.

It started as raw timber.
Cut, shaped, and slowly refined through a series of joineries, all done by hand.

In modern construction, square pillars can be made quicky and with precision.
But when the structure is exposed—when beams meet the pillar and every connection is visible—the work changes.

Grain direction matters.
The way the wood is read, rotated, and cut becomes part of the design.

For an eight-sided pillar like this, machines still have limits.
They can’t decide which face of the wood should be shown, or how the grain should flow through each connection.

That decision belongs to the hands.

It took time.
But the result carries a kind of weight and clarity that only comes from that process.

‍

‍