Glossary · K
Kiwari
“Dividing the wood”: the Japanese carpenters’ system of proportion, in which every member of a building is sized by a chain of ratios from one base dimension, usually the bay.
Rules that use the word
Kiwari: size every member from the bay. Fix the bay (the distance between column centres) and derive every other member from it by fixed ratios: the column from the bay, the brackets and beams from the column, the rafters and their spacing from the brackets, the eaves from the rafters.
Where it appears in the book
In the chapters Proportion and Number, China, Japan and Korea, Reading the Treatises.
A feature of Japanese architecture.
Nearby in the glossary
Katsuogi · Ken · Keystone · Kirizuma · Knot garden · Kokoshnik · Kufic · Külliye