Shoin-zukuri

Shoin-zukuri (書院造) is a style of Japanese residential architecture used in the mansions of the military, temple guest halls, and Zen abbot's quarters of the Muromachi (1336–1573), Azuchi–Momoyama (1568–1600) and Edo periods (1600–1868). It forms the basis of today's traditional-style Japanese house. Characteristics of the shoin-zukuri development were the incorporation of square posts and floors completely covered with tatami.^[1] The style takes its name from the shoin, a term that originally meant a study and a place for lectures on the sūtra within a temple, but which later came to mean just a drawing room or study.^[2]