One winter evening, I was looking at beautiful photos on the Internet and saw the unusual appearance of the Japanese traditional gassho-zukuri houses in the villages of Shirakawa and Gokayama, many houses were build more than three centuries ago, and the oldest house was said to have been built about 400 years ago. It is now the Shirakawago Museum under the open sky.

Every year the "Festival of Light" is held there. The purpose of this holiday — to give visitors to Japan a chance to enjoy the fantastic spectacle of the snow-covered and lighted gassho-zukur houses.

This beautiful spectacle gave me the desire to portray their easy silhouette in a layout. Like all the Japanese architecture it is strict and minimalistic... But so cosy!!! I want to visit this village so much! Let's try to make similar style houses and highlight them using ordinary paper and white glue!

The layout can be glued by both adults and children. Adults cut the parts with a knife. Under parental supervision (!) kids cut with scissors with blunt ends. The smallest children can just glue ready-made cut parts of houses. The work is of different complexity and is selected depending on the capabilities of a student.

Here we go...

Take a stationary knife or scissors. Carefully cut out the patterns of houses attached to the publication.

Carefully cut the exterior bends and fold them with the knees outwards. Cut internal bends from the inside and bend with the knees inside.

Cut the roof in the middle 4 times — 2 seams out, 2 seams in. Now the roof is ready. Cut windows in the walls. Put the roof on the walls of the house.

You can glue a small house. Or several houses at once!

Multiply houses and group them in different ways, forming a street of the village.

Houses can be illuminated with a LED candle, and if there is a lot of houses with a LED garland.

Gently put the LED lights in the side walls of the houses. Sprinkle the surface of the earth with rice or dry grass. Use your imagination!

You can cut kirigami, which is very important in this case, a Japanese architect came up with this kind of layout (Masahiro Chatani). If you are interested, write in comments, I will post another tutorial.

Adults can make a volume hut covered with straw in several lessons.

If you are interested, write in comments, I will post another tutorial with a more difficult layout for adults...