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The tatami size regulation is about three feet wide and six feet long, never changed.
And the combination of this unit determines the size of the room. The measurement
of this applies to pillars, beams, to fixtures such as doors and to materials as well.
So like this, it was so economical because of the standardization of all kinds of interior
elements based on the size of Tatami in early time. And we have some more regulations
according to tea ceremony which decide the way of placing each elements. Nowadays,
for young Japanese architects designing real tatami room is so difficult. Most people
have no experience. We need long time training. For design real architecture, we have
to study tea ceremony and its atmosphere.These a lot of rules of Tatami room restricted
to the flexibility of the interior designing. And I could say the restriction made Japanese
design development stay in the two-dimensional level, stay in grid.
In addition, this method of drawing plans based upon such a logical unit of
measurement applicable to different functional uses was adopted in Europe only after
the World War I. It was called a new system in connection with logical architecture.
In Japan this has been in general practice from four hundred years before, and has
been perfected to a beauty form of the highest order.