A visit to Tobetsu would surprise anyone looking for a glimpse of "old Japan" in the countryside.

Hundreds of red European-style residences, imported from Sweden, sprawl across a lawn-covered hill in the town, about 25 km northeast of Sapporo, Hokkaido.

The unusual vistas these homes provide do not undermine Japan's old culture, developers say; it is merely an attempt to meet a growing demand for higher quality homes in Japan.

"Sweden has the world's strictest standards for the construction of residences," says Masahiro Okada, a spokesman for Sweden House Co., a leading house importer. "That's why we started to import Swedish homes 15 years ago."

Only a few years ago, the average prospective homeowner bought either ready-made homes or picked made-to-order homes displayed at model home parks, where major home-building companies showed off the latest housing styles.

Often the consumer's main concern was neither the quality of materials used nor insulation, but rather the number of rooms and the layout. And instead of rooms with tatami mats, the shopper favored living rooms with sofas, and bedrooms with carpeting.

But now, as thousands of Japanese homes constructed after the war need to be rebuilt, changes are appearing in homeowners' preferences.

Material wealth

The spread of Swedish homes is one example. Riding on the wave of an imported house boom boosted by a strong yen, Sweden House Co. rapidly expanded its market share in early 1990. Since then, the company's growth has continued despite a severe real estate slump.

While the number of houses being built showed a 1.4 percent year-on-year increase with 1.2 million units last year, the housing market had been in a slump since 1996. Sweden House Co., however, has had double-digit increases in sales for the last several years, even though its homes cost about 50 percent more than those of major home-builders. For fiscal 1999, it expects orders of 1,530 units, up 34 percent from the previous year.

The impetus behind the movement is not style or fashion, but a demand for quality, Okada says. The company uses materials processed in a factory in Sweden using sturdy 80- to 100-year-old Swedish pine timbers. Okada notes that triple-pane windows, 120-mm-thick walls and 200-mm-thick floors make the Nordic wood houses amazingly airtight and energy-saving.

"Our first priority is providing homes with a property value that lasts more than 100 years," he said.

The sturdiness of the houses attracted Tomoyuki Yoshida, a Tokyo resident who had his home built by the company in 1997. A linguist who has spent more than a decade in the United States, Yoshida, 40, says he and his wife Keiko instantly felt at home when they visited the Tokyo-based company's model home -- even though they didn't yet own a plot of land for their dream house.

While modestly pointing out that his house would pale in comparison with older domiciles on the U.S.'s east coast, after two years of living in the two-story, 120-sq.-meter home, Yoshida believes he made the right decision.

"Wherever you go in the house, the temperature is almost the same," he said. "You never feel like not getting out of bed, even on a cold morning, and the cost of air conditioning is surprisingly low, even during a hot summer."

He also said they are not bothered by condensation or noise from the streets anymore. Although the natural wood materials of the house, such as the window frames and outside decks, need regular maintenance, which is an uncommon practice in this country, Yoshida says he doesn't mind that little bit of effort.

Old sweet home

While some seek quality in imported homes, others reserve their enthusiasm for traditional Japanese architecture.

One step into Yoshiko Odagiri's home brings the visitor face-to-face with a large shoji-screened round window lined with amber-colored bamboo poles. Wooden sliding doors with elegant latticework sit in plastered walls of fine sand. Elaborately woven shingles gleam from the ceiling.

"I breathe easy in this room," says Odagiri, 69, as she looks around from a sunken kotatsu.

The one-story house was completed last year, but since the main materials and fittings came from Odagiri's former home, an 80-year-old traditional Japanese domicile, there is something in every room that makes the house completely familiar to Odagiri and her daughter Junko. A central pillar has a notch that supported the old home's ceiling. The entrance halls are made of former kitchen floorboards. A shoji screen with an illustration of a casting net in the hallway is a former alcove decoration. Each item is associated with recollections of the family's past.

The old house was on the verge of demolition a year and half ago. While good air circulation made it cool and pleasant in summer, the house was uncomfortably cold in winter due to paper and wood windows. The house had become so rickety that one day a window dropped from the wall, Odagiri recalls. Finally, although she loved the place, Odagiri decided to replace it with a nice, and especially warm, imported house.

"I never thought of remodeling our old home," she says. "We always talked about [it]. But I thought it would cost too much."

A twist came when Junko, 42, contacted the Japan Minka Saisei Recycle Kyokai to offer materials from the house for recycling. After one look at the elaborate rooms, staffers of the nonprofit organization told the Odagiris that they could restore the house (and make it warm) for a moderate price.

Odagiri changed her mind three days before she was scheduled to sign the contract with the imported homebuilder. Every part of the house was disassembled and reorganized along with additional materials. One year later, the drafty, cold home had been transformed into a traditional structure with technological conveniences.

"The new house has a floor-heating system and double-pane windows, and is really warm, but it is still nice and cool in summer," Odagiri said.

The trend to renovate minka, which literally means "people's house," is booming. Membership of the minka association is over 1,200, doubling within two years of its establishment in 1997. Young and old come to fill remodeled traditional Japanese domiciles during the association's open-house days, and the association restores one house every month on average.

Some choose to adapt natural materials for reuse for environmental reasons. Others are attracted by the rustic elegance of the buildings created. Still others are drawn to the sturdy traditional structures, which use intricate mortise-tenon craftsmanship and beams and pillars that remain in excellent condition for over 100 years.

"Minka were built along principles in Japanese philosophy where life and nature offer harmony," says association board member Kazuhiro Kiyosawa. "People are now aware that the Western way of living, which creates barriers between life and nature, does not agree with the Japanese."

Against the grain

Whether the new homeowners choose tradition or exoticism, one thing is clear -- all are questioning the status quo.

Land prices are high, of course, but so are the prices of Japanese homes. Houses in Japan cost more than in other countries -- nearly twice the cost in the United States -- due to high labor and distribution costs and low market competition, experts say.

Many houses built during the period of rapid economic growth are no longer in satisfactory condition, just 30 years after construction. Tragedies caused by new homes constructed by shoddy building methods are not rare.

Furthermore, reports of harmful chemical emissions in commonly used housing materials have made consumers aware of the fact that even state-of-the-art "modern" Japanese houses can be very problematic.

"People now feel that there is something wrong with the current scrap-and-build housing culture," says Kiyosawa of the minka association.

The trend reflects the ecology boom in architecture, says architect Yutaka Miyazaki. Miyazaki agrees that homebuyers now show more awareness about choosing sustainable-environment homes, but he says it remains to be seen whether the boom will fade away soon or take root in Japanese culture.

"In the end, a home should not be something you buy, but something you design to fit your lifestyle and values," Miyazaki says. "The important thing is that, whatever you live in, you feel it's your choice, your culture."