As I wrote earlier, Howland Homes has formed a joint venture partnership with Ichijo USA to build zHome. I have been working now with Ichijo USA for a few months and have had the great pleasure of working with their excellent staff. I thought it would be interesting to interview Akinobu Ohno, the President of Ichijo USA, to get his perspective on their company and their new work on zHome.
Q: Tell us a little bit about Ichijo as a company.
A: Since our company, Ichijo, was established on 1978, we have focused on the business for custom-built houses. Unlike as is typical in the United States, our custom homes are factory built, and thus able to be offered at more typical production home prices. Currently, we have more than 3,400 employees, and last year, we built more than 8,000 houses nationwide in Japan (revenues were approximately 2.1 billion US Dollars). Although there are many major home builders in Japan, Ichijo was ranked No.1 in performance in Super-Insulated Houses (“Energy Efficient Houses” in broad sense), and had the No.1 track record in Seismically-Isolated Houses as well.
Prebuilt wall panels being fabricated
Q: zHome is Ichijo’s first venture in the United States. I think this says a lot about both zHome and Ichijo. What was attractive to you about zHome?
A: It was August last year when we first heard about the zHome project. The net zero energy consumption design concept of zHome is exactly the same direction where Ichijo is heading. Last year, when we found out about zHome, we wanted to know our worldwide position in energy efficiency performance, and how our houses would be evaluated by the people and construction industry of the US, which is the country of origin of wood framed construction.
One more attractive thing is that there is the participation of a great home builder, Howland Homes. Just like us, Howland Homes is oriented toward environmentally-friendly houses. I am sure that we could not move forward by ourselves without their sincere cooperation. It was only a couple of days when we stayed in Seattle last year, where we met Matt Howland and learned about zHome. So, I would say it was a miracle that both of us could meet each other and we were able to find out about the zHome project during our brief stay. It will be very impressive for our colleagues as well as our customers in Japan if they know that we are participating in this project in the US.
Q: I understand Ichijo has an innovative housing model in Japan, the i-cube. Can you tell us more about it?
A: Briefly speaking, there are three key features in the i-cube. First, very high insulation performance, second, very high air-tightness performance, and third and most important, that we could provide reasonable and affordable price to our customers in Japan. In combination with other hi-tech items, i.e. heat pump, heat exchange ventilation, and PV systems, these enable the i-cube to be an ideal highly energy efficient house. Based on all these energy efficient components, the i-cube uses about 54% of the energy of a similar sized and configured home built to the Washington State Energy Code.
i-cube under construction
The current Japanese home buying market is primarily focused on durability, as well as homes being earthquake proof. However, new home durability mainly benefits the next generation, and a giant earthquake might happen less than one or two times in a lifetime, while highly energy efficient houses are closely related to your daily comfort and daily energy expense. But then again, most Japanese home buyers are hesitant to buy highly energy efficient houses with significant extra budget. So, we think that innovations in reasonable pricing for highly efficient homes are most important for them to become widespread, and then it will finally contribute to a large amount of CO2 reduction.
Q: What sorts of other innovations has Ichijo introduced in its homes?
A: Among other things, we are proud to introduce our Seismically-Isolated Houses. This is a technology which physically isolates the home from earthquakes. It involves the homes being built on a large set of vibration controllers which sit between the foundation and the home structure. We developed it in partnership with Bridgestone, the world’s largest tire and rubber company. We have a track record of 3,600 Seismically-Isolated Houses as of Dec. 2009, and the No. 1 track record in total number of Seismically-Isolated Houses so far built in Japan. [Ed: There is a very cool short film of the interior of a seismically isolated home versus a conventional home in a simulated earthquake on the Ichijo website. Scroll down the page and click on the images to view.]
Seismically-isolated home demonstration at testing laboratory
We have also developed heat exchanger ventilation systems which have a 90% heat recovery rate, radiant floor heating systems, and double paned windows we build ourselves. This enables us not only to minimize costs, but to optimize quality control through the entire production process. We manufacture more than 70% of the total housing components which go into the i-cube, and we need only 45 working days of construction for home completion once the foundation is complete and the components are on the building site.
Q: On a personal note, what have been your impressions of the United States? Is it the same or different than you imagined?
A: Thanks to the zHome project, I was able to visit the US for the first time. I was very much impressed that there is so much green, forests, and the beautiful waterfront in greater Seattle area, and it reminded me of the importance of consciousness about sustainability.
Also, business infrastructure through the internet, specifically the websites of each government agency, is very advanced and well organized. I did not feel any discomfort with starting business here in US.
