engawa 縁側

This corridor is neither inside nor outside. That's the point.

It's called an engawa: a strip of wooden floor that runs along the house, between the rooms and the garden.

Inside, paper shoji screens. Outside, wooden storm shutters called amado slide out of a box at night.

Above, deep eaves block the high summer sun, and let the low winter sun reach the floor.

Its first syllable, en, means edge. The same character also means a bond between people.

Its cousins: the veranda in India, the hayat in Anatolia, the loggia in Italy.

Engawa. An edge that joins a house to its garden.