ABSTRACT Asuka village in Nara prefecture has been designated as one of the special preservation areas for historic landscape since 1960s and is well‐known for its richness in historic remains originated from Asuka period. This paper focuses on rural house compounds from six different village sections. Village sections located within the plain area are classified into three groups in terms of village layout, i.e., group 1: clustered village (Okuyama, Kawahara and Noguchi), group 2: street village along the east–west axis (Asuka), group 3: street village along the north–south axis (Oka and Shimasho). The composition of rural house compounds in Asuka village and Nara basin consists of a main building, extensions directly attached to the main building ( tsunoya ) and outbuildings (huzokuya, hanare). We first set up the hypothetical model for the building layout development pattern of house compounds which includes every possible extendable pattern of the main building, extensions and outbuildings. The model was examined by the result of our field research which revealed the fact that dominant development patterns follow the basic rule of traditional Japanese idea of the divination of the auspices of a house regarding its position and orientation.
YAMAMOTO et al. (2026) studied this question.