While many places in the world face a housing shortage, Japan is facing the opposite problem: An oversupply of homes on the ...

learned Japanese and got integrated into society," he said. Wormann as a kid would explore ideas with his father on renovating old houses they came across, and was always interested in such projects.

Hannah Kirshner owns Japanese Kominka houses in Yamanaka, Ishikawa Prefecture. While she lived in a rented apartment for the first few years, an empty old house nearby caught her eye. It took ...