The ground is dug out so that the houses sit low. In the settlement on Tonaki, the plot is excavated before building, so from the lane the roofs appear to be sunk below your feet. The purpose is to let typhoon wind pass over the top of the house rather than into it, and the effect is reinforced by fukugi trees planted around each property as a windbreak, which slow what does get through.

White sand is laid on the paths, and sweeping and repairing that surface is collective work rather than each household's own. Tonaki was designated an Important Preservation District in May 2000, and what the designation protects is a view of low red-tiled roofs running one into the next, with the trees above them. Naha is about two hours away by ferry, and the crossing is the only way on or off the island. The population is in the three hundreds, and there is one shop and one clinic, which is the complete list.

On a windy island, the first measure available is to reduce height. Lowering the roof, sinking the floor and enclosing the plot with trees are three separate reductions, and applied together they cut the force arriving at the walls by a great deal more than any one of them would alone — so every house on the island is built low, without exception. The consistency across the village is not an aesthetic rule imposed on anyone, whatever it looks like now. Walk through the settlement and you notice that your line of sight passes clean over the roofs — which is exactly what the wind does, and the whole reason the houses were put down there.