 Occurring at the same time as the development of the "shoin" architecture, the "fusuma", or "sliding doors", were becoming a popular means to divide rooms.As a result, columns began to be created that were square-shaped to accommodate the sliding doors.The asymmetry of the "tokonoma" and "chigaidana" pair, as well as the squared pillars differentiated the "shoin" design with the Chinese design at the time which preferred symmetric pairs of furniture and round pillars.