A wind Tunnel that says a lot

I do not own the pictures so we need to share the click below in Japanese of the Wind Tunnel

https://www.taisei-design.jp/de/works/2019/kazenolabo.html

Recently, coming back to Italy I was reorganizing my experience to present myself on the market and watching a TV program I remembered a project that was left out of my portfolio, almost forgotten.

So I put inside because it makes a visible impact.

Despite that, and the success that may or may not produce it gives me a hint to dive into one little detail that speaks loud.

The company is a big one, Taisei Corporation, on of the 5 bones of the Construction Industry of the Japan, not only as a State, nation, population culture, but also Japan as Asian Leader in Technology and World leader in industry, that what Taisei means. That is why this post is somehow relevant.

The 5 Companies, largely subsided by public biddings, had to abandon the use of wood in their project for almost a century. Wood was banished by Law from any Public building in Japan forever, and I suspect this happened at least from WWII end or even before that maybe after the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. Steel and concrete overall were ruling, stones were the outfit with obviously glass, perhaps if one can have a balance of all these manifactured built and one can add the components of the overall to make a sum, those 4 materials will compose the 90% of the Weight.

The remarkable project that open the post is coming to this “sustainable wave era” where wood has been surfaced. Even if it is not a public building but a private Facility, the same building, projected 10 years before would probably not even considered wood among the realm of possibilities. CLT panels are the solution adopted . The explanation in Japanese says that domestic cedar wood has been used. It explains the reason for horizontal forces and so on (if you try to play the video it won’t work), but we know for sure that in reality the steel used at the bottom, floor level is unnecessary. It could have been done all in wood and I suspect the bolt suspended fixed by steel, could have been resolved in a different way.

Why they did not consider it? The answer is in the History above. They gone too far and now they cannot see anymore what they have too close.

The internal Hell machine that push the wind is another matter….

Positive Olympic Effect, Hareza, Animate Cafe, Higashi Ikebukuro; by Kajima Achitect; 鹿島建設株式会社,

Despite the postponed Olympic event, the preparation has produced a general improvement for public spaces that

could not been possible without the Olympic Games as a desired guest in Tokyo. One, among hundreds, is in this square of Higashi Ikebukuro where the main trade is about anime world. Probably is one of the capital centre in the whole world for people who likes this hobby and all sort of things surrounding merchandise. I am not expert neither interest as you may have guessed.

Here they did this cafe front square with a centered unique design. I think the proposal fit the atmosphere.

 

 

 

Saturday afternoon the square is plenty of young and teenagers who are commercialing freely their goods, caards, games and so on.

Kajima Inc. has realized a massive Urban Development surrounding the plaza; where a tower; a theatre Hall and many Other spaces are born from almost nothing. I have seen even the Tokyo mayor paying visit to one of these one day.

There is free dowanloadable pdf that describe the project here, recently finished; I would say late 2019.

Kajima is one of the mayor Construction Company of Japan; their website here.

The square is called Park, 豊島区中立池袋公園, it is called c

 

 

RCR architects, exhibition in Tokyo until 24 March, 2019, 2 of 2 post. review.

So After I went I re-write a review.

It is free, no ticket. It is in the TOTO Gallery located in the heart of ART and DESIGN area, near Roppongi, TOKYO Midtown.

Great first floor, a lot of not demanding pieces. On the second floor a video of their travel to Nara, and the purpose of which it may be the pavillion they created, paper pavillion whose model can be seen at 1st floor. 24 minutes of video that were too long, almost fell asleep. 5 minutes with some editing would have worked much better. I am sorry we are in Tokyo, not Catalunya here.

On the balcony the weak point of the exhibition, a piece of beams and truss to represent the Japanese wooden craft. Unfortunately RCR architects knowledge of wooden structure seems to be too basic to be exhibited or probably I did not see the connection with their works or…what else? Do they want to persuade Japanese customers to create for them?

Luckily the TOTO Gallery curators have disseminated the glazed window benches with well done books from el croquis (at least a couple) thus anybody can grasp the range of their works along 30 years. Some questions arise. Corten and surroundings spaces sometimes match perfectly like in the vinery or in the athletic field. Sometimes it looks like a forced choice and a different option had may fit better their purpose. Secondly, in a metropolitan are such Tokyo, where a house has a 25-30 life span and a shop less, say from 6 to 15 months, a Corten surface that looks old since the beginning, because rust is immediately linked with passed time, how can Japanese really appreciate their work? Usually an average Japanese wants everything new, old is negative by default.

Now a video of them talking about materials:

here when they joyful hurra!

Komazawa renovation by Azusa Architects Co.

Last week it was the last holiday week before going back to work and I took my son to Komazawa to make a bicycle ride together, I really like that open space, with that gym round!

With my surprise the adult rental was close, so only my son had fun with the children bicycle track. The reason for the closure of the rental was this:

Indoor Ball game Stadium

The architects are the Azusa Co. LTD (株式会社　梓設計) , here their website.

Here there is a link (japanese) that describe in detail the project.

The previous situation was indeed a bit on the deteriorating side,

an old Master management plan for the whole park is reported in this( 25 pages pdf). It was evidently before Tokyo won the bid for 2020, not a mention about this renovation.

My previous post.

a nice facade for a Hospital, Kagayaki Plaza, by Ｋｕｍｅ Ｓｅｋｋｅｉ (久米設計)

finished in 2013, according to this article, during the Sakura week I was walking nearby.

It is interesting that with the Sakura excuse I was able to go in places where otherwise I would never step. This road was near the Budokan but just a turn that I never took before. (here the address 九段南1-6-10)

There was even a free shuttle to assist tourists…

and you know what, for the first time the people who tried to pass the lines were not Italians…I bet you know where they were from!

a health hazard evaluation would have saved the kid

I thought for a while how to address the issue and I decided of approaching it with my experience, first.

The fact , for those who read this blog from abroad, is big. A 5 year old kid died during Design Week 2016 in a fire, triggered in a University Student Pavilion composition

The picture below show the stand two days before the accident.

…when I first saw it I had immediately the feeling of danger. Professional feeling, developed during my whole life. On other pavilions this year I had the same sixth sense warning. There was womb-like pavilion, dark, and without an easy way out, very uncomfortable to be inside. Another one was

plenty of plastic balls, spinning around, nice…but safety prevention? none!

This is the object of this post.

When you are Architect, Designer, student you are interested in creating new things, smart, cool, effective, terrific, impressive…but you are not pushed to pursue safety. It is not requested to you.

This year tragedy may turn all the internet buzz and cool stuffs pictures a bit more toward the healthy process of designing safety “pavilions”. According my wife opinion, Tokyo Design Week risks to be cancelled forever.

To my knowledge, Japan is plenty of safeguard rules and warnings. There is a general good awareness of the risks, and for sure much higher than other countries, probably Italy included. Let`s think about earthquakes and tsunamis, and it is easy to see they are on regular basis been considered all along Japan history.

This situation is, despite that, not be well analyzed. TDW is a temporary exhibition, thus  it has not to follow the strict rules of a real estate developer. It is easy to understand to why. In Japan a normal developer of a building has to be organized in a way that construction risks are assessed by experience and consolidate workings on site, rules a part. Usually it is a developer  –  one big company – that take cares of all.

In Europe is different, big developer are not the main market in the building construction. They represent a small fraction of it.  A construction site, even a small one of a one family house would host at least a dozen of different sector enterprises: from the excavation land, to the roof assemblers trough plumbers, electrician, painters and so on. All are different company with different contracts. Everybody knows his own works but knows barely anything about the other. That is why it has been created the role of Safety Coordinator.]

That was my role for several years back in Italy. Somebody who can oversee and forecast the risk of the site. Also during the construction phase, which are the most dangerous, he has to be onsite on regular basis to check if everything is following the right path or not and take actions in case something is not going well.

Among his/her duties, risk assessment are the foundations of the job. I guess the TDW organization has not got any professional doing this job either because it is not request by the Japanese Law or either because they did not assessed the risk.

House Vision 2016

I went yesterday, Saturday, the 27th to this wonderful exhibition.

Here some links of video I shot.

It closed on Sunday August 28th.

 

House nr. 9,here. Nippon Design Center, for Toppan Printing.

 

House nr. 1, here. Fumie Shibata for Yamato Holdings.

 

House nr.8, here. K.Kuma, Seijun Nishihata for Sumitomo Forestry.

 

The winner is, Jun Iagarashi and Taihi Fujimori with their Inside Out/Furniture room.

Really lovely, above all the others.  House nr.10,  here. for TOTO and YKK AP

 

IN total there were 12 houses, but not all of them were houses, like 8 and 11, were outdoor

places. nr4. an Office space by Bow Wow.

There is a book already onliune if you`d like to have everything collected. I bought it as a present to a friend in Italy.

Last, I think Kuma, with designing the whole exhibition and 3 years before the House vision 1, first gathering must be considered a leading figure into this productive, architectural environment.

(Also you can see other old posts on this blog about that exibihition, 1,        2,        3,       4,        5, )

So I will put a link to an interesting introduction to his japanese theory book, called defeated architecture, of a blogger also that seems to be one of his

teammates at the studio or just one of his student I do not know really. Here, His ore her name is Zhue, and the article is dated back 2009.

Fragment MIB、unknown

It was interesting,I thought I have lost these shots.

Although I am not a big fan of exposed conrete, I have to admit that this result is massive and well composed.

 

it is located in the surrounding of the notorius district of Ikebukuro

 

AOYAMA (青山) does speak British? McCartney Stella store by Takenaka Corporation

From this interesting link , where different projects are ranked, I discovered that the Design is from Takenaka corporation. It is named also a cooperation with the McCartney store planning Office for the interior. They were wise enough to accept a Japanase firm to sing their exterior.

The dseignof Takenaka  might be a spin off of their previous creative successes, but it still playing well with such wild antagonists (Miu Miu and Prada, read Herzog & De Meuron-)

From the web, it seems during nights it even looks more interesting that during daytime.

IN the same day where we enjoyed the new store of Miu Miu, we discovered many stores that has british brands, taht were not there before. I guess it was a positive effect of the London Olympics, and in general of the increased access to English Schools all over the country. Aoyama is the end of Omotesando, so it is quite the same neigbourhour but it has some up class notes here and there. Like for instance if you, one day want to buy a Bugatti, you have to go up there.

Or there is a Noh Theatre space just few steps from this McCartney store. It has performances only once every month on fridays evenings….so there is also the jazz club, called Blue Note if I am not mistaking the name….and so and so…

 

Aoyama Store

 

Ｔｈｅ Ｃｈｉｄｏｒｉｇａｆｕｃｈｉ Ｇｒａｎｄ Ｐａｒｋ Ｈｏｕｓｅ、 Ｍｉｔｓｕｂｉｓｈｉ Ｊｉｍｕ Ｓｅｋｋｅｉ

It was adiacent to the sakura walking we did on  the first weekend of April.  It was clear enough, by the the finishing and the detailing marble, that was something for wealthy people or for, maybe ,diplomatic personnel, giving also the location not far from some Political Centres, as well the National Cemetery and the Imperial Palace.

When I looked for the architectural design thus I was not surprised to register the name of Mitsubishi Jimu Sekkei than I am starting to notice as an high valuable office, rather classic though. The building seems to be quite new, this article by the Asahi Shimbun, says 2015. On the other hand it looks also as a Bank investment with all the inferences ons One could do about the real estate property values History in Tokyo and world wide…

If you want inquiry for renting a flat , there, here the link.

I appreciated the most, the under stament and the stern decisive design.