25 July 2014

Doshisha growing taller and picking outfit

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So it is hot, hot, HOT! in Japan on site.
Doshisha is growing growing GROWING! on site.

3 months went past in a blink, what has happened?
Foundation reinforced concrete poured, 8m+ tall columns craned in and fixed during last week...
March 2015 this is scheduled to be finished.... I think it will be!

One important thing happening at the moment parallel to the structure work, is the "picking outfit" for Doshisha - deciding facade colour.
During competition stage it was nominated a mixed shade of grey....but there are hundreds (if not thousands and millions) shades of grey...

So rather than adding colour pigments (of which we have seen the not-so-pretty prototypes) we decided to go with natural cobalt pigments.
By changing the percentage of cobalt content in the clay, different shades of grey and blue are achieved.
Because of the manual process, even within the same shade there are variations - and it adds to the sophistication of the facade colour.  I like.  I like very much.

The randomness of the facade - in module width, combination, and colour shade differences - have been calculated with lots and lots of mathematics.
I know it sounds crazy .... but there is logic in randomness, otherwise we can not instruct the tilers on site to make sure this effect can be achieved!
....Maybe that is why we started to get shades of grey in our hair too?

craning in...
scaffolding around the 8m+ tall columns to protect them during construction
They need to be in place now rather than later because there can be no joint within the length (weakness in structure) and the bottom of the columns need to be connected directly to the foundation
columns seem to continue across between the chapel building and the student lounge building, which is the foundation of our design concept - the two buildings are "as one"
standing in front of the student lounge building (chapel building to the left)
Part of the foundation is one person high
different combinations of shades in grey ... can you tell the difference between panels? ... I can...
"OK, so this one....and this one....."
"NOW........which one......?!"
(do you know the math behind this? hehehe)
........contemplating project team........

To find out more about Doshisha Chapel project click HERE
Doshisha Chapel project was won over 379 international entries in open design competition in 2012.