Facet Studio x Anomaly at the Strand

The poster says it all...

Facet Studio collaborated with Anomaly to create a series of furniture for the inaugural collection.
SEP 15 - 28, be sure to drop us a visit!

More on Facet Studio x Anomaly... click HERE

Anomaly on Australian Design Review

Anomaly was published on Australian Design Review website!

Hehehe.. and of course our Coexistence stool is published as it is part of the inaugural collection to launch Anomaly amongst other designs.

As press material were submitted prior to the final prototype was completed, the image is still of an earlier prototype.
To see the final prototype together with the rest of the range, enter HERE.

 

Thesis on Kyoto geology

Today we have received the Geotech report for Doshisha Chapel Complex project.
Amazing.......
It is like a thesis of historical-geological study of Kyoto.....wow.

I remain amazed by Japanese contractors and consultants.

If you are interested, check out M House HERE which we monitored construction site in Japan, remotely from Sydney....with lots of amazing collaborators in Japan....

 

 

 ...never seen such beautifully presented soil samples......

 

End of the mystery is....

Following on from the last post this is what happened after the umbrella "comes to life"...

people suddenly gravitate towards the warms emitted by the light... 

complicated shadows adds to the sense of space 

Now there is a story behind this.

In Japan, traditional umbrellas are made of coated Japanese paper (washi), its structure out of a single log of bamboo, sliced into fine "bones".  It is an intricate art form, past down through generations over hundreds of years.  Unfortunately like many other traditional crafts slowly replaced by their modern reinventions, the traditional umbrella making is of no exception - there is now only 1 traditional umbrella maker remaining in Kyoto, Japan.  In order to survive, the umbrella maker Hiyoshiya ventured into other fields, and started developing their own range of light fittings based on the skills of umbrella making.

It was by chance that this collaboration between Facet Studio and Hiyoshiya happened.
We were contemplating on how to create cosy atmosphere in a large irregular lobby, and when we saw the bones of the umbrella we decided to put the focus on the beauty of this traditional craft in its most recognisable form.

Each Higasa lamp is 1.6m in diameter, the longest a straight log of bamboo can be sourced.  We tested extensively on how we should expose the bones without deviating from the umbrella reference.... the way the washi is gapped and alternating on either side of the bones is to:
1. ensure the compactness when the lamp is in retracted condition - this affects transportability
2. provide screening to light source in preventing glare
3. provide a backdrop for shadows of the bones to be casted upon

The hardest reality being running electrical cables into the bones....and locating the light source in a certain location to ensure the shadows are cast the way we want (but of course I am not going to tell you how....).  None of this is to be visible..... and again nothing is accidental.

Higasa lamp is a light fitting designed by Facet Studio.

detail of the final fittings
photo (c) Eugene Wu

us setting up the Higasa lamps on site....

at the actual event for which Higasa lamp was designed for
photo (c) Eugene Wu

To see more photos of Higasa lamp HERE

Mystery after mystery....

Since this post back in October 2012  I did not have time to reveal what was actually in the box from Japan.... oops.

So here it is!

...mysterious box from Japan....mystery about to be unravelled....

wrestling...

it is..?

HUGE umbrella!!...for ....?

the prototype next to its scaled model (right)

calling in our friendly alliance - electrician (with his van full of goodies!)

together we concocted a special device....

finally the night has fallen, the time for mischievous experiments

dropping in the "concoction" to bring the umbrella to life....
(to put it lightly, man I was sweating big time after this "dropping in"!)

So what is going to happen after this umbrella comes to life? How does it come to life?! 

........ the mystery continues ....... (ho ho ho!)

What is this?

A huge parcel arrived this week from Japan.... it is something for IDEA 2012 event design

Are you curious?

The event is held on November 9th, only 1 month to go!

Field Trip

Last week our team on IDEA 2012 went on a field trip to see a prototype being made in the factory.

IDEA 2012 is a project to design an one-night-only award event with lots of restrictions in terms of time on site, ease of setup, structural challenges - whilst still producing something wow-worthy.
Anyhow, it is to be kept as a surprise for people attending, so my apologies about the hardly descriptive  image..

We are collaborating with people we previously worked with on Phamish, ah that old feeling.. and by the way have I mentioned that I LOVE seeing things coming together?  Well, now you know.

 

Drawings turned red

Over the holiday season we have worked from Sydney on an office fitout project - Connect Tokyo - located in Japan.  

 

The approximately 2 weeks of continual correspondences with joiner regarding documentation, finally approached an end.  The joiners had produced their own shop drawings for the joinery pieces they would be manufacturing, based on the documentation we had provided.  To be honest, this had never happened in Australia.  Even in Japan, it had never happened with other projects.  As the result we were very curious about this process, and spent the time to check their shop drawings thoroughly.  Obviously we needed to go over all the dimensions, on top of that we also needed to check many other important items such as the methods of timber manufacturing, and how those timber pieces would be assembled on site.  The shop drawing set constituted of mere 8 drawings.  Although it was physically not that many, we input dimensions and numbers from each drawing into our heads, and when we could construct the joinery pieces in 3 dimension in our headspace, we knew we were ready for construction.

 

This time we had the pleasure to work with Mr. Nakano from Nakadate.  We spent quite some time corresponding regarding the shop drawings.  Shop drawings produced at Kasukabe City, were checked here in Sydney, and marked up on drawings to send over for instruction.  The over 9,000km physical distance was not felt from both parties.  Although we had not met Mr. Nakano until start of construction, not even spoken over telephone, simply by the numerous correspondences we felt somehow close.  By the time we met on the first day of construction, we already felt like we have known each other for quite a while.  Finally it was construction start - lets head to Tokyo!

Snow catcher catching snow

Further from our previous quiz (read HERE), here is a follow up from our builder on site.... who is also a reader of the blog, thinking that he should send this photo through to demonstrate how the snow catcher works in the snow!

snow catcher in action on M House

Have a guess!

Moving along...moving along..... M House is taking shape quickly, even in challenging weather conditions.

view from the neighbouring community farm. the top triangle in timber will be installed with glass once construction has progressed further (just see how the vegetables in the community farm are struggling in the snow....)

copper pipes connecting under floor radiators are being installed...

almost done with copper pipes. I can just imagine these radiators sitting quietly below the floor once completed, doing their job in the dark...... but anyway, hot water runs in the copper pipes and the heat is radiated by the radiators, heating up the under floor space, which then emits the heat into the entire house evenly

coming out of under floor space and looking to the glazing between rafters. we have originally specified single fixed glazing for ease of construction but the builders upgraded to double glazing units (DGU) for better insulation....woohoo~! problem is, DGUs come completely sealed, with a rather prominent black rim of silicon all the way around in proportion to the glazing size, which disturbed the visual continuity of the rafters from inside to outside..... we had to decide on site to build an extra small timber frame to cover up the black silicon (test piece in the centre)...which works ok because the timber frame is camouflaged by all the timber planes around so is not so noticeable.

So here is the question today..............





What is this concrete block enclosure doing in the under floor space?

Have a guess!!

Live Broadcasting

Today, we had life broadcasting from M House site! After lobbying our Japanese builders for months, we have finally convinced them to install wireless network on site, and now we can have video conference on site across continents, even together with the structure engineer from the other side of Japan.... oh the convenience of technology.....
Having overseas projects now is made easier with internet and Skype...it felt like we were on site!

a very excited Yoshi (and me holding the camera..)

the builder is walking through the house with the web camera....action packed (for us anyway)!

glazing between the roof rafters letting in gentle natural light, brightened up the interior

After throwing away concrete there is throwing away barrier.....捨てバリ

Admittedly I have experienced a cultural shock (amongst many others.. during this construction process) when I received these site images few days ago.

We received a call from our concerned client of M House, regarding the bad weather and how the beautiful timber roof structure was getting wet on site.

So this is what happened as the result.....

when we requested for the roof structure to be covered up before the roof goes up, we imagined a tent-like effect, like, one big sheet of plastic over the entire house......BUT... ended up each and every roof rafter was individually wrapped....can you imagine the amount of labour and material went in the "gift wrapping" of roof structure...... unfortunately the site is at a high wind area, therefore the plastic sheeting will be blown off in no time if we are doing a big tent.....

laying the ceiling timber in stripes of 90mm wide boards...like putting up timber flooring on the ceiling......very labour intensive.... in the snow........

the black material is nicknamed "sutebari - 捨てバリ" ("barrier to throw away"), it is waterproof membrane made of modified bitumen/ asphalt (SBS or SBR). By adding polymer or rubber to the straight asphalt, it counters some of the classic problems of the material such as longevity, cold temperature tolerance etc. This layer was to go onto the roof, probably 2 or 3 steps after the timber ceiling (the roof battens, insulation, and then waterproof membrane) but we now have to put this extra layer down to protect the timber ceiling from bad weather.  Because it is only for temporary purpose, it is "the barrier to throw away"

view from inside of the house under the timber ceiling. originally we have selected a timber ceiling board of almost double the width, but when we saw the timber samples, the colouration was much more pink than the rafters.  Considering the colour compatibility and balancing cost, we ended up changing to this 90mm width format....which means double the work........ how we love our builder.......!

All up!

Everyone got so excited on site for M House, that they decided to finish the entire roof structure in total of 2 days! (it was scheduled to be finished tomorrow...but it was already done yesterday 10am.....)

These photos are about 1 day old, right now the builders are putting up ceiling lining in timer, which also acts as bracing for lateral stability of the roof rafters.

It is quite an amazing experience for us (can you feel my excitement? I hope you can!) that something we have drawn is getting built RIGHT THIS MOMENT (which is exciting enough as it is, as always...) somewhere across the other side of the world, to the precision that we have requested and specified down to millimetres.  Although it is common that architects design from overseas these days, but the normal practice of making that happen is to engage a local architect to handle the daily occurrences on site, as well as corresponding with builders.  The way we are doing is not so common.....in fact, it is unheard of for me......but then it is the way to ensure delivery of quality we proud ourselves of.

good weather in the morning, everyone on site was excited and speeded through most of the rafters

view from inside the house. It looks just like our perspective (below)!

internal perspective presented to client

junction at rafter and plinth

end piece of the roof rafter. the timber batten on the ridge of roof rafter is the temporary bracing and will be removed once the timber ceiling lining is in place. it is important to ensure safety throughout construction.  weather was starting get bad, luckily it was all done!

can I say I love it? I LOVE it....!

One in One and One go only!

The roof rafters are finally going up after the winter break for M House.

We could not be more impressed.....they look exactly like our models except in 1:1 scale, and it is the real stuff!  The accuracy on site is amazing.... Imagine, all the notching and cutting of the timber elements are done by human hand!!

first, the builders had to put up a "土台 (plinth)" along the top of the perimeter concrete walls, for the rafters to rest on. the notches are where the rafters will rest upon, and were notched one by one with human hand....

the perimeter wall is 19.5m at its longer side... it is impossible to do the plinth in a single piece of timer. Where the plinth joint is, this is how the pieces are connected, through tongue and groove connection (cut by hand again...) and bolted to ensure stability.  here it is clear how the notches are slanted at the inside (to either side of the joint) to meet the angle of the roof rafters.

slowly, one by one....the rafters are going up.....

the bolted connection at the ridge...after much testing, we have decided that the diameter of the individual bolt was more important than the bolt being counter-sunken and flush at face (this way the diameter of the bolt is bigger). I think it looks ok, not as distracting as it could have been.  (see the snow in the background?  it was snowing heavily that even the trains stopped running, we were so concerned that there would be further delay on site.....but look at the progress!)

get a taste of how the space would be like after completion... we can hardly wait!

this is how it looks like when the rafters rest on the plinth.. by sitting the rafter into the notched plinth there is extra stability and less visible hardware, makes the ensemble much crispier and cleaner....but of course much more work and labour intensive!  God is in the detail......