Spring coming

春風に吹き出し笑う花もがな - 松尾芭蕉

Spring winds  

Hoping the flowers burst out in laughter

- Basho Matsuo

I can not wait for Spring to arrive at Doshisha.

愛着 - Attachment to construction site

I like the moment towards end of construction, when everyone has spent a good portion of their lives on site that there is a certain fondness and closeness to what they do and where they are.

Little gestures like taking shoes off rather than stumping around in construction boots, paying attention to small areas without being told to.. I found those very touching, and it is not cultural but rather universal. Of course there is the less romantic take of "dun wanna scratch da paint off" but that is no fun is it.

Doshisha is in the 13th month from its construction commencement.  Unbelievable.

largely finished student lounge, such beautiful light...
...someone in there fixing up the ceiling...

....with little "socks" on the bottom of the ladder 

tiling for water feature finished....

.... with neat stone "collars" to protect the bottom of steel columns, their grouts aligned whether or not anyone would see that after the water is in

entry canopies to buildings are installed, contrasting to the weight of the building volumes these are of sleek steel members....

... to look "light" the fixing needs to be neatly concealed....

...beneath precisely cut stone tiles

lighting up student lounge (lucky future students!)...

...but remember to take your shoes off!

Finishing Touches

I am always fascinated by the sudden transformation finishes can make to a construction site.

Doshisha is currently in that process of "getting finished"; covering up services, structure, like how our skin covers up our organs and bones.

Here are some photos from site as per yesterday FEB 23:

flooring to Student Lounge side, setting out from facade fins

ceiling to Chapel side (getting speakers and lighting installed too)

junction of inside and outside - water feature to outside getting tiled at the same time

tiling inside wetareas; setting out the 50mm x 50mm mosaic was not fun....

beautiful stones for the water feature

wall panelling to rear of Chapel hall

Doshisha working through Christmas break

Over the quiet period of Christmas / New Year, Doshisha Chapel Complex at Kyoto continued to push on and is developing at a steady pace.

Here are some updates.

from the main campus boulevard, external tiling almost finished.. such beautiful lighting effect on the facade.

...same view of the design rendering - taking shape!!

marble on back wall of the Student Lounge installed, skylight above is visible, ceiling battens are also in place. Services underfloor (mainly air conditioning) can be seen through the floor framing.  With big volume like this, it is more energy efficient to control temperature from floor where it is closer to the people occupying the space (rather than projecting air from above).

standing on the water feature between Student Lounge (L) and Chapel (R).  Custom-made hollow concrete blocks are almost completed.

...this is similar view in render, except here we stand inside the Student Lounge not on the water....

reverse view from the above,  looking back into Student Lounge, exhibition display cases are in place.  

slender steel columns continues across the central walkway into the Chapel on the other side.

Chapel side is catching up....

entry hall to the Chapel with wall tiles almost finished.

waterproofing the roof!

Sydney Architecture Festival - "Behind the Lens" Exhibition

Sydney Architecture Festival is on!

On the weekend it was Sydney Open, with 50+ Sydney's best loved buildings opening their doors for people.  During these 2 weeks there are numerous architectural talks, exhibitions, activities for anyone and everyone interested in architecture.

I went to see the "Behind the Lens" photographic exhibition.  Our work Sneakerology was included in the exhibition by photographer Katherine Lu. Beautiful photography works of Opera House, Apple Store, Sydney architecture / cityscape and more are also on exhibition by 5 of the Sydney architectural photographers.

"Behind the Lens" is on at The Rocks Pop Up until NOV 10, don't miss out!

The Rocks Pop Up

 

Sneakerology spotted!

 

Today on Doshisha site

After typhoon in Japan, construction has resumed as normal.

Some walls are up, some are going up.... 

The Doshisha project can be largely divided into 2 areas: 1. Chapel and 2. Student Lounge.

Chapel side includes chapel hall, meeting rooms, function spaces, whilst the Student Lounge side includes student lounge, exhibition hall, administration office, choir room.   

Construction completion is 2015 March in order to meet University semester opening (APR 01 in Japan), but the staff members need to be operational by then! 

It means the area for offices need to be prioritised in the construction, so it will be finished first - which is why the Student Lounge side is more advanced.

Here are photos from the weekend.

compare with August, we have gone up one storey..

 

footings no longer visible from the Student Lounge side

walls are up at the Student Lounge side

reinforcement and formwork are coming together for the Chapel side

...checking...more checking...

formwork for windows

this is the future administration office!

To find out more about Doshisha Chapel project click HERE

Doshisha growing taller and picking outfit

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.

Doshisha SUBMISSION!!!

There is "submission', and there is "SUBMISSION!!!" ..

Here is one of the latter (scary) ones, it happened on February 21st for Doshisha's Council submission.  It is equivalent to Development Application and Construction Certificate combined here in Sydney, but even having 2 submissions combined here I do not recall seeing mountain-fuls of documentation....
and every page needed to be hand stamped.......

What is even more impressive is the processing time.
These documents once submitted, will be processed within 10 working days - comparing to the 40 working days given to local Councils here (by State Government) it is far more efficient, and in a way encourages development.

Herewith extract from Yoshi's email straight after submission:

We have lodged DA&CC today.
That was a big package….
<photo> is showing one set of Architecture, Service & Structure. We need to submit 4 sets here… (One for us)
Original
Copy (this goes to client in the end)
Fire station (This is interesting)
our set
We need to stamp our registration number and (印鑑) every single pages… I don't want to do this again….

This is one single copy

 At the Council counter

head spin...

serious stuff here....

speaks volumn

stamping (twice!) on every single page of every copy