I’m not fond of J-Pop (I hate it) but this is a great song, great video. Excellent cheapo Casio sounds!

J@pan Inc asked my views on architecture of Japan and especially Tokyo. Although it is presented as if written by Jun Mitsui (I used to work for him), you can read the whole story here.

Jun Mitsui’s point that Japan is becoming a disposal ground, a toilet for foreign architects, is funny indeed, but I think rather outdated. Most of the interesting architecture in Japan these days comes from young Japanese architects, the days of foreign dumpings (potty training would be a better description), in my opinion are over. Don’t forget that most of the shit built here is by Japanese architects.

The new Peninsula, dumped according to the new colour regulations?

The question for 2008, and here is my (easy) answer:

1. Japan has the highest pro-capita rate of architects, of the 1.2million registered architects world-wide Japan has over 300,000,

2. There are very few aesthetic regulations: anything goes,

3. In the chaos architects work hard to make their buildings stand-out,

4. Tokyo has some of the world’s most daring and cash-rich clients,

5. Japanese construction companies (not only the major ones) are the world’s most advanced,

6. Buildings have an average life-span of around 30 years,

7. The city has been destroyed many times over (and most likely will be again soon).

When we were expecting our first baby I bought a book called 10,001 baby names. For most high rise buildings here in Tokyo the owners (or whoever stick a name to the building) seem to have a list of 5 or 6 words that they then add the location of the building.

The words are:

Garden

Hill(s)

Park

Tower

City

Throw these words in a pot and you get:

Akasaka Garden City

Park Axis Aoyama 1-chome Tower

Roppongi Hills

Atago Green Hills

How very unoriginal. The list could go on for ever it seems. 4-5 story buildings are called Towers, and grey concrete buildings called Park or Garden.
Interestingly enough, sometimes a building is called after a location where it is not even build on.

Is this Japan in a nutshell? Yesterday and last week Obayashi, one of Japan’s largest construction firms was investigated by police in another round of bid rigging scandals. Alex Kerr has written extensively in his book “of dogs and demons” on the way the Japanese government has initiated an inward development by creating jobs in the country side of Japan through an endless stream of construction works. Kerr notes the countless roads, dams, embankment works etc… that have concretised the Japanese countryside. All the major Japanese construcution companies have been riding a wave of steady prefectural work since the late 70’s. Dango, as bid rigging is called in Japan, has been more or less accepted as part of the process. An interesting paper on dango here.
These days however, the government seems to be cracking down on this practice and heads are (literally) rolling. Some jump to their deaths and some, like the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries hang themselves. Obviously these people did not see another way out, except for an easy death. Takeo Obayashi, however, CEO and chairman of the Obayashi construction company is being “demoted” to board director and Norio Wakimura, president, will leave his post to become an “advisor”. Even though Wakimura’s resignation will be the first time that a head of a construction company takes responsibility for bid rigging, it all looks too convenient to me.

I found this sign at a building where we are doing a project at this moment. There is a tiny park next to the office tower. Someone has been very creative in thinking of all the things that one can not do in this park. (some of the pictographs are just downright silly) Wouldn’t it be more interesting if this person had been conceiving ideas of all the fun things you actually could do?

Architect, Kisho Kurokawa is planning to run for Tokyo Governor:

“Internationally acclaimed architect Kisho Kurokawa indicated Wednesday he may run in the forthcoming Tokyo gubernatorial election.

Kurokawa, 72, has stated his intention to stand in the gubernatorial race to be held on April 8 unless the 74-year-old incumbent Tokyo governor, Shintaro Ishihara, abandons his plans to seek reelection.

By indicating his desire to run, Kurokawa apparently hopes to persuade Ishihara not to seek reelection for a third term.

Among his campaign pledges, Kurokawa said he intends to push for the withdrawal of Tokyo’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games and would promote the relocation of the functions of the capital.”

Japanese architects have always been very critical of Tokyo, I wonder what Kurokawa would mean for the city?

One of our clients, BearingPoint was featured in the TV programme “Jisho, Katcho Shatcho” (Company, manager, president) this Wednesday. Using the office as a backdrop in which two comedians fool around, and introducing Bearingpoint’s people and the jobs these people do. The programme is sponsered by Recruit, a major recruiting and job placing company, and in a very light way, various companies are introduced, showing what one can expect working for a company like BearingPoint. Below some pictures I took of the programme.

The play area.

Uchida-san talking about the concept of the office redesign. Taking the example of “the cocoon” explaining that a large percentage of the staff are consultants and basically can work wherever they want. Thus coming to the office is a chance to meet colleagues and the office is a way to encourage brainstorming and exchanging ideas.

Do the prices for constructing an office in Japan make sense?Of course not. The problem really is that in most office buildings in Japan the building owner has a designated contractor in place. This means that when you want to partition off rooms, create a reception etc… you need to ask the building contractor to do the work. And guess what, this designated contrator is going to present you with inflated prices to do the work… This is obviously one of the reasons why most Japanese office look the way they do: in order to avoid considerable construction costs offices are designed (put into place) with the intention of not having to cost an arm and a leg. That is why most meeting rooms walls in these office will not go all the way up to the ceiling (to avoid moving air conditioners) or have very few partitioned rooms at all.

Designated contractors seem to be unavoidable, especially with rents going up again to bubble times. Does this mean that we are going to see more offices “designed” by the restrictions of the designated contractors? Probably.

So how can you make sure that you can still design a funky work environment without a spicy price tag?

1. Negotiate before signing the lease that some of the work can be outsourced to other contractors. Make sure that the designated contractor has competition!
2. The design should be well thought through, and drawings handed in should have all the necessary details so there is no need for any guessing on the contractor’s side. Remember they will always guess in their favour.
3.  Buy a thick red marker and scrutinize the estimates. Check for product prices, contractors should normally get 40-60% discounts, not providing discounts will drive their fees up twice as they will charge a percentage (usually 12%) on top of the construction costs.

4. Hire a professional. Actually that is what you should have done in the first place!

This morning we filmed our first NCCJ forum. I am the chairman of the communications committee of the NCCJ, the Dutch chamber of commerce, and our committee decided to start a panel discussion session which we will film and later publish on the internet. Today’s theme was Dutch design and the 100% Design festival that is currently taking place here in Tokyo.

We have devised a simple formula for the forum: Hans van der Tang and I will talk to 3 guests , a visitor, a long-term resident and a Japanese guest. Rob Oudendijk will film and do the post production work.

Today we had Truc from TTTVO as our visitor-guest. Truc is a Dutch designer who designs very original furniture and is here for the 100% Design festival. Our long-term resident guest was Arjan van Well, the Far East director of the Dutch board of Tourism. Arjan has been extremely active in promoting Dutch design in Japan, and organizing the Dutch part of the 100%. Ryo Nakagawa, a Japanese graphic designer who created the new logo for the NCCJ was our Japanese guest.

I very much enjoyed the discussion that we had this morning, and I am looking forward to see the edited result on which Rob Oudendijk will be working on. It will be posted on this site as well.

Kruk serie by TTTVO.