Brutalist Architecture and Sloping Gardens

Hi everyone. It’s good to be back! Yuko and I spent the last week in New Zealand attending the wedding of a couple of dear friends and travelling all the way up the north island from Wellington up to Auckland. It was our first time to visit New Zealand and it certainly won’t be the last. Everyone we met (apart from a couple of grumpy drivers) was so friendly, the scenery was beautiful and, to be honest, it was nice to just get away and forget about the house for a bit!

Since we have been back, the builders have sent us some more pictures and it seems that progress has been really swift. The concrete walls around the parking space have been completed and it is a hefty structure indeed. You should be able to see in the pictures below that there are a number of circles in the concrete. This is a result of the concrete pouring process but they are actually considered by many Japanese people to be a cool design aesthetic. You can actually buy wallpaper in Japan to replicate the concrete + holes look! I rather like the idea that this type of concrete design falls into the so-called brutalist subset of Japanese architecture. It’s a pretty neat juxtaposition against the pretty wooden house that will sit above.

The next stage of pictures were sent through yesterday and show how the land surrounding the parking space has been back filled and compacted and also the construction of the two slopes, one for the steps leading up to the house and the other for our sloped garden. If you recall, the sloped garden was a later addition since the planning department required the demolition of the top two large stone retaining walls on the west side of the plot. Originally we had wanted to keep these but we were out of luck when the earthquake happened and planning applications were all revisited.

What started out as the only cost-effective solution to a big problem is actually starting to look pretty good and we really like the way the stone wall curves round at the bottom, giving an indication of what was there previously. The slope itself is pretty steep but some well-placed steps (perhaps sunken railway sleepers) should give us good access to any plants that we want to grow there. Grass and a nice tree would be another option but I can quite easily imagine children or drunk house guests rolling down it and landing in a heap of broken bones in the road below. We really need to give this part some more thought.

Next week is a once-in-a-generation 10-day long set of public holidays and weekends, which means that work will stop for a while at the end of this week. Expect another update in about a fortnight when things get moving again and I have some photos of this week’s work, which is mainly some testing of the new back filled land and preparations for the steps and house foundations. To those in Japan, have a fantastic Golden Week whether you are here or abroad. To everyone else, check back soon for more updates!