Solutions, not problems

As you may be aware, in Osaka there was a pretty big earthquake recently, reaching a magnitude of 6.1 on the JMA scale. We were at home at the time in our apartment, a newish block which is presumably fairly well protected against such things. Since we’re on the 5^th floor, there was quite a lot of swaying and the earthquake itself was very violent. We both dived under the small table in the living room, me banging my head in the process.

The earthquake on June 18th

Luckily we both escaped from the quake unscathed but the 4 dead and 400+ injured were not so lucky. One of the fatalities was a 6-year old schoolgirl who was killed by a wall which crumbled outside her elementary school. Tragic.

As often happens following these events, building codes and policies are reviewed and renewed and we discovered that this would also affect our house. As you may have seen from the pictures and plans in previous posts, we had planned to partially remove the East end of the stepped retaining wall and to build a parking area in its place. This would have allowed us to keep the large stone steps to the West end of the wall, which we really liked. Furthermore, since groundwork in Japan is very expensive, we had been advised to make as few changes as possible to the wall.

Alas, the city office decided to reverse their acceptance of the original proposal and we had a lengthy message from the builders which said, in essence. “There’s a problem with the wall. You don’t have a lot of options. We’ll probably have to remove the whole thing. We need to talk”. It sounded rather ominous indeed.

The large, imposing two-stage retaining stone wall (二段擁壁) was always something we liked but we knew it was likely to cause us some building difficulties and we had somewhat accounted for this. In the second plans which radically reformed the parking area, we had more than used up this contingency. Further changes were far from ideal.

We began Googling to get a rough idea on how much this was likely to cost us which was absolutely terrifying. The first page we looked at said “don’t buy land with a two-stage retaining wall”. Oops. The next quoted between $20,000 and $100,000(!) depending on the nature of the problem. Our wall is big too. More-than-oops. What had we let ourselves in for?

We spent the few days before the meeting going through various scenarios and solutions, some more ridiculous than others (pickaxes at midnight etc.) and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would just have to wait for the meeting. We felt stupid for not having done enough research (can you ever do enough?) and were both really nervous for several days. It was extremely unpleasant.

Finally, the day of the meeting came around and we met with the builders in a coffee shop in central Osaka. We sat down at the table and prepared for the worst. Now at this point, I should mention that we considered anything less than $25,000 a “positive” outcome, up to $50,000 was terrible but wouldn’t necessarily kill the project. More than $50,000 was probably game over. Sell the land at a loss and start again or, more than likely, give up.

The building company were great. They didn’t present us with a problem, they presented us with a solution. (In fact, 2 solutions, the other more elaborate and vastly more expensive which they advised against.) In the time between discovering the problem and meeting us, they had consulted the city office, fought our case, consulted an expert, engineered and priced a solution and then produced a plan of it all.

There was a quick explanation of the problem and then immediately the revised paper plan was brought out. Everything had already been accounted for. Remove the second and third steps of the wall and replace with a slope on which we can plant flowers, grass etc. How much? Less than $10,000.

In your face, scary Google! It’s weird being happy about such a huge unexpected expense but everything we had read suggested this was going to be so much worse. There is such an investment of time and emotion and energy and resources into these projects that to have to confront the fear of potentially giving up is really harrowing. It reminded us that there’s so much we don’t know and we just have to hope that, through a mix of luck and, hopefully, the experience of our builder, we will get there in the end. Until next time. 

Our new slope

Architect - Yea or Nay?

One of the biggest deliberations that arose from an early stage in this project was whether to use a separate architect to design our house or whether to use a building company who would also take charge of the design. We went backwards and forwards over what would be the best strategy for our project and, after several months of discussion, were nowhere closer to a resolution.

As with all these things, we began to develop a loose sense of pros and cons about using a bespoke architect vs the all-in-one option. I’ll do my best to outline these below:

Architect – Pros

l  Genuinely bespoke house

l  Not limited by housebuilder’s motives to push us in a certain direction

l  Not restricted to a single housebuilder or to particular specialisms, materials, processes

l  A 3^rd party between us and the housebuilder to handle negotiations, complaints

l  Contractors and construction firms being more loyal to an architect (from whom they may get ongoing trade) than to a couple who will use their services once

l  Better use of available space on the plot of land

Architect – Cons

l  Price. Architects fees run to about 10% of the build cost. A very significant consideration.

l  Time. The design process is complex and takes forever.

l  Stress. Agonizing over minute details is likely to be trying enough. Everything suggested that this factor would be multiplied by introducing an architect into the equation.

l  Lack of local connection. We found very few architects in the area where we are building so we’d be working with someone from outside. Not necessarily a problem in itself but we could see potential future issues going unseen without some real local knowledge (especially where we were building)

l  Less choice over who would ultimately build the house. There is a tendering process but is likely restricted to firms that the architect has worked with before. Potential for being overcharged.

l  Weaker relationship between us and the builder. In Japan, aftercare is a big deal as houses usually require ongoing maintenance. A local builder with whom you have a good relationship is really important for this.

As you can see, there were quite a number of considerations and it was difficult to weigh them up, especially since a lot would depend on which architect or building company we opted to use. Having made the list, if anything, we felt further away from making a decision rather than closer. The only thing for it was to go and meet both.

We’d built up a longlist of builders and architects using both Google and an American website called Houzz (www.houzz.com) which has quite a few listings in Japan too. This is more difficult than it sounds as we had a pretty open idea of what we were looking for, which made narrowing down choices really difficult.

We wanted to use someone local but what exactly is local?! Same prefecture? Same city? Same ward? We also didn’t know if we wanted to build a concrete house (lasts a long time and expensive) or a wooden house (more prone to deterioration but cheaper) which made it difficult to shortlist, since most Japanese companies build one or the other. Our golden opportunity to chop the list in half was thwarted by our combined inability to make decisions (a recurring theme, as you will discover).

We eventually settled on a long list of 4 builders and 2 architects although we were certainly conscious of having not looked at everything and the ever-present FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). We chose the builders based on pictures and descriptions of houses they had built and location. With the architects, again pictures were important but we looked more for those who had completed commercial projects too as we felt this was an impressive addition to a portfolio. The Houzz review system provided some limited insight too. Both architects had good ratings.

We decided to go and see an architect first as we thought we might get more of an independent, impartial perspective and less of a sales pitch. Thankfully, this did turn out to be the case. On a cold Sunday morning, we took the subway to the center of the city and met at their offices with very little idea of what to expect.

It was the first time I had been into an architect’s office or met an architect professionally and, oddly enough, both were exactly as I had envisaged. The architect, T, greeted us wearing a pullover, grey sports jacket and rimless glasses. A picture perfect architect! He led us through a very narrow entranceway, since the office was actually closed and shuttered, and ushered us into the office.

The office was large and bright with green plants scattered throughout. There were hundreds of cardboard 3D models of buildings, pictures, posters, books, magazines and catalogues in shelves, on desks and chairs. Organized chaos, as expected.

We sat down after exchanging business cards and T asked us what we were hoping to build. Actually, I think Yuko and I looked at each other as if to say “We haven’t actually figured that out yet”. T picked up on this quickly and changed tact to ask us some more directed, specific questions and we began to get into our stride a bit more. He paused between questions to show us examples and explain prices and costs, which was really great as it gave us an opportunity to learn and ask better questions in return.

One thing that really stood out was T’s usage of English technical terminology whenever possible to explain concepts and materials. We got the impression that he could speak some English but all discussions took place in Japanese – fine for Yuko and fine for me for the more general stuff but there is a lot of technical terminology in housebuilding that is beyond me so we both appreciated his willingness to translate these bits so that I could follow what was going on.

He talked to us at length about their system and timescales and showed us some seriously impressive projects and buildings that they had designed. One of a number of examples that really impressed us was how he calculated window positions based on the heights of those living in the house in order to frame the trees outside in the most visually appealing way possible based on the occupants’ eye lines. It was this attention to detail in every project that he explained that led us to really see the benefits of using an architect to build the house. His passion was inspiring - it was clear that this guy loves designing houses!

After about an hour of back and forth, we said our goodbyes and, armed with a few catalogues and more questions than when we had started, we headed back home. One of the nice things about living in central Osaka is that we can walk to most places and this is especially useful after meetings where a stroll while debriefing and reflecting can be a really good way to generate some perspective.

On the walk home, we both concluded that we really liked T and that his experience was impressive. We could imagine working with him and were pleased with his honesty and his willingness to use English where he could. In short, we were a lot closer to finding an architect that we liked. The question still remained, however, as to whether to use an architect at all. To try and answer that question, it was time to visit a builder. Until next time...