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!

A place to park

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with the start of April representing perhaps the busiest time in the Japanese calendar. For some bizarre reason, almost all contracts in Japan begin on the 1^st April, the official start of the Japanese working year, which means everyone starting new jobs does so at the same time. Moving companies increase their prices two or three times, the rental property market goes crazy and even those staying on in the same jobs are not immune from the chaos, with preparations being frantically made for the start of the year to come.

As such, we’ve both been very busy with work so haven’t had much chance to get to the land lately but we did manage to sneak in a visit last Saturday on our way to do hanami (cherry blossom viewing) in Nara. Progress has been pretty immense, with the retaining wall supports now completed and work starting on the modified parking space.

Just as a reminder, below is what the parking space looked like before the old house was torn down – a pretty narrow space with the red monstrosity looming ominously above it, no doubt ready to buckle and crush the car waiting underneath.

And here it is, post-demolition, with a typical Japanese mama-chari bicycle for scale. Much better but still rather a tricky angle and only enough room for a small car.

As you may recall, we opted to make significant modifications to the land to accommodate two cars (one full size regular car and one smaller kei car, which are considerably cheaper to run and more suited for short trips). We felt that this was a good investment in the land and would make our lives living in the house significantly easier.

What we hadn’t realized until we actually started building was what a colossal task this actually is. The hole we talked about a couple of posts back just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Eventually, when we had finally reached the correct size, stepped concrete bases were filled. You will notice that the base on the left-hand side is higher than on the right. This is to allow the builders to contour the parking space to take into account the slope of the hill on which the land sits, which should make parking easier and allow for better drainage.

The wooden sheeting (not sure what this is called) was soon erected and attached to the metal rebar structure which will eventually support the concrete. The first thing we noticed is how high this is! We knew the wall was high but it was something else to see it with our own eyes. Eventually the wall will come up to the top horizontal metal beam.

It’s a pretty impressive structure from the road and really does make the whole plot look like the base for a castle (every Englishman is supposed to have a castle, right?). Equally impressive is the view from the top, kindly provided by our builders, since neither of us had our mountaineering gear ready. It gives some idea as to the elevation that we are talking from the road. Considering that the top of the house will be about 7 metres above that, we should have pretty good views of the surrounding landscape.

That about brings us up to where we are now. Concrete is being poured this week and will need some time to cure before they start work on backfilling the stairs which will go to the left of the parking space. That should begin early next week but we will be outside Japan for a wedding, so expect a fresh update in about a fortnight.

A final quick note to those reading, following and commenting on the various Facebook groups and webpages where this blog has been discussed. Thank you all for engaging and sharing this experience with us. It’s been a great ride so far and we’re looking forward to the next few months.

I did a Podcast!

Hi all. Just a quick entry to note that I was interviewed about this blog for a Japanese real estate podcast. You can listen here!

https://podcast05d680.podigee.io/62-building-a-home-in-osaka-japan-real-estate-construction-property?fbclid=IwAR1LSXgzRzUIOPAaE88DwxIlsMNhxmnBCIfC95w26y5dCmpl5X8zU-xohls

Many thanks to Ziv for taking the time to talk to me! You can find his website here! http://nippontradings.com/

A huge hole!

I went by the land on Saturday afternoon as it was a nice day and I wanted to go and visit a used car dealership not too far from where we are building. Yuko was working so I went alone, which is good because it gives me the opportunity to practice talking about cars for ages in Japanese. It's a tactic I would recommend for anyone thinking about paying for Japanese lessons. Don't waste your money!

The express train from Namba, which is kind of the main downtown area in Osaka and quite near to where we live now, only takes 18 minutes with no changes so, in no time at all, I was exiting the station at the top of the mountain and very quickly rewarded with a fantastic view of the city. In the distance, you can see the Osaka skyline (around 15km away) and the mountains between Osaka and Kobe. Here's a picture:

The view westwards from the station

It's about a six minute walk from the station to the land, the first part being flat along the top of the spur before a left turn down some relatively steep steps. At that first corner there is a very large old house with an overgrown garden and some animal posters on the fence. The house is unbelievably smelly, especially in summer. I have no idea what kind of mad zoo there is on the other side. Yuko and I usually just hold our noses and pick up the pace a bit.

A couple of minutes later and I was standing in front of the plot and, frankly, rather pleasantly surprised at the progress. There is now an even bigger hole where the parking place was, the steps have been completely removed and there is earth everywhere! The construction workers were discussing the back wall of the parking area, which it seems is now almost completely formed and ready to be concreted in.

What struck me on Saturday was what a massive operation this actually is. In Japan you see building plots everywhere but they are usually the sort of cookie-cutter flat plots with foundations being dug and neat piles of earth around the sides. Our builders looked more like they were relocating the actual mountain itself! 

It was a bit of a weird feeling to think that we instigated all of this. Even though we basically have no idea what we're doing, because of decisions we made and papers that we signed, now these men are digging a gigantic hole. Awesome!

Drilling Holes

Is it March already? It seems like just last week we were sitting down to Christmas dinner and yet already the weather is starting to warm up and everyone is getting ready for a new working year (the calendar of which runs from April 1st here in Japan). Updates have been a little thin on the ground over the last few weeks and there are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, Yuko and I spent a couple of weeks in northern Spain eating all the ham and drinking all the wine we could lay our hands on. Secondly, due to schedule conflicts, the groundwork discussed in the last blog took forever to get started...but started it has.

Late last week, the contractors arrived to begin drilling the huge deep holes that will house the heavy steel pilings that will be supporting the land and forming a retaining wall around the steps and parking space. In total there will be between 6 and 8 pilings and a heavy metal 'sheet' that will be used to hold back the earth. It's quite a complex procedure that requires some pretty serious equipment and some very deep digging.

Since we were away when they commenced with the drilling, we weren't able to head to the site to watch, which was something we had been quite keen to do. Luckily, the building company had offered to take some photos of the work so that we could document it on the blog. I've put the three photos below for you to see.

We're hopeful that this is the last of any major deviations from the schedule and that we can get on with the more enjoyable task of actually building the house itself. Since neither of us is especially technical, it's really difficult to go into much detail about these complex engineering tasks other than to marvel at the huge machines and big pieces of metal. I think we should be able to provide a bit more interest and insight when we can get back to talking about things inside the house.

The pilings viewed from above

The big drill!

First pilings in place

  

Progress and Land

Hi all. Just a quick message to say that we had a meeting last week and received the quote for shoring up the land in the area where the wall fell down. Again we were pretty tense before the meeting but the quote came in around what we were expecting and, although it isn't cheap, at least it will alleviate any future worries about the stability of the ground next to the parking area and we are still well within out contingency for overall land improvements.

The work is expected to take an additional 4 or 5 days, after which we can resume building properly. I think we will both be pretty relieved when the frame is up as the likelihood of expensive surprises should be greatly reduced at that stage. For now, fingers are crossed for a smooth few weeks of construction. I've asked the builder for some photos of the planned land improvements so will post these when we receive them.

In other news, I was perusing the various land and property portals the other day and found a nice, flat, ready-to-go piece of land a couple of minutes walk from our plot. It's unlikely to have the same impressive views and is slightly further from the station. The price per square meter is 3x what we paid for our land so even after the modifications and improvements we have chosen (and in some cases had no choice but) to make, we are still very happy with what we bought. In fact, at those prices, we would never have had a chance to buy such a good sized plot. Full marks to us for having a vision I guess!

Finally, I know there are a lot of folk reading this in Japan who are building or who are thinking about building here. A really useful resource that I think I have mentioned once before is the land registry website where details of land purchases and prices can be found. Amazingly, it is available in English!  

(http://www.land.mlit.go.jp/webland_english/servlet/MainServlet)

The Waiting Game

We're good at waiting. We've become quite accustomed to it over the last couple of years - phone calls, checks, paperwork, meetings, money transfers, exchanges, completions. In fact, it sometimes seems that we spend more time waiting than doing. Today marks the beginning of February which makes it 2 years since we started seriously looking at land in the area where we are building. Now, there have been a number of self-imposed delays along the way - we bought the land in the summer of 2017 and didn't start speaking to builders until well into the following year because of planning our wedding.

Fast-forward to December 2018 and not only are we still happily married (!) but we'd started building too. It seemed that the waiting was finally over and we were getting really excited about seeing our house shoot up out of the ground, as they tend to do here. Alas, the universe has a sense of humor when it comes to such things. As you'll know from the last post, we encountered our first minor setback when the wall fell down a couple of weeks ago.

On top of that, as it turns out, the company who were quoting to shore up the land close to the steps have looked at their availability and decided that they're not able to do the work so the builders have had to reach out to a different company for a quote. The head architect called me this week to explain the reasons for the latest delay and to offer his very sincere apologies. I was at the pub at the time (with my friend, the real estate agent, who helped us source the land) which was less than ideal since it was rather noisy and I'd had a couple of beers. Whilst I wasn't able to understand everything, it was clear that the architect was indeed very sorry and that they were doing everything possible to expedite the process. There's not much that they can do and it's a bit frustrating for everyone involved.

It seems, therefore, that work on site is currently stalled but we are hopeful of restarting in the next couple of weeks. Whilst we've become used to waiting, we really are pretty keen to get this thing built so we can go and start the next phase of our lives. I'll post again when we are back up and running!

Not sure what this is for but needed an unused picture and it looked a little despairing! 

Oops. The wall fell down!

We've been to the land a few times recently to check on progress and things are moving on at a pretty fast pace. Unfortunately, it's a bit tricky to get there with work schedules being what they are and the fact that it takes around an hour on public transport from our current apartment. We are looking at buying a car in the next couple of months, assuming we can find some local parking, as this will help us to go to site more often and to the various showrooms and furniture shops that invariably are situated in the middle of nowhere.

The most recent trip was at the request of the builders. We have a shared private Facebook group through which we can communicate, share documents and photos and keep a log of progress. It's a really effective (and surprisingly modern for Japan) approach to doing things and has been working really well. We received a message on the group to ask if we could come to site as there were a couple of things to discuss.

Invariably, this leads to a certain element of worry and uncertainty as past experience has shown us that "things to discuss" have a tendency to be "things which will cost more money" and so again we left for the meeting with some trepidation about what exactly we were in for. I'm sure the builders don't mean to make us worry and it's difficult to adequately explain what's happened on an internet forum but I do wish there was some way that we could alleviate the fear of not knowing a bit!

Anyway, we got to the meeting to discover that in removing the steps on the eastern edge of the plot, the wall separating our plot from next door had collapsed! It transpires that the ground in that area of the plot is somewhat less solid than had been predicted and this caused the wall to give way. Thankfully, our neighbours have been very understanding and the builders have done a very good job of smoothly over any potential tensions, quickly offering a solution which was deemed cosmetically and practically acceptable.

The downside is that we will need to install six or seven additional steel pilings and, if I understood correctly, a kind of metal retaining barrier to shore up the ground before installing the new steps and the concrete walls for the parking space. Obviously this is likely to be a reasonably hefty expense and, since it's not a mistake but rather a discovered feature of our quirky plot of land, it's on us to foot the bill. Marvelous.

I think in these situations, it's always healthy to try and mitigate with a bit of positivity as far as one possibly can. In this instance, one such comfort is that we did get the land for a steal on account of it being rather difficult, and thus we do have a contingency for dealing with such problems (and indeed we expected a few). The other is that we at least know now that the land will be safe and stable and will have documentation to that effect. Aside from giving peace of mind, it's likely to be appealing to a buyer should we ever decide to sell and move on in the future.

The work is likely to delay progress by a couple of weeks which is unfortunate but not the end of the world. There was also some promising news this week that the government has extended the eco-subsidy that we have applied for from February to August and so there is a chance that, if the builders work quickly, we'll have a chance of having our application accepted. It's worth 800,000 yen so we're really hopeful of a positive outcome!

Here's some pictures of current progress:

Looking south. On the LHS, you can see where the wall fell down!

A view across the car parking space to the south west

The new slope where the old stepped wall was situated. Slope will be the part under the tarp. Gradient will be a little shallower than this and will feature flowers and trees (probably)

Looking down from the top of the plots at the parking space. The pole on the tarp is actually about where the north wall of the house will be.

View across the plot to the north west. As you can see, a lot more digging has been done in the last two weeks!

Large mound of earth under a tarp on top of the plot. Not sure what will happen to it.