On the way to the jobsite I shot this building. It is a good example of the number of stylisticaly uncategorical buildings that are remnants of the 1960's and '70s that make up a good portion of the Japanese suburbs.



Residential Tower designed and built by Takenaka. I will do a series of these site visit posts focusing mostly on the things that I have never seen in the US. The jobsites here are completely protected with scaffolding and netting enshrouding the entire building and the actual construction site is practically fit for children to play in. Broom swept after every task and equipment is all meticulously ordered and stored.





narrow side wall powder room sinks





Nice door hardware


Aerated prefab concrete panels (basically a tongue and groove shaft wall type system) that Takenaka uses extensively for infill walls that need fire ratings. They go up incredibly fast (as do all things built by Takenaka).



not entirely sure what this is, but the explanation I got was something along the lines of a hot water interchange. Basically a main with 6 different output pipes and an insulated junction thingy...one of many products I have seen on the jobsites that I have never seen in the US.


Drop in Bathroom. These are pretty amazing, there are catalogs of these units with an infinite number of fixture, finish combinations and several sizes. They come wrapped in plastic and ready to be plugged in. It is somewhat bizarre to walk through a building that hasn't begun interior framing but all the bathrooms are sitting in place in fully furnished hibernation.




Interior framing, even in highrises is all wood. Keeping in mind this is a culture comfortable with paper walls these tiny plywood studs and equally thin plywood blocking kind of makes sense (sound proofing is not something I have encountered much here).





safety screen