DESIGNWORKS Vol.02

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Not Only Mansions but Ordinary Residences as WellInterviewer: Our guest today is Toru Yamanaka, one of the veteran employees in the Design Department of Takenaka Corporation. He's here to talk about residences. Mr. Yamanaka, when did you join Takenaka?Yamanaka: I started working for Takenaka in 1952 as a mid-career recruitment worker. At that time, the head of the Design Department was Mr. Hino. The major projects at that time, or rather those that remain in my memory, were the Daiichi Seimei Building and the Shin Asahi Building.Interviewer: I think most of us have the impression that you've concentrated on residences throughout your entire career. Can you talk a little about Takenaka's residential projects at the time?Yamanaka: At the time, Takenaka Corporation was known as "Takenaka, the artistic design company." The company handled few residential projects. However, during the reconstruction following the end of the Second World War, we became interested in the issue of residential quality: for example, how to create spacious residences.Interviewer: During the period of reconstruction, what kind of housing policy did Japan have?Yamanaka: Right after the end of the war, the issue of primary importance was to secure housing for people to live in. In the 1955-1965 period, around the time that Japan's period of high-level economic growth was ending, I believe a new direction was promoted for housing policy in Japan. This was the approach that holds that housing is the basis for character-building. The emphasis shifted from quantity to quality, to providing higher quality housing. This was about the same time that the five-year residential construction plan was implemented. Also, Genko Uchida in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry issued a paper entitled "Thoughts on the Housing Sector" (1968), and there was a notable trend for even industry to include housing in its field of view. Home building companies were established at about the same time. During this period, Takenaka Corporation was asked to build quite a few mansions. These were featured in magazines and earned the company a good reputation for its "Takenaka homes." Now, however, as a result of the major trends in society, the momentum is building for us to make an active effort to include not only mansions but also ordinary residences.Interviewer: Specifically, what kind of efforts would these be?Yamanaka: To put it simply, the industrialization of housing. Industrialization would make it possible to provide high-quality housing at the affordable prices needed by society.Interviewer: Is this what the ICS is?Yamanaka: Yes. The ICS, or Integrated Construction System is quite highly regarded. In ten years, we've received orders for 50,000 such homes. In today's prices, this amounts to about ¥1 trillion. What I'd like to emphasize, however, is not simply the numbers but the challenge of achieving a balance between two things that are not easy to balance: on the one hand, providing a good quality dwelling space with a form befitting a residence that is "the origin of character-building", and on the other hand finding a way to make this successful as an economic activity. With regard to spaciousness, in the Takenaka ICS residences 96 cm modules are used. Spaciousness was also the reason that we became the first to include shower/bath units, which at the time were used only in hotels, in such residences.Interviewer: Takanaka was the first to include shower/bath units in residences?Yamanaka: Yes. At first, the mainstream view was that there was no way we could use something that expensive in a residence. But with the help of a specialty manufacturer, we made it happen. Now it's become commonplace, but at the time it was a tremendous undertaking. But it simplified the bathroom plumbing work and actually worked out to be an advantage.Interviewer: What is your view of industrialization?Yamanaka: Do you know the formula that's commonly used? It's V = Q / C x D. V stands for value. Q stands for desired quality. C stands for cost. And D stands for deadline. As you can see from this formula, in order to increase value V, you need to reduce both cost C and deadline D – in other words, the time it takes to do the work. To put it another way, increasing work efficiency is important. Industrialization techniques and factory production are important as ways of shortening the construction period. For this purpose, it's essential to consider design and construction in an integrated manner before beginning operations at the work site. Interviewer: In other words, it's advantageous for design and construction?Yamanaka: You could say that. To cite specific figures, to construct a wooden residence using the techniques available at the time, about 10 worker-days were needed per square meter. If this could be reduced to 3 worker-days or less, that alone would have a tremendous effect. I think ultimately we got this down to 1.8 worker-days per square meter.Ashiya Beach High-rise Apartments ProjectInterviewer: Let's talk about the Ashiya Beach High-rise Apartments Project, or ASTM*1 Project. What kind of competition was this?Yamanaka: You could call it a government project. This was a competition to use industrialization techniques to build high-density high-rise apartment buildings of 14 stories or more to house 12,000 people in 3,400 residences on a 20-hectare site – 600 people per hectare. At the time, every facet of this project would require new techniques to be developed. In a word, it was a proposal to build a compact city.Interviewer: Did many teams enter the competition?Yamanaka: The competition was held in 1972. 127 major companies in various fields participated, and 25 proposals were submitted. The result was that in August 1973 a consortium led by Takenaka and Nippon Steel Corporation came out on top. Of these 3,400 units, 600 would be owned by the prefecture, 600 would be owned by a public housing agency, 1,600 would be owned by the national Public Housing Corporation and 600 would be privately owned. Of these, 600 of the Housing Corporation units and the 600 privately owned units would be privately owned residences and the remaining 2,200 units would be rental units. So it was an apartment building with a high ownership rate. In addition, the work for the 600 privately owned units, along with public benefit facilities such as shopping centers and gymnasium facilities and so on, needed to be done as an in-house project, in which the company purchased the land as well. The construction was done between 1976 and 1979 using industrialization techniques. The work was completed during the work period of 3.5 years. As a result, a new compact city was born. The residents were happy with the results, and in addition the project received the Minister of Construction Award, the Architectural Institute Award and the Building Contractors Society Award, and it was called a major milestone in residential design and construction in Japan.Interviewer: Can you give us a brief description of the major characteristics of the project?Yamanaka: In the competition, the proposal was praised for providing megastructures every five stories that were turned into "sky gardens" (community pavilions) to benefit the surrounding environment. It was the achievement, even in a high-rise building, of a community space like those seen in low-rise buildings, in which people can gather together. With 20 residences as the basic unit, these pavilions were designed to be places where people of all ages – senior citizens, middle-aged adults, youth and children – can interact with one another. Interviewer: The other day we were taken on a tour of the ASTM site. There were a lot of children playing, and we got the impression that the major goal of the design had been achieved.Yamanaka: It makes me happy to hear that. We'd also like some credit for increasing the size of each residence at ASTM from 48 ㎡, the standard apartment size at the time, to 68 ㎡. The requirement was for buildings 14 stories or higher, but our target was 30 stories. As a result, even with high-density apartment buildings of 600 people per hectare, we were able to provide a sufficient amount of greenery. Another major feature of ASTM is its structure. At the time, in 1973, there were no high-rise apartment buildings. However, we decided to use megastructures, for which we had received special approval from the Minister of Construction. These were the first high-rise apartment buildings without fireproofing to be constructed anywhere in the world. Although, as you can see, the site suffered some damage during the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, it was repaired immediately and people were soon able to return and resume normal life.Interviewer: As I see it, your identity is urban development. What is your view of community development?Yamanaka: I think the concept of cities as places for people to come together to live dates back 3,500 years to the Zhou and Yin dynasties in China. At the time, 10 million people lived in a 400 km x 500 km area centering on the Yellow River. The planning for this city extended down to one major city composed of 10 smaller cities, which in turn were composed of 5 villages made up of 25 houses each. What is a city? In Japanese, the two characters that mean "city" are the characters for "refinement" and "commerce" – nowadays we would say "culture" and "economics." Only when you had these two things did you have a city. And note that culture comes first. I wonder if this means that you couldn't call something a city if it didn't have any culture. Nowadays it seems that economics, meaning Interview with Toru Yamanaka"The Future of Residences"Interview

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