DESIGNWORKS Vol.07

10/36

Interview with Tomonari Yashiro"Regarding the New Environmental Age"Interviewer: In this issue we are featuring works based on the theme of "environmental design." From among Takenaka's achievements both past and present, we visited the Bungei Shunju Head Office building, constructed in 1966, and the recently completed Flats Toyo. The Bungei Shunju Head Office building has a long life, being in service for 40 years. It is also a pioneering example of environmental design in its use of natural ventilation. What did you think of the building?Human Scale and Simple, Environmentally Conscious TechnologiesYashiro: The Bungei Shunju Head Office building is such a youthful structure that you would never guess that it was built in 1966. It may be an orthodox building in the Takenaka mold, but it's one that you would never tire of – even 42 years later, it still functions to provide protection from the long years of weathering, and that's very impressive. At the time this office building was constructed, its very large apertures gave it a very open feel. But today I learned for the first time that it was also provided with what we would refer to these days as natural ventilation. So it showed a great deal of foresight as well. I get the impression that this was a time at Takenaka when the designers succeeded in designing the building according to their own human senses.The scale of the building is compact in the very best sense. The small space seems to give the office building an integrated feel. The scale makes it possible for people to create their own individual spaces. The fact that Bungei Shunju, which has used the building in this way, is a publishing company and is therefore the same kind of cultural enterprise as the company that designed the building has perhaps gave them a respect for architectural culture. Moreover, continuing to use the building for so many years enabled them conversely to achieve a spirit of progressiveness. They've gone along in their extremely stubborn way, and yet all of a sudden they're ahead of everyone else. I found that truly fascinating.Many of the buildings featured in this issue incorporate cutting-edge environmental technologies in their design. It seems that the past has a lot to teach us.I think that's true. You'll note that the Bungei Shunju building does not emphasize individual sections. I think the reason the building has been used for so long without being rebuilt is because of the power of the space provided by the building. It's been a good fit with our human senses.In Japanese offices today, the so-called "window-side employees" are said to be the deadwood consigned to the outskirts of the office, whereas the more valued employees are in the center of the office and the center of the action. The window-side employees are rich in terms of space, but in a big office the core side employees working in the center are far from the windows, and somehow it's like they've been banished from the window area. Because buildings are such large developments, they tend to be made from large planar shapes, and often it's assumed that then they'll be packed with a lot of equipment. But I think another way is to take a space like that possessed by the Bungei Shunju building and think of it as one module, and add those units one by one to form a large-scale development.Ultimately what you want is a space that people find comfortable, one that has power. Maybe it will turn out like the Bungei Shunju building; if the space has power enough to continue to provide service for 40 or 50 years, then that power is what is most apparent. I think of it as having a long expiration date. Moreover, the building avoids to the so it becomes more and more difficult to see the value that they've managed to develop. There needs to be a thorough understanding on the part of everybody in the company, from the management to the employees, regarding the intent to use the engineering value that the company creates on its own to show the comparative excellence of the company and provide this excellence to end users.Interviewer: On the subject of clearly identifying value, Takenaka is now working to create a digital system for handling construction materials.Yashiro: That's right. In terms of society as a whole, Takenaka is a major purchaser for this type of logistics*3, but the overall market for construction materials doesn't change just because Takenaka does or doesn't buy something. But Takenaka can send a message by means of its purchasing decisions. In terms of design, when Takenaka creates a building such as the International Media Center for the G8 Summit at Lake Toya in Hokkaido, the use by Takenaka of a certain approach to logistics for an architectural project can send a message that this approach has major social significance.What I'm trying to get at here is that construction materials companies are also beginning to tire of the endless competition to offer the lowest price. But major construction material manufacturers have the ability to maintain the traceability*4 of construction materials. In other words, they have mechanisms through which they can record when a product with a certain manufacturing number was shipped. Once they get a contract to provide maintenance, individual maintenance records are kept from that point on. If they don't take advantage of these kinds of differences when they first begin to sell their products, they're forced into a price competition with companies that make a similar product. Rather than engaging in that kind of endless price war, they should provide their customers with the value created by engineering. That way, they're no longer simply buying and selling individual products; instead, the degree to which they can ensure traceability after installation becomes important. That's the kind of thing that should be valued.Interviewer: Traceability is important even at the purchasing stage, as the recent questions regarding the safety of food products have shown.Yashiro: And the same type of thing occurs with construction materials. Companies will be asked to provide data making it possible to determine where the materials came from. If you can do that, we'll buy the materials. If you can't, we won't even include them in a comparative study. This service will be provided by Takenaka which acts as an agent for the owner. If having this type of discerning eye is considered to be something of value, then that makes it possible to utilize the capabilities of your engineers. If Takenaka has purchased the material, it can be trusted. I think this kind of care is a good example of the value provided by engineering.Interviewer: But the current system is frustrating in that even if you try to explain, it's difficult to get end users to understand the value of engineering.Yashiro: I think the way to get society to understand the value of engineering per se is to get them to experience the value of the comfort produced by buildings created by human beings using their five senses, or to show them data in graphic form. Also, I think it's easy for the users of a building to understand the role and function of the component technologies used in the construction of that building, and this can provide a way for them to understand the value of engineering.Nowadays the main method is to use simulations, and normally you should validate the results. But that's done in far too few cases. greatest extent possible the use of fossil fuels for transport. Instead, it has a spatial configuration that allows it to use gravity ventilation, natural air flow and natural lighting. However, it's only when that spatial configuration is actually linked to the comfort of the space that this value is achieved. That's the crucial point.Interviewer: Flats Toyo is also small in scale, isn't it?Yashiro: Yes. By visiting these two buildings, I discovered that Flats Toyo isn't actually all that different from the Bungei Shunju building in terms of the scale of the floor plan. This is a building that provides lots of important hints in many different areas. For one thing, I think it makes us realize that the type of budgetary allocation that everyone these days thinks is natural to use as the investment structure for apartment buildings is actually a distorted way of doing things. At Flats Toyo, the value that is immediately visible is provided for the livability of the areas around the windows. The structural members around the perimeter of Flats Toyo consist solely of simple columns to support axial force only. In general, the load is supported by the core. This approach is extremely straightforward and also provides seismic isolation. I think it's the perfect answer – extremely simple but very versatile as well. Moreover, such systems have a certain scope within which they can be used, but I think the scale of the building that we saw today is an outstanding one. It uses the short distance from the core to the outer wall to maximum effect, and the frontage is extremely wide. The building is small in scale, but it has abundance of space.The diagrams for both of the buildings we saw today – the Bungei Shunju building and the one in Toyo-cho – have diagrams that are extremely simple and clear, and I think it's because they are so simple and clear that they are able to resolve the problems that stem from the various requirements of the buildings. One simple example is the infill. The infill is not some garish, heavily made-up product created using a design taken from a catalog, yet it still possesses substantive value. But ultimately since the design is plain, the cost of the skeleton is relatively high as compared to the cost of the infill. The cost allocation for the infill is less of a burden than in the case of the average condominium, for which a lot is done for cosmetic purposes. The building has a wide frontage and a simple design, but it is still substantial, and in that sense it manages to achieve new value. It's because it's simple that the natural ventilation using the central void is present as a visible technology. In that sense, I feel that today I've been shown yet another example of Takenaka's skill in design.The Value of Engineering and the Words to Communicate that ValueInterviewer: Flats Toyo pursues sustainability*2 through techniques that range from applying environmental technologies (such as streamlined production and the use of an "aero-void" to provide natural ventilation) to including skeleton and infill*1 to provide future versatility.Yashiro: But the value created by Takenaka's engineering staff tends to not be reflected in its market value. This is a problem that affects the construction industry as a whole. I think there's some room for ingenuity in terms of resolving this problem. Even if you do an incredibly good job, from the standpoint of the general public the result is treated as an ordinary building or residence.On the subject of whether Takenaka Corporation is an engineering firm or a general contractor, it's clear from looking at the two buildings we saw today that they could only have been created by an engineering firm. But the trend for most companies is to rank themselves as a general contractor and say they're returning to their core business, Interview