Frank la Rivière, Architects

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On the South side of the building the pre-cast concrete (Spancrete) panels have been installed.

The Nebuta hall that will eventually feature 5 Nebutas is graually becoming visible.

A view of the entrance hall.

Next week an inspection of the facade mock-up will take place in the pressence of Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen of molo. Three colors have been selected as a first test to come to the final color for the ribbons. After the inspection the mock-up will be dismantled so this will be an important inspection to come to the final design.

A view from the engawa side showing the secundary structure.

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It has been snowing for about a week. A white blancket of 50 cm covers the site delaying the construction. But also resulting in some beautiful views.

Only one part of the steel structure still needs to be installed. This is the area around the Nebuta Door.

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Inspetion of the steel back-up mullions for the glass curtain wall. The mullions are solid steel and are galvanized with a phosphoric acid treatment (リン酸処理) with two layers of uretane clear lacquer.

The hole shows clearly that the mullion is solid. How many people will realize this after installation?

The location of the inspection was near Nagano city. After the inspection we quickly visited the temple before heading back to Tokyo.

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Gradually the shape of the building has become apparent. To the left (Block1; restaurant, Information square 2 and multi purpose space) the steel work and concrete floor at L2 have been finished while the deck-plate for the roof is being installed. Since the end of October block 2 was scheduled for completion. With about 10 days delay the steel work of this part as well as block 3 and 4 have been completed. On the 25 of November the installation of block 5 was on going. this part had initially been scheduled for November 12 and 13. The steel work of the Entrance hall will be installed in later phase and is here seen left open.

A view towards the Nebuta hall from the entrance hall area with to the left the restaurant and to the right the shop.

View of one of the tubular cross braises.

View from the second floor.

The steel part of the emergency straircase ST2 installed. The concrete of B1 is not yet fully cured and for that reason the formwork could not yet be removed. As soon as this can be done the part of the stair leading into the basement will be executed. This part will be in concrete.

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On the 23 a small ceremony was held on site to mark the start of the erection of the steel work.

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Inspection of the reinforcement steel bars.

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A 100 ton crane has been brought on site and in this image is assisting the installation of the reinforcement bars in the resaurant area.

Around the basement core a trench is still visible as works are still ongoing to remove the temporary retaining walls that kept the ground water out of the pit. As the concrete of the basement and the water barrier has been installed the removal of the barrier is undertaken before the connection between the L1 floor and the basement can be executed.

The basement nearing completion of the concrete walls.

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Site progress

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The site works on the temporary soil reatining wall are advancing.

This is the area of the basement level. A rather small area compared to the total foot print of the building.

The Nebuta Festival starts in less than a month. A quick peek into the tents of Warasse-land shows the nearly finished Nebuta floats. Raised on their platform they are quite impressive.

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On a rain drenged day inspection of the first steelwork at the factory.

ZA-KOENJI PUBLIC THEATER

The next visit was to Za-Koenji Public Theater designed by Toyo Ito and completed only as recent as May this year. The building is insteel painted brown and has an interior with one extra color a stone red. The interior is in general darkish. The exterior walls a perforated with a random pattern of holes through which spares daylight penetrates and in the balusrades of the main staircase the holes become luminars.

The entrance hall is one of the main features of the building and one of the most succesful spaces. In the back the main staircase that leads up to the restaurant. To the right the entrance to the main theater hall Za-Koenji-1. The ligting spreads a random pattern of light spots on the floor strengthening the idea of the holes in the exterior walls. The stone red plaster is the inside of the brown exterior wall and reads throughout the building as the exterior shell.
In total there are two theater halls a rehearsal hall and three practise hall as well as a workshop.

This image shows the resaturant. Here the extrior shell bends into the concave roof shape all finished inthe same stone red plaster. To the right the outside wall of the Za-Koenji-1 hall painted black. The floor is in black carpet. Onto the walls are shelfs installed that were filled with cartoon books, children books etc. The restaurant is equiped with a rather small counter area and therefore the menu is limited.

The Za-Koeji-1 hall is a simple box type of hall with a catwalk for the stage lighting running around tha walls.

The rehearsal space that doubles as conference room.

KICHIJOJI THEATER

Today we visited together with the project team of Aomori city two theater hall that are similar in size as the one in Nebuta no ie. The first on the itinary was the Kichijoji Public Theater a low-key informal rental theater owned by the City of Musashi. This simple rectangular theater has front facade that can hardly called a facade. It is more of an inbetween zone between the thaeter and the public space. The balconies are wide enough to allow for a use as terraces as was the idea of the architect. Unfortunately from a management point of view this type of use is presently discouraged. It does fit the idea its low-key appearance as does the fact that it is pulled up in rough materials that express its informal character quite well.

The theater hall is a simple black box, that is as adaptable as possible. The simple materials allow for adaptability in use and easy maintenance. While there is quite an extensive stage ligting system, there is no special control room. This is just a table in the middle of the hall. For accoustic isolation reason a service corridor completely encircles the hall and fuctions as an exptra buffer. The size of the building is kept under the limit above which a sprinkler system is required, in order to keep cost down. The demerrit is that there is also limited staff space and virtually no dressingroom.

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On Wednesday the 24th we had some time off and used this to our benefit to visit the Tachi Neputa No Yakata (立佞武多館http://www.tachineputa.jp/index.php)
in Goshogawara at about 1.5 hr bus drive from Aomori City. This festival is held at the same time as the Nebuta fesitival in Aomori. (Note the subtle diffrence in spelling. After all Neputa is not Nebuta!) The difference with the Nebutas is particularly in the size. The Neputa are roughly 20 meters high! they are build and stored to be reused in contrast to the Nebuta that are rebuild every year. This image shows the exterio of the building that houses three of the colosus as well as an open workshop where the construction of a Neputa cna be viewed as well as othe exhibition space, a souvenir shop and restaurant. The walk from the station to the building is along delapidated buildings and shows the cities limited wealth. A bit of a surprise awaits upon arrival at this tall building. (Also constructed by Kajima crop.) The large glazed facade on the right can slide away to fully open up to let the Neputas through!

A view of the entrance hall with across of the souvenir shop an other large sliding door the eventually leads to the exhibition hall with the Neputas.

In the back of this image a full view of a Neputa. The sculputral part sits on top of a base that is about the same hight as the top part. As the normal viewing is from the street or a low vantage point the figures look downwards. The exhibition hall is designed a bit like the Gugenheim museum in a spiral ramp that doubles as exhibition area. the routing through the museum is therefore from the top to the bottom of the hall. A lift ride brings one to the top where there is aviewing platform to watch a large screen video. Upon once descend the chnaging views of the Neputa is a very effective way of showing them. The hall is dark, but not completely black.

This exhibit od scale models shows the difference in size between to the left the Neputa (Goshogawara), in the middle the Nebuta (Aomori City) and the fan shaped Neputa (Hirosaki).

Eye in Eye with (just) a part of a Neputa.

Small fish figures for kids.

On the top floor of the building in the workshop the Neputa artists work from these type of drawings.

The framework and the cableing on the inside of the Neputa.

A close up shows the black brush strokes, the contour lines and the paper sheets glued with wax onto the wire frame.

Between the black contour lines the areas will be decorated with liters and liters of paint.

The Neputas are constructed in parts that are assambles around a center core. The modern Neputa have a a center core of a steel latice work fixed on to a motorized plate form equiped with a steering place for the driver. The parts of the Neputa have a wood and wire frame.

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The view of the site hasn’t changed much. The piling works are half way witth 177 piles installed.

A view of the piles readied for installation.

At the same time the temporary earth retaining is installed. This will be done around the whole builing so that ground water can be pumped out before the foundation concrete works can start. In this image a small area is blocked off there where a concrete slab was found; a remainder of a previous building that couldn’t easily be removed. Only along the seaside this temporary barrier will become permanent. This will also facilitate the works that need to be carried out on the quay walk scheduled to be executed at the same time of the construction of Nebuta No Ie.
There is a risk that the earth around the building would other wise seep in to the sea complicating the construction. In the back of this image a view of the rig used for the piling.

In this iamge the blue machine installs the temporary earth retaining wall, often called in Japanese Sheet Piling as the structure basically consists of interlocing corugated sheets of steel. This machine rests on top of the installed aprt moves along with each newly installed sheet.

In the meantime work also progresses on this years Nebuta’s. A peak into one of the tents of Warasse Land nearby the site shows the contours of a dragon still in its pristine white state. A few more pices of paper and the “make-up” can be aplied.

Except for the large beast often small goodies such as these fish are made.

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Since the inception of the project we have been loking for alternative methodes to create a black concrete with a shiny surface in which the shapes of the 5 Nebuta floats reflect as if floating on water. Such is the design intend. There are also straightforward requirements such as the fact that the floor has to support the weight of the Nebuta floats, easy in maintenance, not slippery, fitting in the constrcution schedule, not cheap looking and all for a limited cost.A rather difficult problem, but a very important decision as most of the buildings floors will be finished with this materialand is therefore a very dominant factor in the end quality of the project. The straight forward solution is colored concrete that makes use of pigments sprinkled onto the concrete floor before it dries up and apply a protection layer by painting it over with an transparent epoxy type of finish.

In this ongoing study we made, today, a short study trip to a showroom where a black concrete floor was realized. Even if the surface was small it did give a good impressions of how a larger surface would be. This method, imported from the USA, is a treatment of the actual concrete floor slab that is colored and polished. The result looked quite close to the design intend we just wonder about the cost.

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Today we, Mochizuki san, Nakata san and myself, traveled to Hachinohe for an inspection of the steel manufacturers factory. The production has not yet started so this inspection was more a preparation. Arriving by Hayate at the station around lunch time we were first taken for a lunch half way the rout to the factory. The driver suddenly drove off the tarmac road into a graveled path sloping down to this shovel shed on the rocks facing the sea. The surprise came upon entering. A rather nice restaurant unfolded that served a great lunch for what we heard not quite reasonable price.

An this was the view from the restaurant!

After the detailed discussions and the checking of the dimensioning on the CD|AD drawings was finished an unusual part of the inspection took place. This was the calibration of the tape measure to be used on site. This tape measure was compared to the one used in the factory, by putting them both under the same tension and check if there would be a difference at every 5 meter point. Only a small divergence was measured. Most of the dimensioning is now computer operated therefore the tape measures will not be used so often.

A number of connections were check with the help of 1:1 scale drawings printed on polyester film and spread out on the floor. This was the first time we could get a feel of the true scale of the structure.

After the inspection we were shown around in the factory and explained the production flow.

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The site after the heavy rains of today. Because of these circumstances only 1 pile was installed. The next one was planned for friday the 15th of May. Eventually, because of trouble with the equipment, the second pile was installed on Monday 18th of May.

The construction of this years Nebutas has started. Through the entrance of one of the tents specially erected for the construction I could get a glimps of the wire and stick sub-structure being erected.

Today I attended the test piling session. First the dimensions of both piles were checked followed by the an inspection of the boring head (two diameters are used 750 for the shaft and for the last bit a widening to a 1100 diameter), calibration of the pile driver, the positioning of the pile hole, followed by the test boring and the inspection of the cement milk mix. First the two holes are drilled after which the piles are installed.
The inspection is not only meant to verify that the material is as specified but also to see the work flow. Each team has a different way of working and it needs to be ascertained that each step proceeds without problems. Today it was planned to install two piles but because of the weather conditions only one could be completed. On a day with good weather 4 piles are planned to be installed.

Also today the first audit was successfully completed.

After the drilling of the hole up to 27m the first part of the pile is inserted. The second part of the pile is welded on site to the first part to create a pile of the required 29m length. this image shows the welding of the two parts together.

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Today travelled to Aomori for the weekly meeting with the contractor Kajima JV. For the 14th the first two piles are planned as a test and Nakata san and myself need to be present to inspect the process. Today only basic preparations are made such as the delivery of the piles on site. Both the machine for the cement milk (light green in the back) and the pile driver are on stand-by.

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Travelled to Aomori on the 27th at night for the weekly meeting on the 28th.
On the Tuesday the 28th the newly installed Mayor (in function since the 24th) of Aomori Mr Shikanai (61) arrived at 9:30 for a quick site visit. In general terms the project was explained to him. Mr Shikanai had won the recent election, defeating incumbent mayor Mr Sasaki (71) who had been the this position for a steady 20 years, as an independent on a platform to review all large projects. The Aomori election outcome was one of the big surprises of all the local elections taking place in 19 cities all over Japan and was even mentioned in the Japan Times.

The site was in pristine condition ready for the construction. Some small issues remained with some remaining foundation concrete and piles of previous buildings. Some would be removed in the next days some piles that were not in the way would be left.

Japan Times 2009-04-21
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090421a7.html

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http://www.mutusinpou.co.jp/news/2009/04/6061.html
Yesterday on the 3rd the city announced the winning entry for the selection of the official name to replace the present provisional appellation [Nebuta House]. The choice was made for 「ねぶたの家ワ・ラッセ」 (Nebuta no ie – warasse).
This naming competition was started on the second of February and drew much more response that expected. 462 people form not only Aomori city but also from the whole prefecture submitted a total of 782 entries. The selected name is a combination of the proposal by three people and they will be awarded on the 6th of April by the mayor Mr Sasaki.

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The start of the construction was planned for today, but unforeseen remains of foundations of the previous buildings were located and need to be removed before the work on the piling for the foundation can actually start. It is estimated that this will take roughly 1 month. Meaning that the construction starts with 1 month delay. Hopefully this time loss can be absorbed in the construction schedule.
(image courtesy molo design Canada and the City of Aomori)
molo design; http://www.molodesign.com/projects/aomori_nebuta_house

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Today the groundbreaking ceremony took place in a tent on site. This ceremony was attended by 72 invitees from all walks of live and was widely covered by the press.