住めば都

For some reason, the in-laws somewhere along the line decided they weren’t so opposed to a custom-built home rather than ordering one off the shelves from one of the big house makers. Naturally this is a good thing as far as I’m concerned and one less thing we have to “argue” about. They met with a local architect (saw his ad in the newspaper) and got a plan from him, which seems to me fairly straightforward. All of us went over there last night and discussed changes, most of which are minor. We (or me, rather) also communicated my concerns about the appearance of the house, and I think the architect sees where I’m coming from with respect to wanting something vaguely Japanese looking, while also realizing that this is probably not what the in-laws had in mind, and therefore he’s going to need to be creative.

All in all I had a favorable impression of them and I think he respects my interest in (and knowledge about) Japanese culture. The in-laws like him, so of course that’s important. But the problem is that they like him too much, or rather, they seem ready and willing to sign on the dotted line without even considering other alternatives, other proposals, etc. This leaves me in the typical contrary position of saying “whoa, hold your horses, let’s not get carried away just yet”. Frankly it shocks me that these folks have not heard about “due diligence,” and just the idea of researching this guy, getting references, etc. seems to be something no one other than myself has thought of.

My father-in-law actually said that “no one” does what these guys do, which is to take a customers wants and realize that with a design, which of course is nonsense. Yes, most folks building a new house do it the standard way, go to the biggies and order something more or less off the shelf. No different than America or most places no doubt. But that doesn’t mean there are independent architects in Japan.

In fact, back when I started this blog, in December of 2004, Naoko and I visited an outfit called “Weekend Homes” at their Yoyogi offices in Tokyo. Basically what they do is hook-up prospective customers with a network of architects, and over the internet have a design competition. (An explanation of their system in English is here.) After answering a detailed survey on the internet, Weekend Homes will solicit they network of 1000 architects to design a home meeting (or attempting to, at any rate) what we’re looking for. We’ll then be able to view those plans over the Internet, for free. Only at the point where we actually signed on with an architect would we have to pay any money (roughly $5,250) to Weekend Homes. There would then be a separate competition among construction companies called an “Estimate Competition”.

We’re hoping to start this process this week (it’s free, after all), and see about finding other architects as well. I have a feeling it’ll be an uphill battle to sway the in-laws from the de facto first choice, but we’ll see.

Google SketchUp (free) is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program whose few simple tools enable you to create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects – even space ships.

Google recently purchased SketchUp and is offering a free version to users. I have not used it but it does receive raves from some who have. Not sure if I need it at this point, but I hope it’s easier to use than 3D Home Builder, which I tried a while back and had too much of a learning curve for me.

(via)

There was some discussion tonight when talking to the prospective architect about the color of the outside (外観, gaikan, exterior appearance). Following up on links from when I started this blog, I came across this page from Polus:

和の色

Too bad the small pics can’t be viewed larger.

It’s been almost a year and a half since I started this blog, and well, precious little has happened in most of that time, to be honest. But with the new year (2006) plans for the new house have started to slowly come into some semblance of a realistic shape.

The city has finally told us that our turn has come, and indeed it looks like our current house will be demolished sometime this Fall, which will necessitate us moving to temporary housing nearby. Unfortunately, for reasons I have yet to fully understand, the city wants to finish re-doing this street before we will be able to even start building the new place, even though are new house will be on land several hundred meters away.

But progress is being made, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to return back to this and keep it updated, and to utilize it as a sort of scrapbook of ideas more than anything else. In the meantime I’ve copied over the posts from the original blog just for continuity’s sake. Stay tuned….