Post and Beam

Not a great picture as the original was tiny, but shows some ideas for the main building construction and design. Another picture taken from the great "Tirutinbito" magazine

Real land clearance starts!

The neighbours have been doing a great job! In return for donating some of the wood that they chop I get free tree cutting. I hope to upload some pics of these fine folks soon.

My old friend from Tokyo, Jim Smith, came to visit and we spent some time clearing brush and grass. We also had some beers on the land after dinner. The first real opportunity I have had to enjoy the land. Wonderful sky views and we commented endlessly on the quality of the mountain air (possibly under the influence of the beer!).

Here are some pictures of earlier in the day clearing the land with Jim:

Toyota (the car company) has developed a turf roof "tile"

Found this on a website.http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004890.html
 Japanese website is here http://www.toyota-roofgarden.co.jp/ryokuka%20jigyou.html
The guys who sell the tiles are here http://ryokuka.yamazaki-sangyo.co.jp/

Might be an idea for some of the roof of the house (the flat section in the southwest corner as per the concept)

Design ideas from France

Liked the look of this French-designed eco-house. Might integrate a few of the ideas into my preliminary design concept. Particularly like the wood beam cladding and the possibility of roof gardens and an open-close deck area.

More pictures and links to this design:

http://randomknowledge.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/construisons-demain/

Retired Forestry Professor, Fujita, helps to explore and manage land

Some months ago my neighbour Yoshiko arranged a meeting of the immediate household to discuss asking the development company to cut some of the trees in the area. As the future land owner of this plot she invited me along and it was here that we all met with Professor Fujita and his wife. The Fujitas live very close by on a plot similar to mine (on the edge of the mountain). Fujita is a retired cell biologist who was professor in the forestry department at Kyoto University. He is an expert in detecting tree disease and has a professional interest in forestry and land management. He also loves walking and managing the mountain land.

Fujita has gone a long way to making me fall in love with this plot. He has pointed out the exceptional private access to a mountain ridge which leads down into a "private forest valley". While my architect Salvator-John was visiting, Fujita appeared from this mountain path. "Amazing!" he exclaimed, "beautiful path all the way down to the bottom of the valley, you won't need to do much to make that your own private forest!" Intriged, John and I followed him back down the path. He was right. Fantastic! I will take some photos for the blog soon.

Fujita stayed a while after our short explore. He is currently marking trees to be felled on the site and will arrange for some other neighbours to help chop them down and into firewood. I will donate a third of the wood to the neighbours in return. A bargain by any reckoning! Hail Professor Fujita!

Professor Fujita and Architect Salvator-John

Invested in a Ryobi strimmer to cut the grass.

(That's not me in the pic, pic lifted from the Ryobi site). I went down to the local DIY place a couple of days ago and purchased a 2-stroke Ryobi Strimmer. 27,000yen for the top-of the range model. This is the first purchase (other than the land) that could be seen as "costs" for the project.

2 hours of strimming later and the land is looking a little less wild (below). The picture also shows architect Salvator-John using an iphone to photograph and augment measurements.

An Italian and Japanese Architectural Collaboration

Took a trip down to the land yesterday with one of my architects, Salvator-John Liotta. It was great to have John here again for the first time since the team came down to see the site for the first time around 6 months ago. The team of architects was put together by my old friend Matteo Dario Paolucci (who was a student of Venetian architect Nubar Gianighian), and consists of Salvator-John, Matteo, and Tomoko Matsushita. Tomoko's office (http://www.oak-plan.com/) will provide the schematic drawings.

John and I spent some time thinking about how to lay out the design ideas I came up with in the last post. Drawing out lines in the grass helped us to consider the layout and use of space.

Salvator-John Liotta