Korien Tower (Korien is about half way between Kyoto and Osaka.)
Many jobsites in Japan hang immense banners to beautify the construction site. These fish murals are actually the work of the Takenaka construction manager for this job. His side job/ hobby is painting and selling murals.
All towers in Japan over a certain height are now required to comply with one of three levels of earthquake resistance ratings. These ratings correspond to the predicted 500yr, 1000yr, and 8000yr earthquakes (similar to our flood rating system in the US and similarly confusing to me.)
This building is 8000yr earthquake compliant which means that the seismic dampeners can accomodate up to 90cm of lateral movement. For anyone interested in the science behind these requirements there is a good abstract here: http://www.ctsee.org.tw/出版品/200310/ee0401-02.pdf
seismic dampener (the building sits on about 30 of these, at every load point, and the the building is actually ratcheted down with massive anchoring systems that compress these dampeners.
these lateral turnbuckles tie the load points together (I think)
marking framing locations with a traditional paintbrush
The Takenaka Internship is granted yearly to one student each from the architecture schools of Yale, M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania. The Takenaka Corporation traces its history back more than four hundred years and this internship provides American students of architecture with a summer of valuable training at Japan's oldest architecture, engineering and construction firm. Based out of the Osaka design office, interns participate in various aspects of design and also accompany archite