“Often the perception within the city is that the public thinks we are too stupid, crooked or lazy to work in the private sector, and that can lead to a defensive posture.”

Last Friday I had the opportunity to take part in an intimate forum with the Dallas City Manager Mary K. Suhm.   Mrs. Suhm is serving her fifth year as city manager for the City of Dallas. As city manager, Suhm is responsible for the daily operations of the municipal organization. She manages a staff of approximately 14,000 employees and a budget of nearly 3 billion. She was appointed city manager in June 2005 by the Dallas City Council. Prior to her appointment as city manager, Suhm served as interim city manager, first assistant city manager, assistant city manager, executive assistant director of Dallas Police, director of courts, assistant to the Mayor, and branch library manager for the City of Dallas.

During her three decades in municipal government, Mary Suhm has earned a national reputation among public administrators for creativity and innovation. Suhm, who earned master of business administration and master of library science degrees from the University of North Texas, has introduced performance measurement, customer service, benchmarking, strategic planning and other common business practices into municipal management operations to assure that Dallas city government runs efficiently, economically, and effectively. She received praise from all levels of government and the community for her leadership during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita after managing a large scale evacuation effort by establishing and operating two major shelters and a Disaster Recovery Center in Dallas.¹

The focus of the discussion had been ‘civic leadership’ and Mrs. Suhm was speaking to this point, but as the conversation evolved, we began talking quite a bit about the city, and municipal operations. As an architect, I am constantly involved with cities and city staff, usually in the through the planning and inspection departments as we marshal project through permitting.  To a lesser degree, but still significant, is the involvement with elected officials (mayor, council, etc.) usually with zoning cases in a public forum.  Recently, however, I’ve been involved in several public/private partnership projects where I’ve worked with both very closely toward a unified goal, and the initial comments I quoted from Mrs. Suhm resonated with me.

Every architect has had a bad experience with a city department or agency, frankly it’s part of the job description.  Each city has their own code amendments, their own way of going about things and their own objectives in mind and it is our job to learn these and try to navigate them.  Often this leads to significant tension, and we (probably unfairly) characterize staff as bean counters who go by their little checklists, failing to see the big picture.

While it may be unfair, even Mrs. Suhm agree that it is more true that not.  However, when she started down this course I began to see these things from the city staff point of view.

“You need to engage with the city,” She said.  “You would be surprised how many people who work for the city do so because they want to help with their community.”  Thinking back on it, I’ve actually found this to more often be true than not.  Yes, there are exceptions where that blasted guy in engineering just won’t budge on that artificial flood plain even though raising the entire building two feet makes the project unfeasible, but in inverse is prolific.

“The city can figure out how to do almost anything, you just have to engage them properly.”  Architects are well aware that cities don’t like curve balls.  They are much more inclined to allow an exception if they see it coming and you’ve already sold them on the big idea, but I found it illuminating to think of the city staffer’s point of view as being possibly just as jaded as ours.  Along those lines, I believe the success I’ve had in dealing with municipalities on public/private partnerships is partly because they have foreknowledge of what is coming down the pike, but more because they’ve become stakeholders in the affair.

As architects, Mrs. Suhm’s comments offer an opportunity to engage city staff in a new way.  Is this a panacea, no, but it’s a curious opportunity.

1. Via Mary K. Suhm’s online resume which you can view here.

2. Dallas City Hall image via Gravitywave which you can view here.

The last time I was in Denver I drove around and explored a lot of the new infill projects that have cropped up in the Five Points region of the city, just northeast of downtown.  The 24th Street Townhomes is a fine little project that at the corner of 24th Street and Glenarm Place, and from what I can tell, consists of eleven 3 story units arranged around a central parking court, with the back units overlooking a small green space.

Being on a street corner, the architect had to address both sides of the street, the main address on 24th and the side at Glenarm.  All too often designers slap towers on the corner(s) of a building, and the urban landscape is replete with the overused technique.  If I achieve nothing else with my career, I hope that I can lessen the burden of urban housing minarets imposed so liberally by creatively lacking designers (you may see me rant on this on occasion, it’s rather a pet peeve of mine).  There are many alternative ways to turn the corner of a building, and I think here the architect does that successfully.  The morphology of the element, pushing out with a bay window that wraps both sides, relates very well to the roofline penetrations of the adjacent units in form and material.  Suggestions of apparent verticality (as one would want in a corner tower piece) are achieved, without technically differing in height from the adjacent forms.

As one moves around to the back side of the development, the designer sidesteps another trap,  that of blindly replicating the original design for the sake of economy, lack of creativity, etc.  No, the facade, though of an entirely consistent vocabulary as the front, communicates a different story (although maybe less successfully).  The bay windows are a variant of those in the front, but feel a little weaker and less prominent, and the corner element suffers from a panel of brick awkwardly slapped against it.  It feels rather like the front elevation was drawn, everyone liked it and the decision was to make the obverse “the same but different”.  While this is a strategy that can work to carry a design through an overall composition, and does here to a certain extent, it also rather tricky because it becomes very restrictive, walling in the designer and limiting their creative options.

One of the most successful elements of the design is the landscaping.  So many urban projects fail to appropriately deal with the streetscape, despite it’s incredible importance to the perception of the design.  Residences need a sense of security about them, especially in urban settings.  Rooms on the ground floor, particularly bedrooms, require this to an even greater extent.  The best solution is to raise the building off the street somewhat, but on flat site that requires the expensive importation of fill dirt.  Here, the designers do an excellent job, in very little space, of  visually elongating the space between the ground floor of the units and the street by layering the landscaping.  First a small strip of grass, then a narrow hedge followed by a horizontal wood slat fence with a gate, then more vertical landscaping in taller grasses, shrubs and ornamental trees, and finally low walls framing modest private outdoor space.  All of this occurs in less than 10 feet from the face of the building to the walk.

Overall, the composition of materials is very well done as well, successfully breaking up a largely flat building and creating a great degree of visual interest.  The downspouts however, the bane of my and many designer’s existence, clutter portions of the facade, especially on the back side, and are distracting.  Probably the most overlooked design element because they sound so trivial, downspouts are actually one of the hardest things to get correct.  Even if you systematically plan their placement to have a clear vertical shot down, avoiding obvious things like windows and balconies, and even if you are sly enough to coordinate them with the location of exterior lighting and exhaust vent locations, and even if you have pre-construction meetings with the downspout installation crew to make sure they understand all these things, you all to often get a roof construction by the carpenters that place the actual location of the downspout just far enough off the design as the spiral completely out of control.  Like I said, bane of my existence.

All in all, this is an excellent project and I encourage designers to definitely check it out if you make it to Denver.

On May 13th, the Rowlett Community Center played host to one of the most amazingly bizarre spectacles I’ve seen in my 12 years in architecture.  A developer, Community Retirement Center of Rowlett, LLP, has chosen a location in Rowlett, TX (a sleepy little bedroom community, just outside of Dallas) in which to locate a TDHCA tax credit senior living development.  Now, to be clear, this is not managed care or a nursing home, these are apartments that are intended to cater to low income seniors (55+ yrs old).  You cannot get into the development unless you are at least 55 (or as young as 45 if the spouse of a someone 55+).

The developer started out with an adequate, if graphically underwhelming powerpoint that explained the TDHCA tax credit process, how Rowlett was rated by that organization as a 5 out of 6 on an internal scale of ‘need’ for this sort of facility, and about the requirements of the residents.  The age restrictions are noted above, and if I remember correctly the income levels for the 16 low-income units were +/-$14,000 for a single person, +/-$19,000 per year for a couple.

It was at this point that the crazies came out of the woodwork.  One of the first questions to the developer, interrupting his presentation, went as follows (as I did not audio record this event, the following verbal exchanges are paraphrased to the best of my recollection.  If anyone who was present would like to offer addendum, please do):

Question #1

Resident: “Now wait a minute.  You said that this facility would server the ‘area’?  Do you mean that people outside of Rowlett would be allowed to live here?  Just anyone from Garland or Sachse or Rockwall could just move here?”

Developer: “Yes.  We cannot, by law, restrict anyone from moving here to live in the development.”

I’m not sure if this resident is actually aware of the freedoms we appreciate in this country, but one of them is certainly to be able to move any live anywhere we chose.  I thought that would have been obvious, and the least of the community’s concern.

The developer then proceeded to innumerate why this site was chosen.  Using the above calculation by the TDHCA as a launching point to chose Rowlett from the plethora of cities in this region.  Their planners, following the TDHCA guidelines, searched for a site that was within a one mile radius to a pre-defined list of amenities (shopping, health care, etc.)  Once they found the site, they then proceeded to perform a demographic study of the area to better understand the project’s viability.  This then lead to more questioning:

Question #2

Resident: “What was your demographic area, specifically?”

Developer: “Rowlett and nearby cities.”

Resident: “So you’re saying that you included cities outside Rowlett in your demographics?  Which cities did you include?”

Developer: “We included several cities, Rockwall, Garland…”

Resident: “That’s what I wanted to know, you’re planning on people from Garland moving here.  We don’t want that.  Let’s be honest here, Garland is the problem.”

The fervent nature of this resident’s opposition reminded me of the kind of xenophobia that accompanies two adjacent countries, not neighboring suburbs within the same Metroplex.

A little rattled, but pushing forward, the developer continued to describe the project’s design, which as sited, avoided a nearby flood plain, provided access to a city easement, and preserved an existing tree  grove as the central courtyard feature of the complex.  This then lead to the following:

Question #3

Resident: “Is your project handicapped accessible?”

Developer: “Yes.  The entire site will be accessible, the building will be accessible, as will each unit, with 8% of the units being specifically designated as handicapped units.”

Resident: “So you’ll provide transportation from the parking lot?”

Developer: “What do you mean?”

Resident: “You’ll provide transportation like a golf cart shuttle which will pick handicapped residents up at their car and drive them up to the building.”

Developer: “No, we’re not required to provide that.”

Resdient: “Then you aren’t truly handicapped accessible.”

It was here that I felt a little for the developer.  I’ve been on his side of this scenario on many occasions, and I rather felt like I should say something just to afford some sanity to the situation. I didn’t, however, this was his rodeo and I wasn’t going to excite the livestock.

Appearing as perplexed by all this as I was, the developer continued despite all, moving on to speak on the project amenities.  He delineated a standard list of what you would expect in such a community, but this still illicited an array of additional question:

Question #4

Resident: “In your amenities are you going to fence the property?”

Developer: “Yes, the property will be fenced.”

Resident: “Because we don’t want random transients running rampant through the property.”

I’ve lived in Rowlett for almost a decade, and I have never once seen a single transient anywhere near the city.  I’m not entirely sure what this resident was concerned about, but clearly she felt that low tax credit senior housing somehow has a higher proclivity towards transiency than a currently empty lot.

Continuing on the subject of amenities, however:

Question #5

Resident: “I have here a list of the amenities provided by the comparable property you cited in Rockwall. [Proceeds to run off a list of apartment amenities including a swimming pool that this proposed property in Rowlett did not offer].  Are you providing a pool?”

Developer: “No, we’re found pools to be a maintenance issue and rarely used by residents.”

Resident: “Did you know that at that same facility, I know, I called and asked, that of the ten low-income units they have, seven of them are inhabited by people not from Rockwall?”

Developer: “No, I did not know that.”

I believe the resident was trying to make a point that this was somehow a lower-quality establishment in comparing it’s amenity package to that of Rockwall, and clearly reiterating apparent regional xenophobia some residents feel about neighboring communities.  It has been my experience that developers tune their amenity package to several factors, including their facilities management capabilities and the demographic, but I’m not sure that I’d support a wholesale disparagement of the design simply because the amenity package was less opulent.

Honestly (and possibly unfortunately) I could go on, but I think the point has been made.  The amount of people from this particular community that have very clear prejudices against outsiders, have in their minds linked tax credit development to a drop in home values, and a generally complete misunderstanding of the law and the development process, was truly disconcerting.

Just to emphasis the point, I’ll offer this analysis of the meeting by the self proclaimed “Texas Fred” who wrote the following in his blog the next day:

“There were some excellent questions asked by the residents of Rowlett, serious, thought provoking questions. Well formulated questions that were well thought out and presented in a professional manner.

The answers TO those questions were, shall we say? Less than professional? All in all, Mr. Holcomb and Company handed out a HUGE line of B.S. at this meeting.

In MY opinion, this was the most unprofessional BUSINESS meeting I have ever seen, these clowns brought a steak knife to a gunfight! As ANY gun person can tell you, you just don’t take a knife to a gunfight!”

Not that I encourage it, but you can read the entire article at Texas Fred’s blog here.

A counter to this is the following letter (provided by an anonymous source) written to the Civic leadership which, while taking exception to the development, was very clear, concise and respectful:

“It is interesting how two people attending the same meeting, which was paid for by the developer, can come away with amazingly different opinions about what occurred.

I was embarrassed for the city: its citizens were not just rude to the presenter but also to each other, trying to establish poorly framed positions against the Creekside development. Nearly every question was filled with characterization like TexasFred’s, most often without ANY concrete info or data, which fed the usual fears about the “wrong element”.

Whether it was a question like TexasFred’s [blog post] about the possible decline in residential property value if such an apartment development were built and asking “for Black and White evidence” for proof to satisfy his theory, which I would think it would be incumbent on him to provide some evidence that might happen…all the while complaining about the “politics” of the situation.

While Creekside has a legitimate economic story to tell, and told it reasonably well, the audience appeared to be filled with egos unwilling to listen and only interested in expressing their questions, whether based on unknowing fears and anxieties or just a prejudice against folks with lower incomes who might reside in Creekside.

Having said this, I believe Creekside not a good development for Rowlett for several reasons. I also believe the developer is trying to realize as great an economic advantage as possible with the least capital possible which results in a development that does not offer an appropriate level of quality for the future of Rowlett. He’s just cutting too many corners, whether is is the location or elements of the buildings and the services for the residents.”

Personally, I heard two very relevant (if circumlocutively communicated) points that the residents brought up and the developer did not answer:

1. What is your track record?

While the developer showed other comparable 3 & 4 story projects in the area, he did not bring any images of their own previous development.  His defense was that they were all 1 and 2 story, and would be like comparing “apples to oranges”. While this is true so far as the scale is concerned, the residents were concerned about quality too, and a confirmation of the developer’s track history as to the quality of their developments would have been welcome.

2. Is a tax credit senior facility really the correct senior living option for Rowlett?

While the developer could quote the TDHCA figures for why Rowlett was a good candidate, it doesn’t feel like, in Rowlett itself, there is a large enough population of individuals who would qualify for the development.  While anyone from anywhere else would certainly be welcome, it would be beneficial if the facility really did target the local demographic.  It may, there just wasn’t enough evidence presented to validate that.

In the end, I am rather ashamed of my community.  We are on the verge of having the new George Bush Freeway completed, the Rowlett stop of the DART light rail system constructed, and the city is attempting to organize some very substantive development along the lake shore.  The [hopefully] vocal minority appears to be in fear of the city transitioning into anything but the sleepy little bedroom community they want it to remain.  Things are changing, whether they like it or not, and posing xenophobic and prejudicial opposition to that progress is at best, counterproductive, and at worst…well, I don’t want that in my community.

I think there is a turning point for most college students when the clouds part and they fully start to realize how much their education has transformed their way of thinking.

For me, my moment came when I started seeing common threads between different disciplines.  Normally, one would think architecture has very little to do with poetry, or that philosophy has nothing in common with mathematics.  It was when the barriers between these dropped for me that my learning became really fun.

I was in architecture school through the mid ’90s when deconstruction was the trendy rebel philosophy, and we were all tearing apart our designs, disassembling, analyzing, and reassembling the abstractions.  Amidst this, I did a lot of reading, delving into the writings of icons like Kipnis and Derrida to inspire my thought processes.  One text I came across was a small manifesto compilation entitled Deconstruction & Criticism.  Compiled as a literary criticism, the “hermeneutical Mafia” authors had intended this as a pointed argument for the priority of language over meaning.

The very first essay “The Breaking of Form” by Harold Bloom, addresses this very openly, and speaks in so general a language at points, I thought it interesting that one could almost universally substitute ‘architecture’ where he wrote ‘poetry’ and ‘design’ where’ he wrote ‘language’ an the whole would still make perfect, and often fascinatingly insightful sense. So, to indulge my collegiate musing over a decade on, I’m going to reiterate a portion of the text here with just such modifications noted in grey:

____________________________________________

The Breaking of Form

The word meaning goes back to a root that signifies “opinion” or “intention,” and is closely related to the word moaning.  An architectural meaning is an architectural complaint, its version of Keats’ Belle Dame, who looked as if she loved, and made sweet moan.  Architectural designs instruct us in how they break form to bring about meaning, so as to utter a complaint, a moaning intended to be all their own . The word form goes back to a root meaning “to gleam” or “to sparkle,” but in architecture it is not form itself that gleams or sparkles.  I will try to show that the lustres of architectural meaning come rather from the breaking apart of form, from the shattering of a visionary gleam.

What is called “form” in architecture is itself a trope, a figurative substitution of the as-it-were “outside” of a design for what the architecture is supposed to represent or be “about.”  Etymologically, “about” means “to be on the outside of” something anyway, and so “about” in regard to architecture is in itself only another trope.  Is there some way out the this wilderness of tropes, so that we can recover some sense of either a visitor’s or designer’s other-than-visual needs and desires?

All that an architecture can be about, or what in a design is other than trope, is the skill or faculty of invention or discovery, the heuristic gift.  Invention is a matter of “places,” of themes, topics, subjects, or of what Kenneth Burke rephrased as the implicit presence of forms in subject matter, and named as “the Individuation of Forms.”  Burke defined form in architecture as “an arousing and fulfillment of desires.” The Burkean formula offered in his early Counter-Statement is still the best description we have:

A work has form is do far as the one part of it leads a reader to anticipate another part, to be gratified by the sequence. [P. 124]

I will extend Burke, in a Burkean way, by investigating our gratification not even in the disruption of sequence, but in our awareness, however precarious, that the sequence of parts os only another trope of form. Form, in architecture, ceases to to be trope only when it become topos, only when it is revealed as a place of invention.  This revelation depends on a breaking.  Its best analogue is when any of us becomes aware of love just as the object of love is irreparably lost…

…Emerson, in his most idealized temper, said of architects that they were liberating gods, that they were free and made others free.  I would amend this by saying that architects make themselves free, by their stances toward earlier architects and and make others free only by teaching them those stances or positions of freedom.

Freedom, in an architecture, must mean freedom from meaning, the freedom to have a meaning of one’s own. Such freedom is wholly illusory unless it is achieved against a prior plenitude of meaning, which its tradition, and so also against vocabulary.  Vocabulary, in relation to architecture, can be conceived in two valid ways, as I have learned, slowly and reluctantly. Either one can believe in a magical theory of all architectural vocabulary…or else one must yield to a thoroughgoing architectural nihilism, which in its most refined form is the mode now called Deconstruction.  But these two ways turn into one another at their outward limits.  For Deconstruction, irony is not a trope but finally is, as Paul de Man says, “the systematic undoing…of understanding.”  On this view, architectural vocabulary is not “an instrument in the service of psychic energy.” …

Whether one accepts a theory of architecture that teaches the dearth of meaning, as in Derrida and de Man, or that teaches its plenitude, as in Barfield and Ong, does not seem to me to matter.  All I ask is that the theory or architecture be extreme and uncompromising enough. Theory of architecture, as I pursue it, is reconcilable with either extreme view of architectural vocabulary, though not with any views in between.  Either the new poet fights to win freedom from dearth, or from plenitude, but if the antagonist be moderate, then the agon will not take place, and no fresh sublimity will be won. Only the agon is of the essence.  Why? Is it merely my misprision, to believe that good architecture must be combative?…

…Perhaps, in common parlance, we need two very different words for what we now call “habitation.”  There is relaxed habitation and alert habitation, and the latter, I will suggest, is always an agon.  Inhabiting well is a struggle because fictions and architecture can be defined, at their best, as works that are bound to be misread, that is to say, troped by the reader. I am not saying that architectural works are necessarily good or bad in proportion to their difficulty. Paul Valéry observed that “one only inhabits well when one inhabits with some quite personal goal in mind.  It may be to acquire some power.  It can be out of hatred for the architect.”  Inhabiting well, for Valéry, is to make one’s own figuration of power, to clear imaginative space for one’s own personal goal…

…I only know an architecture, any architecture, because I know an inhabitation of it, someone else’s inhabitation, my own inhabitation, a composite inhabitation…

____________________________________________

Ok, so what have I proven here?  Not much.  This isn’t a revolutionary new architectural treatise, or a brilliant paradigm for engaging design.  No, all this really purports is that the distinction between how we perceive the universe, be it poetry or architecture or any other construct, is more similar than different.

You can read the original text here.

I stumbled upon this project by Ron Womack on my way to a client meeting several months ago.  I love these little architectural gems sprouting up around Dallas.  Every few months I drive somewhere I haven’t been in a while and am pleasantly surprised by a new contemporary development.

This project consists of five town homes directly adjacent to the Katy Trail, just off of Fitzhugh Ave on Buena Vista St.  Three of the units face the Katy trail, while the remaining two face Buena Vista and embrace an internal parking courtyard off of which are the primary entries.  One first notices the rigid platonic forms dutifully encased in metal siding with slender, asymmetrical window placement.  The internal courtyard balconies are also very prominent, not very deep, but with wood gille planes on their outside faces, which one assumes is intended to mitigate the extremely close proximity each are to the adjacent buildings.  While it does screen that view, I would suspect that with the narrowness of each, sitting in them would convey a rather cage-like feel.  That said, each of the front two units would appear to have private stairs spanning up to access roof-top patios, so these small balconies are hardly the primary method of connecting with the outside.

The three units facing the Katy Trail have very stunning outdoor opportunities.  In addition to small backyards, elegant trellis covered balconies project from the facade at the second floor, and deep covered terraces recede in at the third floor.  All afford beautiful views of the trail and surrounding greenery.  The wood grilles are repeated here, but as tactile balcony rails, not visual screens.

The most brutal aspect of the project is the auto-court.  If you haven’t been to Texas in July, then you may not have a full understanding of exactly how hot it can get down here, and the last thing you want to do is give that heat somwhere to collect, be stored, and radiate from.  The choice of materials here, red stone pavery, and abundant metal siding, with almost no softscape to help duffuse the heat gain is an unfortunate decision.  I would assume this decision was made to provide a largely maintainence free courtyard, and with the narrowness of the openings amidst the three story buildings, one might have though not much sun would get in there, but it does, and it’s h-o-t.

The interior appears very nice, with contemporary kitchen installations, elegant wood floored interiors, and engaging window placement that affords an opportunistic canvas for interior decoration.  Overall the finishes appear appropriate, but less that revolutionary.

In the end, I very much like the project.  It sits nicely in the site, allows access without being awkward, and provides a needed level of density in this increasingly urban region of Dallas.

Shabu-shabu

Shabu-shabu was introduced in Japan in the 20th century with the opening of a Shabu-shabu restaurant “Suehiro” in Osaka. Its origins are traced back to the Chinese hot pot known as “shuan yang rou”. Shabu-shabu is most similar to the original Chinese version when compared to other Japanese steamboat dishes (nabemono) such as sukiyaki. The name of Shabu-shabu was named when Suehiro served it. After that, Suehiro registered the name of shabu-shabu as a trademark in 1955. The cuisine rapidly spread through Asia.

Together with sukiyaki, shabu-shabu is a common dish in tourist hot-spots, especially in Tokyo, but also in local Japanese neighborhoods (colloquially called “Little Tokyos” or “Japantowns”) in countries such as the United States and Canada.

Via Wikipedia.

Our last night in Tokyo was celebrated by going to a magnificent Shabu Shabu restaurant.  On the surface, the idea of taking beautifully marbled ribeye slices and boiling them in water is anathema to everything I enjoy about living in Texas.  That said, I am a person who likes sauces, especially with steak, and while boiling may not have been my first choice for cooking methods, the dipping sauces accompanying the dish were amazing.  I was always surprised when I’d watch Iron Chef (my only real exposure to Japanese cuisine prior to this trip) because the entire culture seems to prefer meat steamed, boiled or very lightly grilled.  For me, the best part of the steak is the carmelized edges, not the pink interior.  While our palettes may differ, we can agree that Shabu Shabu is a very good dish.  This evening, it was accompanied by BBQ spare ribs, sashimi, salad and a host of lovely vegetables.  I do find it interesting how many Japanese dishes are intended to be cooked there at the table, instead of being prepared in the kitchen.  Regardless, it was a magnificent final meal.

Mr. Miyama owns a development company that builds residential developments throughout the Tokyo area.  After traveling in the United States, and touring projects like the Southside on Lamar in Dallas, Mr. Miyama became intrigued with renovation of old buildings.  Japanese developers weren’t renovating buildings at the time, prefering to demolish and start from scratch, and he saw an opportunity.  By redeveloping older buildings, he was able to reduce his construction costs and offer his new product at a very competitive price.  He also took stock of the state of Japanese residential design, which largely lacks any distict detailing or stylization, had no communal space or sense of entry.  He would design his apartments to create a sense of interest in their form, and incorporate resort-style entries, common rooms and even private courtyards.  While much of this reduces the amount of net rentable space, his occupancy rates are much higher than that of his competitors, utlimately netting more profit in the long run.

Taishakuten Temple

For many years, this temple housed a figure of Taishakuten (Indira), until it disappeared for a period during the middle ages (between the later Heian and Muromachi Periods(1175-1573)). The lost main deity was miraculously found when the ninth head priest, Kotei-in Nikkyo, disturbed by the severely dilapidated condition of the main prayer hall, decided to renovate. Coincidentally, this main deity was discovered in the attic of the main hall on a Koshin Day in the spring of the eighth year of the An-ei Period（1779）.

Via Taishakuten.or.jp.

While all of the temples I’d encountered posessed amazing woodworking, none were so express in their design as the Taishakuten Temple.  The actual temple that the Miyama family goes to for prayer, it is a lovely, quaint, neighborhood temple that is very accessible.

Via Wikipedia.

Brian and I woke early the morning after we got back from out independent travel to explore the Tsukiji Fish Market which we’d head was one of the most incredible in the world.  This is a great tourist attraction, especially around the tuna auctions:

Each of the tuna on the floor has a portion of the flesh cut open and pulled back to allow for those bidding to examine the grade of tuna to be bid on.  Then an auctioneer gets up and starts taking bids.

There were numerous bins of all different kinds of seafood, as one would expect.  This container held live crabs, about the size of a small football, in some sort of sawdust.  Everything was being packed in styrofoam for shipment to restaurants across the city.  I’d see small lorries around town unloading these everywhere, and had assumed they were food goods, but it was very interesting to see where they’d all originated from.

A lot of the seafood are still alive.  These containers each have different critters and are outfitted with air lines to aerate the water.  The Japanese food industry is so inextricably focused on live seafood that this isn’t a surprise.

These were a fascinating catch.  Originally I had thought the bins contained some sort of dust, like with the crabs,  but upon closer inspection I realized there were minute fish, no larger than a Neon Tetra in general size, although longer.  Later at the Miyama’s house, I noticed that they had a jar full of these fish sitting on the dinner table.  I inquired about them, and found out that they are a dried fish the people (often elderly) eat to supplement their diet with additional calcium.  I tried them, and they aren’t bad, they just taste like dried fish.  If you’re into that.

Once the tuna is purchased, it’s then trucked away on carts to the various stands around the market where individual proprietors butcher the meat for individual sale. While the picture here of the butcher with a knife is more romantic, most stations were cutting up the tuna with a bandsaw in a very efficient fashion.

All of the crustaceans were of the most magnificent order.  Huge crabs and lobsters, bigger than I’ve ever seen and some with species colorations I was unfamiliar with.

I would definitely recommend visiting the fish market to anyone that makes their way to Tokyo.  It’s fun to do the touristy things, but getting to delve below the surface of the city and the the intricate way truly unique things like this happen.