August 2009

With the rainy season having given way to the annual onslaught of typhoons, the construction team in Azabudai has to contend with its share of wet weather in addition to the soaring summer temperatures. But the unfavorable conditions, like so many unpredictable elements in Japan, are meticulously planned for at the site of the future Club.

While rain had had little impact on progress by mid-June, according to site manager Ryota Sekiguchi, up to 10 industrial machines, working nearly 24 hours a day, are typically used to pump the precipitation from the ground after a heavy shower.

The workers have a detailed set of instructions to handle typhoons. “Sometimes workers have to stay all night to reinforce weak spots and protect the site,” Sekiguchi says. The two or three designated workers walk the grounds to check and reinforce exposed areas. There have been cases, he says, of scaffolding being moved several centimeters by torrential rain and driving winds.

Sunshine or rain, progress continues unabated across the sprawling site. With excavation work and earth retention wrapping up during the summer, the demolition of “hundreds of things,” including beams and columns removed from the ground, was still being carried out each day.

In July, builders began to assemble the frame of the Club’s subterranean levels, assembling massive steel beams, surrounding them with smaller reinforcement pieces and then pouring the concrete flooring. For every occasion concrete is set down, the workers conduct a test to determine how soft it is and how much air it contains. Depending on its purpose and placement, the formula must be precisely composed.

With virtually no room for delays in the second half of the construction period, adhering to the schedule without compromising quality or safety remains an essential objective as the basements are formed, the framework of the Club and condominium complex begins to take shape and Members’ new home inches closer to reality.