Restaurant Haikara - school work

Last Thuesday I had my presentation of a design project I've been doing since coming to Japan. It is a Japanese restaurant in Finland. It is a mixture of these two cultures and countries. Every week I had a meeting with my professor to discuss and build my concepts and generally get more information about our countries ways of living and the sense of aesthetics and so on.

I would like to thank you all who came to follow my presentation and made good questions and points about the project.

Here are few pictures to show how it turned out to be.

Stuff for school

Sketchbook for visual studies of japanese details like bamboo fences...

...patterns, "heraldic" symbols...

...stone pavings, turtle shell patterns...

... and so on.

Space perspectives with markers.

Illustraiting old projects.

and trying to learn how to use the markers...I'm sure one day they'll be better..

Small projects for "design methodology" class like this "create something new by using someting that is already done" bowl.

For the workshop I'm making tatami stool.

quick model for the stool.

This is what I have concretely done so far but I'm also planning my bigger project every week with my professor.  I'll show something about that when it is in that state :)

Building the kitchen

This was the scene when I first came here.

The raw bodies of the kitchen cabinets.

Building the island.

All the building and finishing is made at the location.

Painting the first layers.

Black granite installed. Holes for the sink and stove.

And yesterday makin space for the cooking hood.

This is what we are doing now. At the same time we have been doing the sinktables too but those I will show later on. Almost everything is made here at the house and there is always different people coming to work depending if we need to work with wood, stone, electricity ect.

The design of the kitchen is mainly done by the contractor before I came here but luckily I saw the plan before it was made. For example the space between the two surfaces was only 80cm but now it is 120cm. Also the places for the handles were odd ect...

Everything is happening quite slowly but I hope to do as much as I can before I must leave this wonderful place.

Main enterance's floor

Finally from plan to action! The making process of mosaic floor to the main enterance. First I sketch the shapes and patterns for the floor. After selecting the shape I sketch for the colours. After selecting the colours we started to actually make the mosaic for the floor and stairs.

It feels so great to see it there. The men doing it were so happy and fast! After it was ready they said they really like the design, and by the look on their face when they took the paper with measurements and all I wouldn't be surprised to see them making it to somewhere else too :) 

Operation Gayatri House

Here are some pictures about the Gayatri House we are making. We are still finishing the details of the building before starting to put the interiors together. These first pictures are when I arrived here and the windows ect wasnt yet installed but slowly slowly it is happening! Today we started to build the kichen and everyday I have made plans and sketches about the interiors. So when the rooms are cleaned and ready the interiors will happend :)

Mainenterance is soon ready to have the mosaic on it :)

stones to do the bathroom floors and the mosaic for the main enterance.

Today started to built the kitchen.