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We are moving again, so I fastly took some pictures of our appartment house here in Fukuoka. I felt I should report about the housee. What is so interesting about it? Well it is definitely not so pretty and some of the neighbouring facades are in architectural terms much nicer (see images). Some of the buildings are actually due to some international architectural competition which took place here in the neighbourhood.

However despite being rather unpretty there is something clever about the building, which is – the buildings temperature regulation. The building has deep front south-west balconies, which provide a lot of shade. But due to big windows the rooms inside – on the front side – are lighter than one would imagine (Being amidst packing I preferred not to show you pictures from the appartment inside..;)…it actually seems to look messier and messier every time I enter it…as if a taifun walks through it while I’m gone – just joking :O). The appartment extends through the whole building, i.e. the entry is on the north-east side. The north-east side has giant concrete fortifications against earthquakes, which are sometimes forming little open chimneys. The wind direction is almost parallel to the buildings main axis (i.e. rather perpendicular to the appartments), with a slight tilt towards south. As a result you dont have strong drafts inside the appartment, but if you leave the doors and windows open there is always a nice air circulation coming from the side of the rather cool concrete fortifications. Consequently, only few people in the building need an electric air condition – despite summer temperatures which may reach almost 40 degrees celsius.