Eishin Campus – High School and College Complex

1982 to 1987

Nihongi 112-1, Iruma-shi, Saitama Prefecture, Japan

Educational, Realized , The first largest part was completed in 1985, the second part in 1988, and one more building was added in 1995

The project was envisioned to be a new combined High School and College Complex for the Eishin Gakuen Foundation, in Saitama prefecture, outside Tokyo, and was designed as such. The campus was to be the working environment of a population of 2000 students and faculty, and occupied roughly 280 meters by 320 meters, or 8.96 hectares. The High School buildings for 1,200 students were estimated to have 6,600 square meters of built space, while the College building for 800 students, 6,000 m2 square meters. A network of pedestrian streets, paths and open public spaces, along with playing fields, gardens and landscaped areas were laid out early in the design process, in parallel with the layout and design of the buildings.
In this section, the project is dealt with as an entity, which includes both the High School and College Complex, since it was designed as such. It addresses issues pertaining to the overall layout and design process of both as a whole, and contains information and records relevant to the above.
Both projects “Eishin Campus – High School”, which was built and “Eishin Campus – College Complex”, which was only designed, provide a complete image of this project.

Client:

Higashino High School - Hisae Hosoi, Managing Director

C.E.S. staff:

Christopher Alexander - Chief Architect, Hans-Joachim Neis - Executive Architect, Gary Black - Structural Engineer, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King - Architect, Artemis Anninou - Architect

Contractor:

Fujita Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

Design and construction process:

The work on the design of project performed by C.E.S. was divided in four phases. 1) Creation of a pattern language; 2) Layout on the site; 3) Design of the individual buildings; 4) Working drawings 1) The first step in the project was to create a pattern language for the school. This was achieved by spending a total of 1200 man-hours discussing the many requirements with the various teachers, professors and staff of the Eishin School. The results of these interviews and discussions were condensed into a coherent vision, which was written up in the form of patterns (a written documentation that describes a physical reality). A copy of the pattern language that was created had been included as part of the submission to the client. 2) The next step in the process was to lay out the various buildings and outdoor spaces on the site. The main goal in this step was to position the buildings so that they form positive outdoor spaces, and to use stakes to mark the corners so that all of the concerned parties can get an actual physical sense of how the site will feel when the buildings were built. When the site felt as though it was laid out just right, the position of each building was recorded. From this record an overall site plan was drawn. At the same time that this process was going on, a large-scale site model was under continuous development in the C.E.S. office in Japan, where the users could see it and discuss it, day by day, as the work proceeded. This played an important role in helping to establish a direct connection between the users, and the site plan of the finished campus. 3) The third step in the process was the design of the individual buildings. In the Eishin School project, 35 buildings in all were designed. During this phase, various types of construction were considered which could capture the vision of the project. Some of the buildings were designed as concrete block, some were plastered concrete, and others were constructed out of heavy timber. 4) In the fourth stage, preparation of working drawings and permission, C.E.S. did its own engineering and construction estimation. Many of the buildings have unique engineering behavior, which was developed on the C.E.S. computer programs by the C.E.S. engineering staff. C.E.S. also did extensive full-scale mock-ups of crucial materials and construction details during this stage, to guarantee that the final buildings would have the emotional reality with project staff was seeking.

Project stages:

Pattern language for the project by clients and C.E.S. Layout on the site by clients and C.E.S. Generic rules for urban growth process Use of full scale mock-ups Design Development and Construction Drawings done after layout Innovative construction m

Contents

Projects

Visual & Audio Materials

New Eishin University: Flying Over Higashino 01/01/1986

Video, Mp4 Recording

Created by:

S. Suwa, Iwanami Documentary Film Productions, Tokyo, Japan

Movie on the design and construction process of the project, showing its development and the interplay between design and construction; documentation focused on specific buildings as well.