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| 2017/06/25 13:15:58瀏覽102｜回應0｜推薦0 | |
自從為了蓋自己的家，開始研究建築以來，近年來日本的創意住宅成為我心儀的設計，但我一直不知其所以然。這篇文章恰恰解了我這幾年存在心中的疑惑。但我仍不敢完全認同，畢竟這個理由仍然過於單薄。但仍舊是非常值得一讀的文章。 日本素來以激進的住宅建築聞名，如東京建築師Alastair Townsend說的：他對前衛的住宅設計的喜好，驅自於這個國家奇怪的不動產經濟，和他個人的設計創意。 Here on ArchDaily, we see a steady stream of radical Japanese houses. These homes, mostly designed by young architects, often elicit readers’ bewilderment. It can seem that in Japan, anything is permissible: stairs and balconies without handrails, rooms flagrantly cast open to their surroundings, or homes with no windows at all. 在ArchDaily裡，我們看見一股激進日本住宅的風潮。這些房子大多數由年輕的建築師所設計，常引發讀者們的困惑，似乎在日本沒什麼不可以：樓梯和陽台可以沒有扶手、房間可以明目張膽地向外在環境開放、或者是一個家連一個窗戶都沒有。 These whimsical, ironic, or otherwise extreme living propositions arrest readers’ attention, baiting us to ask: WTF Japan? The photos travel the blogosphere and social networks under their own momentum, garnering global exposure and international validation for Japan’s outwardly shy, yet media-savvy architects. Afterall, in Japan – the country with the most registered architects per capita – standing out from the crowd is the key to getting ahead for young designers. But what motivates their clients, who opt for such eccentric expressions of lifestyle? 這些怪誕的、諷刺的、或極端的住宅生活主張在在抓住了讀者的注意，逼我們捫心自問：為什麼是日本？以下的照片搜羅了日本一些外表羞澀卻具有媒體敏銳度的建築師作品（請見原出處網頁），畢竟，在日本這個依人口比例來講具有最多註冊建築師的國家，鶴立雞群獨出一格是領先年輕的建築同儕的關鍵，但又是什麼動機讓他們的業主買單？到底是誰能住在這種特立獨行的生活模式空間裡？ An unconventional home requires an unconventional client, one who’s willing to take-on, or can afford to ignore, one or more types of risk: privacy, comfort, efficiency, aesthetics, etc. But Japan’s experimental commissions aren’t necessarily luxury villas for a wealthy cultural elite. Many are small middle-class homes, not a typology where we expect to find bold avant garde design. So, what is it about Japan that encourages such everyday risk taking? 一個跳脫傳統的建築需要一個不拘於傳統的業主，需要業主願意承受、或起碼能夠忽略一些風險：隱私、舒適、效率、美學等等，而在日本這些建築設計的委託往往並非來自於富有的文化精英對豪宅的需求，很多設計只是小型的中產階級住家，不是一般預期中喜愛前衛建築的類型客層。那麼，到底是什麼讓這些日本人勇於每天承擔住在這種前衛住宅的風險？ In the West, deviation from societal norms can jeopardize a home’s value, since it may prove impractical or distasteful to future buyers. Bold design decisions can present investment risk, so clients usually temper their personal tastes and eccentricities accordingly. 在西方國家，偏離主流社會形式的建築會損害一個家的價值，因為可能不利於未來接手的買家。過於大膽的設計會產生投資的風險，所以業主通常會壓抑他們在設計時的個人風格。 At least that’s enshrined Western logic. Safe as houses,right? Travel to Japan and this home truth is turned on its head, largely because the Japanese can not expect to sell their homes. 這至少銘顯了西方式的思維邏輯：像家一樣安全，不是嗎？但到了日本，這個家的真理完全改變，主要的原因是日本人不打算賣他們的房子。 Houses in Japan rapidly depreciate like consumer durable goods – cars, fridges, golf clubs, etc. After 15 years, a home typically loses all value and is demolished on average just 30 years after being built. According to a paper by the Nomura Research Institute, this is a major ‘obstacle to affluence’ for Japanese families. Collectively, the write-off equates to an annual loss of 4% of Japan’s total GDP, not to mention mountains of construction waste. 住宅在日本就像消費性的動產，如汽車、冰箱、高爾夫球俱樂部會員一樣會快速地貶值。一間房子過了十五年通常已損失了全部的價值，平均過了三十年就該拆了。根據Nomura Research Institute的報告，這對日本的家庭是一個「通往富有的主要障礙」， 總的來說，這樣的帳面耗損等於一年日本總GDP的百分之四，個別說那些堆積如山般的建築浪費了。 And so, despite a shrinking population, house building remains steady. 87% of Japan’s home sales are new homes (compared with only 11-34% in Western countries). This puts the total number of new houses built in Japan on par with the US, despite having only a third of the population. This begs the question: why don’t the Japanese value their old homes? 此外，儘管日本人口持續減少，住宅建築業仍維持穩定。日本的住宅銷售有百分之八十七是新成屋（相較於西方國家只有百分之十一到三十四）。換算成新屋數則跟美國相當，儘管人口只有美國的三分之一。這又引發一個問題：為什麼日本人不重視他們的老家？ Here, without wishing to resort to clichés, a little cultural background offers some insight… 在此之前，暫且不論那些老梗，有一些文化上的背景常識對我們理解上面的問題是有用的。 Firstly, Japan fetishizes newness. The frequent severity of earthquakes has taught its people not to take buildings for granted. And impermanence is an enshrined cultural and religious value (nowhere more so than at Ise’s Grand Shinto Shrine, which is rebuilt every 20 years). These oft-repeated truisms nonetheless fail to offer a sufficient economic rationale for Japan’s ingrained real estate depreciation. Its disposable attitude to housing seems to fly in the face of Western financial sense. 首先，日本人強烈的喜新厭舊。日本頻繁的大地震教會日本人一件事：別把基業永存當成理所當然的事。無常，已彰顯為文化和宗教中的價值。然而，這些反覆出現的真理卻不足以證明日本不動產的快速貶值是一種所謂的經濟理性，這種對房子用過即丟的態度簡直完全顛覆西方人的經濟價值觀。 In the country’s rush to industrialize and rebuild cities decimated after WWII, housebuilders rapidly spawned many cheap, low quality wooden frame houses – shoddily built without insulation or proper seismic reinforcement. Older homes from this period are assumed to be substandard, or even toxic, and investing in their maintenance or improvement is considered futile. So, rather than maintain or upgrade them, most are simply torn down. 在二次大戰後，整個國家興沖沖地快速工業化與重建城市，住宅建商迅速地孕育出許多便宜、低品質的木架構房屋，這種粗製濫造沒有良好的隔熱或適當的防震強化。這個時期蓋到現在的老房子，被認為是下等的、甚至是有毒的，而維護及改善這種房子是一種浪費。所以，與其維護修繕這種房子，不如拆掉重蓋來的簡單。 Depreciation is also a holdover from the collapse of Japan’s economic bubble in the late 1980’s. Then, the ballooning price of land shot up so rapidly, buildings were considered temporary installations. This perception persists today, propped-up, in part, by policies that artificially sustain land prices, despite years of economic stagnancy and population decline. 房屋折舊也是自日本八十年代泡沫經濟崩解後遺留的產物，當時，土地價格快速飛漲，建築物被當成是地上暫時的裝置而已。這樣的成見直到今日仍存在，跟人為的政策因素支撐停滯不下的土地價格脫不了關係，就算日本經濟已歷經許多年的停滯及人口的衰退。 The quality of today’s typical homes – most of which are robotically prefabricated – has greatly improved, but the earlier mindset remains entrenched as market logic. Depreciation is the mantra of housing appraisers. Yet, there’s no material reason why, if properly maintained or improved, these homes couldn’t provide shelter in perpetuity, like in the West, where reselling and moving homes several times throughout one’s lifetime is commonplace. 現今的住宅建築，多數是機械化的工業組裝而成，品質已大大的改良，但早期心中的成見仍根深蒂固反映在市場邏輯上，折舊仍是住宅語彙裡的口頭禪。然而，沒有實際上的理由說現在的房子不能像西方國家一樣，只要維護得宜，就可以提供人們擁有永久的庇護所，所以人一生中賣房子或搬家也是稀鬆平常的事。 Japan’s army of loyal salarymen enjoy secure jobs for life, and rarely move to relocate to a new job. Although this is starting to change, a stable salaried job is still a prerequisite for a mortgage, which borrowers slowly repay in full over the course of their careers. Selling up – much less profiting from the resale – is out of the question, since no one wants to buy a pre-owned home. As the salaryman dutifully slaves away to pay off the mortgage, his or her property’s value is all the while depreciating, eventually leaving only the value of the land (minus the cost of demolishing the house). In other words, negative equity is the norm. Grinding economic and, consequently, geographic immobility is an entrenched reality for most Japanese homeowners. 日本的上班族都享有一個保障終生的穩定工作，很少再另謀高就的。雖然這個現象已開始改變，但擁有一個穩定的工作獲得房貸的前提，這樣銀行才能慢慢的回收借出的錢。因為沒人會買中古屋，賣房子也賺不到錢，賣房也就不在選項之內。因而當一個上班族，終身成為房貸的屋奴，所有的財產都一直貶值，最後就只剩土地的價值（還要扣掉拆除地上物的費用）。換言之，財產最後往往變成負數，結果在日本大多數有房階級，面對的是自身經濟能力的日漸耗損和地理上被房子綁住的現實。 Compared with other developed economies, where, mainly, the wealthy hire architects, many more young Japanese first-time homeowners buy land and hire an architect to build their new home, perhaps because – for all the economic reasons just discussed – they’re resigned to living in it for the rest of their lives. 相較其他發展成熟的經濟體，都是有錢人才請得起建築師，許多日本年輕首購族卻先買地以後，才找建築師幫他們蓋房子，這也許就是因為我們剛剛講的經濟因素，讓這些年輕人不想讓他們的餘生，都守在那種普通的制式房子裡。 So, how do Japan’s bizarre real estate economics influence its architecture? Clients need not contemplate what a potential buyer will think 8-10 years into the future. This gives them and their architects greater personal freedom. 所以，業主不需要考慮到未來八到十年是不是賣得掉，這也正是日本奇特的不動產經濟之所以影響日本建築師，因為這給了業主和建築師很大的設計自由。 Without property values to safeguard, Japan, generally lacks planning scrutiny or incentives to protect and preserve local character. Neighbors are largely powerless to object on aesthetic grounds to what gets built next door. This is a boon to architects’ creative license, but it also reduces the collective incentive to maintain and beautify communities by, say, nurturing greenery or burying overhead power lines. 在不需要維持房屋價值的必要下，日本普遍缺少建案的審查或保護在地特色的獎勵。鄰居對隔壁蓋房子會不會影響景觀多半也無能為力，這對建築師來講是創意發揮的福音，但同時也降低了對維護與美化社區的動機，例如做綠化或是遷移頭上的電線。 The freedom to build homes that are a highly personal expression of lifestyle, taste, and aspiration, makes Japan a fertile environment for architects and their clients to test the limits of residential design. For architects, it also helps that civil lawsuits are rare. Unlike their litigation-wary European and American counterparts, Japanese architects rarely fear claims of negligence, emboldening them to take greater risks. 這種蓋房子的自由可以高度展現個人對生活方式、品味與期望的主張，讓日本成為了建築師與業主挑戰住宅極限的沃土。對建築師來講，這也降低了彼此的訴訟。不像常常被告的歐洲或美國同業，日本建築師很少會害怕被投訴粗心大意而招致更大的風險。 Japan’s younger architectural clientele may be more open to risk-taking at the behest of their architect, for whom each project presents an opportunity to test new and innovative ideas. Perhaps there’s also a measure of youthful naïveté as to the long-term consequences of design decisions that they, as end users, will have to tolerate for the rest of their lives. 日本年輕的業主也許對他們建築師的設計意志，具有更勇於承擔風險的開放性，每個案子都是一個測試創新構想的表現機會。也許這也正是對那些用之後的一生，都得忍受當初年輕時，天真的採用以為能長期使用的創新設計的年輕業主的一種測試。 It may seem sad that Japanese families slave, scrimp, and save to build a home, only to see their investment rapidly vanish over the ensuing 15 years. In this light, some of the avant garde houses seem like fatalistic last hurrahs – follies to the futility of home ownership in Japan. Resigned to their predicament, but needing somewhere to live and raise a family, it’s little wonder that Japanese clients reclaim control and quietly rebel in the best way they can – through design. 或許可以這樣講，日本人拼命工作、縮衣節食地存錢蓋自己的家，卻只能眼睜睜的看這筆投資在十五年內快速消磨殆盡。從這個角度來看，這些前衛的建築似乎像是宿命論者最後的呼喊--在日本買一個家是一件無用的蠢事！他們既想逃脫這個困境，卻還是需要一個棲身之所來成家，而這些日本業主透過自宅的創意設計，重申對生活的主導權，與對這個宿命的寧靜背叛，當做是一種最好的方式也不算奇怪吧。 Besides… they’ll eventually tear it all down anyway. 反正，這些房子最後還不是要被拆掉。 |
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