Arimasuton. Tokyo’s "Zombie Fish" Building

You may or may not know that I jetted off to Japan for two weeks last year. As you can imagine, I took a lot of photos. How to share them with you has perplexed me a bit as there are many ways I could shape them into little collections. I still haven’t come to any great conclusion so I thought I’d just begin. And begin with something very unique!

This is Arimasuton, Tokyo’s "Zombie Fish" Building and a handmade, concrete masterpiece. Tokyo’s small scale, lesser known answer to Gaudí, if you like.

Architect Keisuke Oka is the owner and builder of Arimasuton, which can be found in Tokyo’s Mita district, a lavish and upscale suburb where the building stands out and strangely fits in too. For over twenty years Keisuke, along with friends, family, students and neighbours, has crafted the building by hand, from concrete.

Though finished in 2024 the surrounding buildings have been demolished making way for a large-scale development leaving Oka no choice but to shift, yes actually shift, the building back 10 metres away from the construction site, which is what is taking place in my images below. I did attempt to get closer but was quickly ushered away by the polite security guarding the site. I am looking forward to revisiting in the future to see it settled and likely dwarfed amongst it’s future giant neighbours!

Revisiting 'The Dairy'

Originally shot on completion back in 2024 'The Dairy' is a cleverly designed and built, four level home in Brunswick East. I returned earlier this year to capture the spaces fully furnished and homely. You can see some highlights from the original shoot here.

Designed and built by Lazcon Build
Shoot styling by Jacqui Lazzarotto

Braemar College Steam Building by Hayball and Bowden

Left Melbourne on a sunny autumn day bound for Woodend a couple of months ago and spent the day at the base of Mount Macedon shooting a new STEAM building at Braemar College’s middle school campus. Designed by Hayball and built by Bowden Corporation it’s a lovely little building that will no doubt be enjoyed by students and teachers alike.

Fixation 8

It’s been a little while since I shared a fixation. I’ve got a number waiting in the wings to share with you but this one, shot no too long ago, has jumped the queue. A bit like the last fixation, where I stumbled across something new in old territory, this one is just down the road from me in Richmond. It’s a carpark. Did you know I like carparks? Thing is, although I’m not traipsing through Richmond on foot all that often, I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before, in the 20 (wow!), yes 20 years that I’ve been living in Melbourne. Clearly this lot has been vacant for some time and likely a carpark for much of that time.

So this little gem of a site has all the things that cause me to fixate. Concrete, strong lines, colour, a touch of detritus, repetition, natural elements creeping in and the added bonus of the new and old stood together and also in the distant background.

To top it all off the sun was shining, I’ll revise that to beating, and the sky was perfect blue. A happy little occasion indeed.

Did you know that I fly a drone?

I’ll get to the drone in a minute. First I need to say hi, as it’s been a while. And Happy New Year! I took one of my hiatuses from journaling and social media, as I do from time to time, but I found some space between Christmas and New Year to share some of the work I’ve been doing over the past few months.

I’m starting with this mid construction shoot for Bowden Corp back in Spring. Whilst many may scoff and wonder what could possibly be interesting about mid construction photography, I was in raptures, as a friend of mine would say. Do you know how beautiful the repeating lines and shapes of freshly installed trusses can be? Not to mention the pretty blue colour and striking shadows they cast on a clear, blue sky day!

As well as stills, I put the drone up for some aerial action. I did get the footage that I needed but being Spring I had a couple of very aggressive magpies to contend with! I’ve included a little clip of them below (obviously not a finished product!) along with my pick of the stills - less commercial than Bowden Corp’s purposeful selection and more my artistic interpretation.

So tell me, do you see what I see? Or do you think I’m barking mad? Let me know in the comments below once you’ve had a look...