Chapter 11
794words
While walking through a soon-to-be-demolished alley in Shibuya, Shin noticed this faded sign.
The owner was an old man in his seventies, organizing the last batch of books on the shelves.
"Young man, feel free to look around," the old man said without looking up, "Next month this place will be torn down, and these books will have nowhere to go."
Shin browsed the bookshelves casually, mostly filled with literary works and history books. In the corner of the architecture section, several dusty collections caught his attention.
《Poetic Reflections on Modern Architecture——Works Collection of Ichiro Tanaka》
Shin froze. Ichiro Tanaka—the original chief designer of the Civic Center project fifteen years ago, who was later forced to resign and leave the country after a fierce conflict with Kokonogi.
"Boss, how much is this book?"
"That one," the old man pushed up his glasses, "three hundred yen. The author hasn't returned to the country for a long time, and not many people buy it."
Shin immediately took out his coins.
Back at his apartment, Shin eagerly opened the collection.
The first half of the book contained photos of Ichiro Tanaka's famous works and explanations of his design philosophy, while the second half included numerous early manuscripts and sketches.
Shin carefully turned page by page. Suddenly, on page 146, he saw a familiar building outline.
"This is..."
It was a pencil-drawn architectural sketch with fluid and precise lines. Although it was just a preliminary concept, Shin immediately recognized the embryonic design of the Civic Center.
Next to it, in small handwriting, was noted: "Initial draft for XX City Government commissioned project, March 1998."
Shin's heartbeat began to accelerate. He continued turning the pages and discovered several related structural sketches.
On page 151, he found a detailed structural framework diagram. The drawing clearly indicated the building's main load-bearing system and designs for earthquake and wind resistance.
"Wait a minute..." Shin carefully examined the shear wall arrangement on the drawing and suddenly noticed something unusual.
Shin immediately stood up and took out the Civic Center structural documents he had been collecting and reconstructing over the past few months from his desk drawer.
He placed Ichiro Tanaka's original sketches side by side with the current building blueprints on the table and began comparing them one by one.
"The foundation structure matches... the main framework is basically the same... but here..."
Shin's finger stopped at the southeast corner position on the drawing.
In Ichiro Tanaka's original design, there was a critical wind-resistant shear wall in the southeast corner, 300mm thick, forming a complete L-shaped arrangement with the main structure.
But in the existing building, this shear wall had disappeared.
Xin hurriedly pulled out the on-site photos he had taken and measurement data. Indeed, there was no shear wall in the southeast corner.
"Why was it canceled?"
He re-examined all the documents. On the construction drawings, the southeast corner area had been changed to a thinner decorative wall, only 150mm thick, completely lacking structural load-bearing capacity.
More critically, the signature in the bottom right corner of the drawings had changed from "Ichiro Tanaka" to "Shuji Kokonogi."
Xin opened his computer and began performing structural mechanics calculations.
"If there's no shear wall..." he muttered while inputting parameters.
The calculation results made him draw a sharp breath.
Buildings lacking shear walls in the southeast corner will experience torsional deformation when hit by strong winds from the northwest direction. What's more terrifying is that when wind speeds reach above 25 meters per second, the building will enter a state of resonance.
"Resonance..." Xin's face turned pale.
Any structural engineer knows the horror of resonance. Once resonance occurs, even reinforced concrete structures could completely collapse within minutes.
According to meteorological data, the area experiences several strong typhoons every autumn, with wind speeds frequently exceeding 30 meters per second.
Xin stood up and paced around the room. The mystery that had troubled him for three years finally had an answer.
His father must have discovered this problem. Ichiro Tanaka's original design was safe, but Kokonogi, in order to shorten the construction period and reduce costs, arbitrarily canceled this critical shear wall.
"You bastard..." Xin clenched his fists.
Kokonogi not only concealed this fatal flaw, but also used various means to eliminate everyone who knew the truth. Ichiro Tanaka was forced to leave the country, while his father...
The new phone suddenly rang.
"Nakayama-kun, it's me." Hana Sawamura's voice sounded somewhat tired, "I have good news for you. I've contacted several construction workers from back then, and they're willing to testify. Now we just need the critical technical evidence."
Shin looked at the blueprints on the table and took a deep breath: "Miss Sawamura, I think I've found everything we need."
