Villa: Yoshida Dormitory Times vol. 2 (pdf)

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Villa: Yoshida Dormitory Times vol. 3 (pdf)

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On August 30, 2018 the Yoshida Dormitory Committee held another small group meeting with the university authorities. Once again in the is meeting, Vice President Kawazoe did not make any genuine efforts to negotiate with us and implied heavily that we should bring this round of discussions to a close.

 

No action taken to address the ageing issues of Yoshida Dormitory

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In the last round of talks, we asked for the university to confirm the following four points regarding measures to counteract the ageing of the old section of our dorm. 

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1.The university will look over the three plans for repairs to the dorm we have submitted and provide feedback to the Yoshida Dormitory Committee.

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2.When the university conducts discussions with engineers and other experts about plans for repairs to Yoshida Dormitory, representatives from our dormitory will also be present.

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3.The report that we have submitted regarding the resistance of the old section of the dorm to earthquakes will be examined further.

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4.The university will continue to negotiate with the Yoshida Dormitory Committee regarding measures to address the structural issues of the dormitory. 

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In this round of talks, we asked for a response from the university regarding the four points above. However, they did not directly address any of these issues during the meeting. Our committee then asked why the university has been delaying making repairs to Yoshida Dormitory for so long, but the Vice President simply replied that, “all students must leave the dorm before we can discuss repairs.” 

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Furthermore, during the meeting, our committee presented a document entitled “Survey of the architecture of Yoshida Dormitory and its links to the history of Kyoto University” (LINK). The survey found that some parts of the old section of our dorm such as the rooms under the staircases and the toilet areas represent Kyoto University’s oldest remaining architecture. The Vice President avoided giving a concrete answer in response to the survey results. He simply stated that whilst he recognised the architectural value of Yoshida Dormitory, “this value will be assessed relative to other issues” and “the situation will be considered as a whole.” Although we asked for the university to indicate the means by which they were judging issues related to the architectural value of Yoshida Dormitory, like in previous meetings, the university refused to disclose this information. Unfortunately, it appears that when we discuss measures to combat Yoshida Dormitory’s ageing problems with the university, although they declare that “negations should proceed