them fundamental techniques. The courses are complimentary because we want to provide high quality housing. This training started 25 years ago. Not many people wanted to be carpenters but with this paid program we are helping the industry to retain the craft. So, in a way, you are creating a new type of daiku-san? Right. Just to clarify, the daiku-san we train will be good in pre-cut construction, not in temples and shrines. What is this two-year process? Could you expand a little? The first three months they study at school. After that they start going to construction sites and learning from making. In the first year they learn frame assembly. In the second year they learn more skilled interior finishing work. Is Polus also involved in finishing? We do everything, but with the help of sub-contractors. I am curious, where the name ‘Polus’ came from? It comes from the Northern Star that never moves and is always in the center. We always wanted to be in the brightest star and in the center of our industry. Do you think it is important to keep a dialog with the traditional craftsman? Just to illustrate, Toyota brought blacksmith into their factories as a way to figure out new ways of programing their machines. That is a way they are trying to innovate. Is there similar pursuit here given the deep tradition of daiku-san in Japan? They are aesthetically nice. We don’t really talk to craftsman, but we look at the old structures and try They are also more efficient to figure out the ways to improve their and faster to build. In case of processes. We have an R&D center fire, wood insulates the metal that does research in older structures and tries to find ways of making wider joints and keeps them from timber spans for example.
melting.
How big is your R&D center? The facility is not big. It has around thirty engineers. What is the main research they are doing there? They mostly work with the existing products, like new connections. We have different testing and earthquake simulation machines. 123