Do construction companies put pressure on architects to use concrete because it’s cheaper?
No. Rather, architects put pressure on the builders to leave the exterior in clean concrete. Actually, it’s pretty difficult to do this, so there has been lots of development in techniques for repair recently. For example, there’s something called the Yoshida Method. The company mostly consists of painters, and they repair rough concrete to make it look like a nice concrete uchihanashi exterior. They employ art school students as part-time workers. If you use their technique, you can make any wall look like concrete uchihanashi. You can also buy concrete uchihanashi wallpaper for normal interiors. It’s kind of dumb, but very Japanese. Most normal buildings use tiles or plaster/stucco or paint the concrete exterior. Just leaving the concrete as is, it should be cheap, but lately, you need to either put a clear coating material (to keep the concrete clean) or repair it through things like the Yoshida Method. So it’s actually not as cheap as you think.
