Architectural Techniques

week8

     There is a variety of residential construction in Japan. Only Japan has such many residential constructions in the world. The main method is the following six kinds.

・Conventional method of construction (timber framework method) 【在来工法 (木造軸組工法)】
・Wood-frame construction (wooden frame wall construction) 【ツーバイフォー工法 (木造枠組壁工法)】
・Prefabrication method (lightweight steel frame) 【プレハブ工法 (軽量鉄骨造)】
・Steel Weight 【重量鉄骨造】
・Reinforced Concrete (Reinforced RC) 【鉄筋コンクリート造 (RC造)】
・Log house 【ログハウス】

 

In addition to this, there is a method derived from these six kinds, but these almost can be classified into these six. Here, I summarized each characteristic of three of them. 

Conventional method of construction (timber framework method) 【在来工法 (木造軸組工法)】

     Conventional method of construction (timber framework method) is the most mainstream in Japan. About 80% of Japanese houses are built with it. When the Great Hanshin Earthquake occurred, that the buildings which were built with conventional method of construction collapsed have been widely known, but most of them were old buildings which was built before 1981 and buildings which satisfied earthquake resistance standards. There was little damage to all new buildings since 1989. Japanese has been used to this method since ancient times, so you can not talk about home building in which you can feel the warmth of wood throughout.

Wood-frame construction (wooden frame wall construction) 【ツーバイフォー工法 (木造枠組壁工法)】

     Wood-frame construction (wooden frame wall construction) is the most mainstream in North America. In North America, more than 90% of houses have been built in this method. The merits of this method are reasonable, excellent productivity and seismicity, excellent fire resistance, and fashionable outside appearance. This method born from the North American style of life in which one builds oｒ reforms one's house by oneself is based on standard system of 2 inches in order to obtain cheap material everywhere and at any time. Moreover, this method has the monocoque structure which support the building with surfaces, so it has 1.5 to 2 times as high seismicity as conventional method of construction.

Prefabrication method (lightweight steel frame) 【プレハブ工法 (軽量鉄骨造)】

     Prefabrication method (lightweight steel frame) has the purpose of mass production like industrial products. This method uses "brace" instead of bracing of conventional method of construction in order to strengthen the building. This biggest advantage of this method is that quality of this is stable and this can be supplied in large quantities because of this industrialization.

     You can not decide which structure is the strongest. If you build a house to observe seismic standards required by law, the house can withstand a major earthquake. In addition, you can not decide which structure you the most comfortably live in, but Japanese commonly like to live in conventional method of construction.