Posted: 3/10/2007 12:13:53 AM EDT
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As some of you know, I'm hired out by my employer to teach at a Japanese University for one day per week. One of the fringe benefits are that I get to take classes/courses at quite impressive discount rates. The normal price of around $22000 for 4 years gets cut to about $13000. I first though of getting another degree, but then realised that there's no way that I can cram in four years worth of study in to one year while working full time too, so I decided just to take some classes that I was interested in. One of the courses that I took was what would be called basic architecture. The curriculum is study architecture and design, draw up plans for a simple house, then make a 1:30 model of it. The basic design is called "Zairai jikugumi kouhou" which roughly translates to "traditional axis-composed method". It's quite earthquake resistant and if done traditionally, no nails, only elaborate joints are used which allow the building to absorb the shock from earthquakes. In the Hanshin earthquake about ten years ago buildings constructed using this method had a extra 60% survival rate. In actual practice now, some nails and metal fitting are used. I though that some people might be interested in the difference in design between the 2x4 method used in the US. Anyway, enjoy and if you have any questions, post and I'll try to answer. The basic materials, cost about $20.  Foundations. The Styrofoam board would be concrete in a real house.  External walls.  External walls are up.  Most of the internal walls are up.   A view of what the rooms are like.  Roof is on and everything is finished.  |
I can't really explain without pics, so I'll go and photograph a few joints that we did and post them on Monday. An interesting thing to note is that nobody completely understands why some of the joints work. It's a sort of "I have no idea why, but it works, and that's the important thing" 
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Aint no way in hell I could do that without lossing a few fingers/hand/arm/leg or so on.
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A few traditional buildings like temples go the whole length and demand 100% traditional methods including no power tools, but most compromise and just look at the finished building. Some farm owners living in rual areas also seem to like the traditional method too. The average house would use the more simpler joints and metal fittings used when building 2x4s. We had a professional carpenter come and oversee us in the woodwork and he was able to do the first and second joints shown in the textbook pics in about 10 minutes each.
Probably about 30 hours, but that's while watching movies. |
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all those shear support timbers are too complicated for use in USA. Too much working around. 2x4's with plywood shear walls are more efficient to build. We don't got time to pay for craftsmanship on union wages. cool model though. very detailed and a great study. |
