This report shows the architectural movements with the birth of the National Park Service Organic Act in Japan through the research of the architectural documents from the Momose family’s archives of Sessho-Goya mountain hut and Nishidake-Goya mountain hut. These architectural documents were made by the National Parks Association of Japan in about 1936, and that designer was Hideto Kishida. As a conclusion of this study, these documents are the architectural archives discovered newly about the building design works of Hideto Kishida, and the project of the building design in the National Parks by the National Parks Association of Japan.

View full abstract

The summary describes a rehabilitation work for practical use on the building 2 (formerly library) in Waseda University. The examination identified the importance of the building 2 for the university, the process of construction, the preceding rehabilitation work, etc. The rehabilitation of shikkui ceilings and the seismic reinforcement were conducted, preserving its cultural value. “T. T-WALL”, the wall for reinforcement, looking like the bookstack, was developed this time, reflecting an ideology by Tachu Naito, who designed the building 2 structurally. It may be one of the first attempts for rehabilitation work to inherit an ideology of a structural designer.

View full abstract

Seismic reinforcement work was conducted on the main building of the Old Tokyo Science Museum with the priority of preserving the museum function. Minimal alterations were made by tailoring the seismic retrofit measures toward the effective utilization of space. Using such approaches is important for preserving historic structures and for sustaining their form and integrity as well as their historical and cultural values. When conducting seismic retrofits, it is essential to select an appropriate reinforcement strategy, and this strategy should be determined individually for each project.

View full abstract

This paper reports in which way the architect selection system for public buildings in Gunma Prefecture has been carried by the local governments since the 1990’s. A voluntary professional group, known as PFM-group, developed its own ideas and methods for the architect selection system by repeating continuous trials and errors. The raised issues are such as the fair and open competitions, disclosure, public participation, estimation methods and so on. They are notable cases to examine the idea and methods of architect selection system in Japan nowadays by drawing a clear line between the policy of the national government and municipality.

View full abstract

This paper reports in which way the architect selection system for public buildings in Kumamoto Artpolis has been carried since 1988. By the strong initiative of the commissioner and the secretariat of Kumamoto Artpolis several architect selection systems have been examined such as designation system, competition and proposal system. They lead the participation of local municipalities in order to stimulate the potential of architecture in cultural contexts. They are notable cases to examine the idea and methods of architect selection system in Japan nowadays by drawing a clear line between the policy of the national government and local autonomy.

View full abstract

BIM attracts attention as the technology of improving the productivity of the construction industry. However, there is little 3D parts data provided by product maker. This report is going to help product maker to provide 3D parts data by indicating making method.

View full abstract

The purpose of this research is to study upcoming architectural education focusing on the contents of program and the facilities. This architectural design education involves Virtual Design Studio (VDS) developed by Toyohashi University of Technology and the “Media Engineering Lab” established for distance learning. In addition, the distance learning which used VDS and this laboratory was conducted and analyzed. Then, based on the results of this study, how architectural education and its environment can be improved by incorporating the distance learning system and it is designated exclusively for architectural education is proposed.

View full abstract

To develop human resources who can work internationally in the field of sustainable regional planning, it requires not only learning the basic theory and method of the research and analysis, but also the experience creating final deliverables to the local municipality through the cooperative work. Moreover, it needs integrated approach that involve various fields such as economics, environmental study, sociology and so on, not only to study architecture and urban design field.
“Eco-Polis” can be mentioned as a precedent of these educations that conducted by Ferrara university in Italy with cooperated universities in Italy and Latin America.
In this paper, it gives a suggestion about the international education methods in the professional training for sustainable regional development through the analysis of the teaching methods of the Eco-Polis.

View full abstract

If the dialysis facilities loses the function of hemodialysis due to earthquake damage, serious conditions bring the hemodialysis patients who are not allowed to stop hemodialysis treatment. Accordingly, it is strongly requested to study the appropriate provision to mitigate such damage. This paper focuses on the dialysis facilities damaged in two big earthquakes and examined the functional problems from both phases in hard and soft technologies, and evaluates the potential capacity of each facilities. This study finds various bottlenecks of facilities along the time axis of earthquake occurrence and explores the useful functional continuity plan for the future damage mitigation.

View full abstract

Akita Senboku earthquake of 1914, which was an inland earthquake with magnitude 7.1, caused 94 fatalities and 640 collapsed houses. The authors has been continuing literature surveys on this disaster and clarified from the damage distribution to the correspondence to the damage recovery by local governments in Akita prefecture. In the process of gathering archived documents we newly found a photograph album which was published just after the earthquake. In this study, a literature survey on photographic materials was performed and gathered materials were classified and listed in a table. Typical disaster features can be shown through these photographs.

View full abstract

From 2005 to 2013 among 7 districts with different vulnerability to disaster, we conducted a questionnaire survey concerning how people maintain their traditional wooden houses and compared the result with the disaster measures of the areas. Following results are obtained. 1) In all surveyed districts, seismic retrofitting had rarely been taken by the residents because of economic pressures and property inheritance issues. 2) There are familiar carpenters or trends among 7 districts, but only a few houses are maintained at fixed intervals. It is important to appropriate maintenance in order to preserve houses from earthquakes.

View full abstract

In recent years, the needs of society’s structure is diversified. Therefore, support is becoming difficult to only structural design of safety-critical legacy. Problem of environmental and seismic safety and forest conservation is important in Japan. For this reason, we focus on environmental performance of the building in environmental issues, repair performance of the building in seismic safety and the introduction of the wood floor in issue forest conservation. It is the purpose of this report is carried out as a study for a specific case for the involvement of these.

View full abstract