Television House: In Japan, Seismic Isolator as Design Element
source: http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/24773/in-japan-seismic-isolator-as-design-element/
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Straight from the Architizer blog:
July 8, 2011
Earlier this year we explained what seismic isolators are, and now a Japanese architect has put them center stage in a new Osaka prefecture home. The mechanisms, which decouple the house from the ground movements happening during an earthquake, are usually buried underneath the ground level. Not so in the Television House, which is raised up on the usually hidden isolation units, making them clearly visible from the street.
Designed by Noriyosha Morimura Architects, the house is located in the Suita, Osaka, amid subdivisions of eclectically-designed single family homes. The tall, blank walls of a concrete plinth, which supports the elevated home, emphatically delineate the separation between residence and neighbor. Set atop this concrete podium are the seismic isolators—which in turn act as the foundation of the hovering living spaces—while various rooms are buried within the concrete mass below. Write the architects, “The property sits about 1.5m above the overall street level. The base of the seismic isolators are buried at street level, and then covered up to a height of about 1.5 m. The top of the seismic isolator becomes the foundation of the 1st floor of the home. The underground/parking is surrounded by the isolators and at street level, following the Building Standards Act.”
The Television House sits over a sunken driveway, emphasizing the isolation units. The domestic spaces “float” over the foundation and the driveway, safe from the perils of lateral ground forces.
The Television House may take its name from its formal similarity to a television unit, but the project is much more than the (admittedly, tired) exercise of critiquing suburbia through the framing and choreographing of domestic life. Rather, the house—an exemplary configuration of concrete elements—is concerned with the sustainability of life under volatile, temperamental natural conditions: specifically, how to live and build in anticipation of earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Click through to see how these advanced structural mechanisms are put on display.
July 8, 2011
Earlier this year we explained what seismic isolators are, and now a Japanese architect has put them center stage in a new Osaka prefecture home. The mechanisms, which decouple the house from the ground movements happening during an earthquake, are usually buried underneath the ground level. Not so in the Television House, which is raised up on the usually hidden isolation units, making them clearly visible from the street.
Designed by Noriyosha Morimura Architects, the house is located in the Suita, Osaka, amid subdivisions of eclectically-designed single family homes. The tall, blank walls of a concrete plinth, which supports the elevated home, emphatically delineate the separation between residence and neighbor. Set atop this concrete podium are the seismic isolators—which in turn act as the foundation of the hovering living spaces—while various rooms are buried within the concrete mass below. Write the architects, “The property sits about 1.5m above the overall street level. The base of the seismic isolators are buried at street level, and then covered up to a height of about 1.5 m. The top of the seismic isolator becomes the foundation of the 1st floor of the home. The underground/parking is surrounded by the isolators and at street level, following the Building Standards Act.”
The Television House sits over a sunken driveway, emphasizing the isolation units. The domestic spaces “float” over the foundation and the driveway, safe from the perils of lateral ground forces.
The Television House may take its name from its formal similarity to a television unit, but the project is much more than the (admittedly, tired) exercise of critiquing suburbia through the framing and choreographing of domestic life. Rather, the house—an exemplary configuration of concrete elements—is concerned with the sustainability of life under volatile, temperamental natural conditions: specifically, how to live and build in anticipation of earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Click through to see how these advanced structural mechanisms are put on display.
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- tags:
- Japan, Architecture, Earthquakes
