Earthquake Dorm in Japan

Hello, my name is Andrew Chen and I am a rising senior from Staten Island Tech in NYC. For this contest I have decided to designed, planned and showcase a dorm house in Japanese that is designed to resist earthquake seismic activity and powerful winds of typhoons.

Revit - main program to design and plan the building.

Inventor - design parts not available in Revit and then export them for showcase.

Twinmotion - showcasing and rendering images of my design.

2019 Typhoon Hagibis ^

There are many extreme places on earth, however one of the most densely populated and dangerous places on earth is around the Ring of Fire. Many countries and cities exist along this ring endure natural disasters every year. Countries like Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines etc... all have measures built to resist the natural disasters that come with the Ring of Fire.

Tectonic plates that shift around under the ocean around these countries create earthquakes that can destroy buildings and cause tsunamis to erupt. Additionally, typhoons in the southern hemisphere hit these countries very often, having at least two typhoons hitting Japan per year on average.

These consistent natural disasters forced all of the countries around the Ring of Fire to adapt and make buildings that could withstand the extreme conditions so people could live there.

There are many measures that Japan takes to ensure earthquakes and typhoons do not destroy all their buildings and I have done research on many ways buildings withstand earthquakes.

• Base Isolators and foundation

Base isolation systems are very important to ensuring people actually survive an earthquake, even if the building remains intact. Base isolators are placed and connected below the foundation of the building. There are many types of base isolators, however the one I have decided to include in my building are elastomeric bearings which move and stretch with the movement of the tectonic plates to ensure everything above in the building does not move. (example video above)

The video above showcasing how base isolators work, the different types and the consequences of not having them.

I also decide to use a slab foundation for my design as they provide a very stable base for my building.

https://youtu.be/eU5nFvfCGsE?si=pFsgvGT3GPgdxjX0

• Roof Types, structure and material

The type of roof you use for your house will impact how it survives during a typhoon. The most popular type of roof that is best at resisting the powerful winds of a typhoon are hip type roofs and its variants. Hip roofs are very good at reducing wind pressure on the roof to prevent the roof from flying off. Having 4 sloped faces on the roof reduces the amount of uplift powerful winds can produce on the structure of the roof.

A hip roof with minimal or no overhangs in optimal for reducing uplift on the roof while enabling rain to slide off the top of the house. Having a lower slope on the roof, around 20-30 degrees, will reduce the amount of wind that can blow the roof off.

Another thing to consider when deciding what roof to have is the material to make the roof out of. Many popular choices include metal, wood shakes, clay or concrete tiles and others. However, both metal and wooden shakes have their disadvantages. Many people may not like the sound metal roofs make during storms, they can have a high initial cost and not look as great as wooden roofs. On the other hand, wooden shakes are more difficult to maintain and are combustible.

A great alternative to both of these types of roofing are synthetic shakes. Synthetic shakes are much cheaper to produce than both metal roofs, cannot catch on fire, and are strong and can be created to any look a homeowner desires.

In addition, hurricane clips can be added to the structure of the roof to reduce uplift on a roof and keep it attached to the house.

• Shear walls and cross bracing

Adding shear walls with cross bracing help to resist winds and seismic activity by reducing lateral forces and structural deformation. Shear walls are stiff walls made of materials like reinforced concrete or wood like plywood. Shear walls are added on the perimeter of a house and inside on parts like the stairs to improve effectiveness. Cross bracing can also be added to the shear walls to reduce lateral loads that earthquakes and typhoons may attack the building with.

Dormitories in Japan have differences and similarities to dorms in other places in the world. Dorms usually have shared facilities like bathrooms, kitchens and study areas in the building to connect students with each other and encourage communal living. Typically, dorms are separated by gender, however in some cases they may be co-ed. In my building, there will be 2 bathrooms which can be separated by gender. Sometimes, a supervisor may live in the dorm house with students in a separate room.

These elements of Japanese dorms may create a sort of home type feel while staying there and will impact my design of the dorm.

The inside and outside of my design will be impacted by the culture in Japan. The outside of my building and inside will reflect this.

Traditionally, homes in Japan are built out of wood, which will be reflected in my design. Sometimes, larger buildings in Japan will be surrounded by some sort of fence, being made of stone to have privacy or to encase a garden, I include a fence around my building in my model. Additions such as a shoe rack or tatami mats should be present to reflect norms in Japan.

Using Inventor and an example of a base isolator, I designed a base isolator and converted it to a revit family to put in my model. The colors in the Inventor model correspond to the materials someone would need to build the isolator out of.

For my dorm house, I decided to create 2 stories, the first floor for amenities and the second floor for housing students. An additional attic story will be added for HVAC and the roof structure. I started off by creating the exterior and interior walls for my model in architectural plans and added some basic revit families to represent each room. (images above, first image, second floor; second image first floor.)

I added a kitchen, living room, 2 separate bathrooms, planned study room, first floor breaker room and an extra room for anything.

The second floor would include a breaker room for second room electricity and the 6 dorm rooms.

The attic floor plan will be shown in the HVAC step since it does not contain anything other than that.

For the structure of my dorm, I modeled the beams that will hold up the second floor and the roof using Revit's tools. Adding beams on top of the walls of any structure that has multiple stories is important to allow pressure to be distributed and brought down to the foundation of the structure. Without these beams, the building may fall apart.

For the foundation, I chose a slab foundation since they are cheap and easy to build with the basement being the base isolators.

I planned for the shears walls of the building to be on the perimeter and some of them to be walls inside of the building.

Any habitat should have some sort of ventilation and electricity being provided to the building. Since we are building this dorm in Japan, electricity should be readily available to send to the dorm.

For the second floor, ventilation and heat control should be available if students want to sleep and study. Using the space created with the roof, I installed a heat recovery unit and connected it to ceiling vents (to exhaust air) and wall vents (to return air back to the HRU).

In the case of my model (for the second floor), air will be taken in and out from outside through ducts that will go out of the building as shown by the green and blue ducts on the bottom left of the floor plan.

For the first floor, I decided to use another HRU to ventilate rooms and exhausted the air out of the second roof of my building. The HRU is located on the second floor breaker room.

In my model I install ceiling lights in each room and corridor with outlets and switches as well. I include two panel boards, one for the first floor and one for the second floor which can be connected to the electricity a company provides to the dorm. The wires for the circuitry of everything will be lined on top of the ceiling.

In the 3d model, all the objects represent either ceiling lights, outlets, switches or the panel board.

Linking the model to Twinmotion, we can create a more realistic render of the model, and add extra vegetation using assets from Epic Games. Using assets others have created we can create a more accurate depiction of what the rooms may look like.

This project gave me an opportunity to explore and learn about the techniques that other countries like Japan use to withstand natural disasters that I typically do not experience where I live. Overall, it was a fun project that helped to sharpen my skills in Revit.

Asset credit:

Tatami mat in bedroom and living room

closet in bedroom

TV in living room