T House Renovation
A 70-year-old traditional house damaged in the Noto Peninsula Earthquake was reinforced using slender carbon-fiber rods. The client, Michio Taniguchi, has continued to develop a carbon-fiber seismic reinforcement material called “Carbon Fiber Braided Strand Rods.” The rods were also used extensively for the seismic reinforcement of an existing RC building in Komatsu Matere Fabric Laboratory fa-bo (2015), which we designed.
This time, the rods were used to restore and reinforce Taniguchi’s own house, which was half-destroyed by the earthquake. By partially removing the damaged interior finishes, the powerful timber post-and-beam structure characteristic of Japanese traditional houses was exposed, with the carbon-fiber rods conceived as the primary elements of both the architecture and structure. The flexible rods made it possible to lightly tie together timber structural members whose horizontal and vertical alignments do not coincide.
The removal of walls and ceilings made visible the combination of the irregular structure and the rods. By giving the flexible and rational structural system of the Japanese traditional house a free and soft geometry, the project discovered new possibilities for timber architecture in earthquake-prone Japan.
