node: client charette

As the 2nd part of our weekend charette, following the interviews, In our groups of 4 we were to choose a "client": a natural disaster survivor, and design things that would have either helped them prevent the disaster, or helped them afterward. Our "client" was the man in this video:



We researched earthquakes and particularly the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, looking at some current designs in building to prevent earthquakes. In Sichuan, thousands of children died because of their school buildings collapsing in the quake. We found out that this is because builders and authorities in China wanted to save money, so they cut building costs on schools, resulting in insufficient and completely unsafe construction. Even building inspectors must have been in on it, or they wouldn't have passed.



In our research, we learned about many different methods that are available for reinforcing buildings for earthquake resistance. One method we researched was a tuned mass damper, such as the one in the Taipei Tower. In this system, a giant pendulum sways against the building's sways, lessening the chances of collapse.
We also learned about reinforced concrete, how the schools in Sichuan had none, and how many lives could have been saved if the builders had utilized something so simple. In our design we wanted to pull together all of these elements to create the safest building possible- especially when it's primarily a children's space.

We first developed an archway system that was made up of reinforced concrete walls and a steel-concrete "sandwich" ceiling, a central area in a school that would be the safest to go in case of an earthquake. We also included a smaller scale tuned mass damper. In this drawing by Ben, you can see the section cut of our design.



Here are some photos of our models, all showing the basic form and organization of the different components.




After designing a better school, we thought about what we could put inside the classroom that would provide earthquake shelter incase there isn't enough time to move into the central arch space. We developed a reinforced desk, displayed here by Anna's model and drawing.




In this client charette, we learned how much goes into the research, design, and engineering of different methods to resist natural disasters. It's extremely sad to hear about the Sichuan earthquake and all the deaths, all because someone somewhere wanted to save a little money.