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When you work in Japan, the threat of flooding is a natural consideration. But the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, advanced Hirokazu and Yoko Suemitsu's awareness of disaster prevention drastically. Today, this husband and wife team lead the architectural and product design firm SUEP. and incorporate disaster prevention and energy-saving ideas into all their plans, including their recent design for the Ureshino-City Cultural Center & Shiota Junior High School.
SUEP. was inspired by the traditional architectural design that exists near the building site. Then, designers transformed their inspiration into organic architecture and introduced motifs from nature to try to realize dual architectural concepts. It achieved this by fitting in with the landscape of the area and having modern and organic images, as well as by renewing traditional house roofs as Y-shape roof ensembles.
Scheduled to be completed next year and located in the Saga Prefecture of Japan’s Kyushu Region, the project consists of a 4,771-square-meter cultural center and the 7,618-square-meter Shiota Junior High School, which will be constructed on neighboring sites with an existing shopping center and proposed plaza sandwiched between them. The intent is to revive an area that was losing its population while protecting it from possible flooding.
In this new case study, linked below, read how the firm uses Vectorworks Architect software to visualize and document their projects, as well as how it models pedestrian evacuation flows with SimTread, a plug-in for Vectorworks Architect. For this project, the SimTread analysis made SUEP. comfortable planning the buildings right on top of the flood plain and with a raised floor, leaving enough green space to absorb the bulk of any damage.
Read more about award-winning SUEP.'s Ureshino-City Cultural Center & Shiota Junior High School here.
