Structural furniture

A structural furniture in which at least a portion thereof has a strength required for a structural member and constitutes a structural member bearing loads in a vertical direction and a lateral direction. Back plate constituents made of structural plywoods are stood vertically in parallel with each other on bottom plates and side plates 4 are stood vertically being joined at a right angle to the back plate constituent members 3 so as to form a U-shaped lateral cross section.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
1. Field of the Invention 
The present invention concerns a structural furniture such as, for example, 
a display shelf, drawer, bookcase, closet, kitchen unit or like other 
storage furniture in which a portion of such a furniture (particularly, a 
back plate constituent) is used as a structural member bearing loads in a 
vertical direction and a lateral direction (that is, a pillar or wall) 
thereby enabling to save the use of pillars or walls, as well as unitize a 
building such as a house and can manufacture and supply them at a reduced 
cost. 
2. Description of the Prior Art 
A prefabricated housing system has been adopted so far, and construction 
systems, for example, a two-by-four construction method, panel 
construction method, and construction method of connecting light-weight 
structural steels and boxes (rooms) have been conducted in recent years. 
However, in such existent construction methods, unitization structure in 
factories has been made, at the most, to such an extent as utilizing 
existent pillars or walls as structural members for bearing loads in the 
vertical and lateral directions, and ready-made furnitures have to be 
installed separately as necessary or built-in furnitures have to be 
installed separately in the same manner as usual, which requires skilled 
carpenters and the number of such carpenters has been decreased year by 
year and wages have increased more and more. Under such situations in the 
field of buildings, the cost reduction has also come to its limit to the 
extent of relying on a method of using inexpensive imported materials 
conducted so far or reviewing the distribution system. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a 
structural furniture which requires no special skills, can be manufactured 
in factories, can improve the construction accuracy remarkably and can 
reduce the construction cost. 
The present inventor has made earnest studies for overcoming the foregoing 
problems to attain the object described above and, as a result, has 
accomplished the present invention based on the finding that the object 
can be attained by utilizing a furniture, particularly, a back plate 
constituent thereof as a structural member bearing loads in a vertical 
direction and a lateral direction. 
That is, the present invention provides a structural furniture in which at 
least a portion thereof has a strength required for a structural member 
and constitutes a structural member bearing loads in a vertical direction 
and a lateral direction. 
That is, the structural furniture of the present invention is selected from 
at least one of a display shelf, drawer, bookcase, closet, kitchen unit 
and like other storage furnitures, which can be manufactured under 
modulation in factories and such moduled structural furnitures are 
preferably moduled in two types of 90 cm width and 75 cm or 45 cm depth. 
In the structural system of the present invention, furnitures are provided 
also with all the structural and spatial partitioning functions which were 
attributable so far to pillars or walls. The furnitures described above 
are moduled into two types of 90 cm width and 75 cm or 45 cm depth as 
described above and disposed while considering the room layout and the 
structure (vertical force and lateral force). The furniture is 
manufactured in a factory by incorporating heat insulator materials as 
required, attaching side plates, disposing doors to the side plates, 
attaching a shelf board between the side plates, laying pipes used for 
hangers, appending exterior wall material or completing operation as far 
as painting and then carried into a construction site. 
When they are put to assembling construction, sleepers (square lumbers) are 
secured on concrete foundations, joists are laid between the sleepers and 
bottoms of structural plywoods are attached thereon. Then, the furniture 
according to the present invention (specifically, back plate constituent) 
is secured on the bottom plate of structural plywoods, for example, by 
means of lug screws. On the other hand, beams are secured to the upper end 
of the furniture, over which a roof is secured or structural furnitures in 
an upper story are installed. A house can be constructed by using the thus 
secured structural furnitures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
Then, the present invention is to be explained by way of a preferred 
embodiment with reference to the accompanying drawings. 
A structural furniture module 1 is constituted as described below. That is, 
two sheets of back plate constituents 3 each of 90 cm width and 240 cm 
height are stood vertically in parallel with each other on each of bottom 
plates 2 made of structural plywood, respectively. The back plate 
constituent 3 comprises a structural plywood 3b and a plywood 3c attached, 
respectively, to the outward-facing surface and the inward-facing surface 
of a plurality of parallel studs 3a (three in the illustrated embodiment), 
with a heat insulator 3d being disposed at the inside. Side plates 4 each 
of 45 cm width (depth as a module) and 240 cm height are joined in 
perpendicular to the sides of the back plate constituent 3 so as to 
constitute a U-shaped transversal cross section. 
An outer wall material 3f is appended or coating is applied by way of water 
proof paper 3e to the outside of the outward-facing structural plywood 3b 
of the back plate constituent 3. 
The structural furniture according to the present invention is thus 
constituted and furniture modules such as a closet, bookcase and kitchen 
are disposed while considering the room layout and the structure (vertical 
force and horizontal force). That is, sleepers (square lumbers) 6 are 
secured on concrete foundations 5, joists 7 are laid between the sleepers 
6, on which the bottom plates 2 made of the structural plywood are 
attached. Then, as described above, after placing the back plate 
substitutes 3 of the structural furniture module 1 according to the 
present invention on the bottom plates 2 and, setting them to each other 
if they are disposed side by side in plurality, with lug screws 8a as 
necessary as shown in FIG. 2, and they are fixed by way of the bottom 
plates 2 to the sleepers 6 by means of lug screws 8b. Further, the side 
plates 4 for each of the structural furniture modules 1 are secured to the 
sides of the back plate constituents 3, for example, by means of bolts or 
adhesives. While on the other hand, beams 9 are fixed above the structural 
furniture module 1, on which a roof 10 is secured, or structural 
furnitures of an upper story are secured to constitute the upper story in 
the same manner as described above. 
Since doors 11 are disposed to the front of the structural furniture, 
shelve are attached between the side plates 4, or pipes for hangers are 
laid previously to complete a furniture in a manufacturing factory for 
structural furnitures, operators have only to assemble them in the working 
site. 
In the above-mentioned embodiment, a structural furniture module having a 
U-shaped transversal cross section is illustrated but various kinds of 
shapes can be adapted depending on the application uses, and an I-shaped 
transversal cross section may be used, for example, in a display shelf. 
In the present invention, since the furniture, in particular, the back 
plate constituents thereof is utilized as a structural member bearing the 
vertical and lateral loads, the furniture can be provided also with all of 
structural and spatial partitioning functions which were attributable so 
far to pillars or walls, they can be produced in factories, operation in 
the construction site can be outstandingly mitigated to shorten the 
construction term and the accuracy for assembling and painting work can be 
improved extremely as compared with that in the field work, as well as 
know-how, factories and skilled workers in the field different from those 
in the field of construction can be utilized, to enable cost reduction or 
create new possibility, which result in remarkable advantageous effects.