Research Trends and Results

Efforts of Preparation for the Draft of Building
Related Technical Standards
ANDO Koji, HeadINOUE Namihiko, Senior Researcher
IWATA Yoshihiro (Dr. Eng.), Senior Researcher
KABEYASAWA Toshikazu (Dr. Eng.) Researcher
TOJO Akira, Researcher
Standards and Accreditation Division, Building Department(Key words)

Buildings, Technical standards

1. Background
Although technical standards for the security of safety
have been stipulated in the building standards law or thelike, in regard to technical standards, it is necessary toappropriately reevaluate them based on the progress ofinvestigative research and technological development andthe lessons of disasters.
For this reason, as a system to carry out standardization
based on the result of studies in NILIM and the building
standards promotion projects (the subsidiary projects by
the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport andTourism: the Nation configures research subjects relevantto the improvement of building standards to subsidize
research expenses for operation entities selected by open
recruitment), the Building Structural Standards
Committee (Chairperson: Tetsuo Kubo, Professor
emeritus at the University of Tokyo, from fiscal 2013)
will be established and the Building Fire Prevention
Standards Committee (Chairperson: Makoto Tsujimoto,professor at the Tokyo University of Science, from fiscal2012) in NILIM, the system to prepare drafts of technicalstandards has been established based on external experts’opinions. Furthermore, aiming to upgrade/streamline fortechnical standards, we will establish “Contact Point” towidelydealwithproposals
forimprovements/reevaluations from private sectors or thelike.
2. Building Fire Prevention Standards Committee
For timber buildings whose gross area exceeds 3,000m2,due to concern to affect tremendous risks to peripheries inthe case of fire of the building concerned, in accordancewith the Building Standards Law, Article 21, Paragraph 2,
it is now compulsory that major structures shall be madefire-resistive construction. Furthermore, structures whicha multitude of persons utilize and those to be used forsleeping, in order for staying persons to ensure
evacuation/rescue, to make it fire-resistive building or
quasi-fire-resistive building according to the number ofstories or areas is made compulsory and a three story
school shall be a fire-resistive building.
In the Building Fire Prevention Standards Committee,based on the results of fire experiments by actual scalemodels for timber structure schools which had been
implemented from fiscal 2011 to 2013, deliberations werecarried out in reference to reevaluations for the provisions
or the like concerned in regard to timber structure threestory schools (held five times in fiscal 2013 byDecember).
3. Contact Point
The Contact Point* is where we receive proposals fromprivate operators with respect to reevaluations fortechnical standards and the improvement for new
standards based on the Building Standards Law or thelike, and with regard to proposals received, deliberations
are carried out in cooperation with the Building ResearchInstitute, in NILIM in view of technical aspects. For FY
2013, four cases of proposals have newly been received(as of December), and we have been carrying out
deliberations in tandem with proposals received in thepast.
*Inaugurated on the homepage on the Information Centerfor Building Administration
4. Schedule in the future
Based on the trend of deliberation in the Council for
Social Infrastructure, we are continuing to carry out
deliberations on reevaluations for technical standards incompliance with the development for investigation
research and progress and so on.