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Yea or Nay? Tsunami-Resistant House Design Features Breakaway Glass Walls

By Rain Noe - January 23, 2014

in Architecture

Everyone from dog trainers to engineers of hydroelectric dams will tell you to work with nature, not against it. So in his bid to design a tsunami-resistant house, Dan Nelson and his team at Designs Northwest Architects figured if they couldn't build a house to withstand tsunami waves, they'd come up with one that let the waves pass through it. Their 30-foot Tsunami House, situated on the waterfront of Puget Sound, is designed to remain structurally intact even when hit by eight-foot waves.

How they did this was to raise the house nine feet on concrete-encased, steel-frame-reinforced pillars. But the ground floor is still livable, to a degree: Every fixture and piece of furniture on the first level is waterproof, and there are no electrical outlets down here, just ceiling-mounted lights. The outer walls consist of large, garage-door-style glass walls that are designed to break away under the force of a wave, rather than provide resistance that could be transmitted to the structure.

"If the building was a solid wall instead of columns filled in with glass doors, the whole thing could collapse under the momentum of the wave," Nelson told Smithsonian Magazine. "We opted to enable the building to stay intact by letting the water move through along a path of least resistance."

One thing occurs to us: Having breakaway walls might be good for the house, but might not be so good for objects outside the house that are going to have a glass garage door slam into them. But we suppose one could argue that in a tsunami, debris of that size would only be a drop in the bucket, if you'll pardon the pun.

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Dave R.

10 years ago

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This type of construction is very common in the north east where coastal flooding and hurricanes are a big concern. Typically habitable area needs to be constructed above the base flood elevation (BFE) and everything below base flood has to be designed to be "break away" and floodable (materials, details, mechanicals...).

As far as the author's concern about breakaway items becoming damaging flotsam and jetsam, the neighboring houses built low to the ground will be the bigger wave-bore missile issue...

Regarding mechanical systems, FEMA does not like those placed below base flood. HVAC ducts are possible but need to be waterproofed. Electrical systems below BFE have to be "wet location" and everything needs to be designed to meet the local hydrostatic, hydrodynamic and buoyancy forces. This kind of thing is typically cost prohibitive and FEMA won't insure it and does everything they can to prohibit it.
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Tom Mc

10 years ago

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Nothing new to see here. Florida has homes like this all over - generally that ground floor is an all concrete parking garage.
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carlos

10 years ago

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this is great! i love the look of the unfinished concrete pillars.
though, i think you could still have power outlets in the first floor. there should just be a master switch for the first floor on the second floor.
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