Comtemporary Apartment Building - How many apartments?

[gavino200]

I started light-proofing this building a long time ago. I'm picking it up again to finish lighting it. Based on knowledge of Japanese housing, how many separate households/apartments are likely to be represented. There's one door, perhaps one staircase (guess from window pattern on the rear, eight front windows, and as device to hold two cars. 

 

Two duplex apartments? Four one-floor units? If so is it likely that the two window are for one single room? Eight separate apartments? 

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10543119/10/1

[bill937ca]

Apartments are small. I say 2 apartments per floor if not more. I was looking at an apartment offered by Sakura House. It is 18.5 sq. meters.

 

 

At this building units run 10.6 to 21 sq. meter with 7 units per floor. They distinguish this building from a guest house.

https://www.sakura-house.com/building/kagurazaka-yaraicho?forgetall=1

 

Parking is not a given in Japan, especially the larger cities.

Edited April 10, 2021 by bill937ca

[bill937ca]

A similar Sakura House building with  floor plans for all three floors. A small building may have up to 5 units per floor.

 

https://www.sakura-house.com/building/nishiwaseda

[railsquid]

18 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

I started light-proofing this building a long time ago. I'm picking it up again to finish lighting it. Based on knowledge of Japanese housing, how many separate households/apartments are likely to be represented. There's one door, perhaps one staircase (guess from window pattern on the rear, eight front windows, and as device to hold two cars. 

 

Two duplex apartments? Four one-floor units? If so is it likely that the two window are for one single room? Eight separate apartments? 

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10543119/10/1

 

From general experience, that style of building would most likely have two apartments per floor.

[gavino200]

Thanks guys!!

 

[railsquid]

FWIW it puts me in mind of a scaled-down version of this building, which is mostly tiny 1-room "designer" apartments (at the front at least), which are a lot less fancy than they sound, and the building appears to have permanent vacancies (partly due to the location on a major intersection next to a yakiniku restaurant).

Edited April 10, 2021 by railsquid

[gavino200]

I added lights to the contemporary building. It was actually very difficult for me. Perhaps the toughest I've done yet. It comes as a one piece frame with a slide in front. The front piece itself has balcony details and is itself a difficult fit. I tried building the interior rooms onto the front and then sliding everything in, in one piece,  but it was too difficult to get all the clearances right. I had abandon the first attempt and come up with something different. Basically I made the rooms as little pods and added them one by one, through the floor to the completed building. 

 

I wasn't sure this would work, so I didn't want to invest too much time in it. This building really would benefit from some interior details. Colored walls, floors, rudimentary furniture and a few figures. The emptiness is quite noticeable. I made it so that I could disassemble it if I had to, but I took a long time and I don't think I could stand to redo it yet. I do have a second one of these and I'll give that one some interior detail. If the difference is significant I'll hack this one apart and improve it. 

 

 

 

 

First few room pods

 

 

All the pods in place

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by gavino200

[cteno4]

Excellent gavin! Not having all windows lit really looks nice.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Sheffie]

Having just put two of these together, I really appreciate the effort you put in to getting the lighting done. It looks very good. 

[gavino200]

3 minutes ago, Sheffie said:

Having just put two of these together, I really appreciate the effort you put in to getting the lighting done. It looks very good. 

 

Thanks. I had a hard time getting the building front on with all those little balcony bits. I had to hold it for quite a long time as they all wanted to wobble off in different directions. It's a lovely building but a tad complicated.

 

The car lift is especially difficult too, mostly because it's not clear exactly where the sprue ends and the part begins. Very easy to nip off a little protrusion that's needed to slot the piece into the frame. It turned out ok but there was a while where I thought I had FUBARed it. 

 

[katoftw]

Looks great. What is the benefit using these light boxes over just paint some windows black?

[cteno4]

Windows painted black will look odd when it’s not dark. Could do dark boxes to shut off some windows and just light rest with a single light. Lighting boxes let’s you do some at different intensities and warmth.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

9 hours ago, katoftw said:

Looks great. What is the benefit using these light boxes over just paint some windows black?

 

Thanks Kato. It's totally subjective. It really comes down to weather you like or enjoy making building interiors. I like when buildings have little rudimentary scenes inside.  Particularly the nice buildings, and buildings at the edge of the layout. I enjoy miniature working so for me that's a joy and not a chore. 

 

This building has no real interior as I said above. The rooms are empty. It was an experiment with a new method of making an interior. As I didn't know it would work, I didn't put a lot of extra time into it. In the past I have always divided the structure inside with floors and walls. Because of how this building is made I could do that/ failed trying that. 

 

Things that I could do with these interiors include, Different paint for the walls and floors. Painted doors. A picture or two, a figure here and there. I may put in different LEDs and resistors to vary the brightness. Perhaps some blinds or curtains. I'd also add room boxes for the unlit rooms, as you can see inside the unlit rooms some during the day.  I love details like this, but to others they'd be a waste of time. 

 

I've done the single LED/blackened windows method on some of my first Tomytec buildings. I assembled them with superglue and couldn't open them up again later to light, so I had to do the painted windows method. It looks ok. Many Tomytec houses have crosshatched windows and very opaque plastic, so visibility is minimal. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by gavino200

[Martijn Meerts]

Light boxes per room are also great for lighting up only specific rooms. So if you're simulating day/night cycles, you can randomise in which order the lights turn on and off, and using software you could keep track of what day of the week it is and change how everything lights up during weekends for example.

 

Of course, then there's the question of how far do you want to go again. Moving trains, moving busses, simulating people living in buildings, and then actually not seeing people move on the layout.. Your eye might be drawn to the figures because they'll seem out of place in between all the moving bits and the changing light from day to night etc.

 

[railsquid]

47 minutes ago, Martijn Meerts said:

Of course, then there's the question of how far do you want to go again. Moving trains, moving busses, simulating people living in buildings, and then actually not seeing people move on the layout.. Your eye might be drawn to the figures because they'll seem out of place in between all the moving bits and the changing light from day to night etc.

 

 

No problem which can't be solved 😄

 

 

 

[gavino200]

2 hours ago, Martijn Meerts said:

Light boxes per room are also great for lighting up only specific rooms. So if you're simulating day/night cycles, you can randomise in which order the lights turn on and off, and using software you could keep track of what day of the week it is and change how everything lights up during weekends for example.

 

I really do like this idea. I should keep some slack in my wires to allow for that as a future extension!

[cteno4]

This is what I want to use arduino nano’s for. Just a simple program randomly turning lights on and off for random lengths of times (maybe a parameter for each for max min duration). With a nano you can control 14 individual leds at up to about 10ma each (way more than bright enough for individual room lighting). Just provide 5v to drive the nano and the leds from the nano to the building. Nanos are around a buck or two each and pretty small (3/4” x 1/2” x 1 3/4”).
 

They now even have them all on a single chip that can just do like 2, 3, 4 leds each and tiny!

 

This is my first ardunio project I want to dive into when I get the time.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

3 hours ago, railsquid said:

No problem which can't be solved 😄

He’s a witch burn him! That is a wonderful exercise in physical animation! Loved the alternating magnetic fields to make the legs move.
 

jeff

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, cteno4 said:

This is what I want to use arduino nano’s for. Just a simple program randomly turning lights on and off for random lengths of times (maybe a parameter for each for max min duration). With a nano you can control 14 individual leds at up to about 10ma each (way more than bright enough for individual room lighting). Just provide 5v to drive the nano and the leds from the nano to the building. Nanos are around a buck or two each and pretty small (3/4” x 1/2” x 1 3/4”).
 

They now even have them all on a single chip that can just do like 2, 3, 4 leds each and tiny!

 

This is my first ardunio project I want to dive into when I get the time.

 

 

I'd also be interested in that. Do you already know how to write computer code? How hard do you think it would be to start from scratch and learn to program a task like that?

[disturbman]

Probably not very. You might even find the program or a very similar programs code online. You would be building an automatic commutator (14 0 or 1 function with a simple trigger, where the trigger is 14 randomized lengths of time - or something similar).

Were you good in maths? In my experience coding is usually very similar to mathematics in the sense that it is a very logical language which builds upon the imbrication of various functions and "equations". It's mostly a way of thinking logically. If you did complex maths in college, you shouldn't be too lost.

edit: It would also be relatively easy and inexpensive to find somebody to code it for you. It's not a complicated function.

Edited April 19, 2021 by disturbman

[gavino200]

1 minute ago, disturbman said:

Probably not very. You might even find the program or a very similar program code online.

 

Great. That's good to know. I actually have an Arduino starter kit. I meant to do some work on it with my son but he lost interest. I bet if I found a similar program I could work out what the variables are to change. 

 

 

1 minute ago, disturbman said:

Were you good in maths? In my experience coding is usually very similar to mathematics in the sense that it is a very logical language which builds upon the imbrication of various functions and "equations". It's mostly a way of thinking logically. If you did high maths in college, you shouldn't be too lost.

 

Yep. Math was always a given for me. Logic too, when I took it in college. I was worried about the "language" aspect of coding. I'm actually a language junkie but I have zero innate talent for them. 🤪

[disturbman]

It's a "language", quotation marks intended 😉

[gavino200]

Awesome! I still have it. I've only done the first few programs. I think I'll pick it back up and go through it step by step. I've been wanting to do that for ages actually.

 

[disturbman]

Viel Spaß!

[gavino200]

Danke. Es wird krass geil sein! 😜

Edited April 19, 2021 by gavino200