User:KozoKeikaku/sandbox

Makoto Hattori (structural engineer)

Makoto Hattori (服部 正, Hattori Makoto, August, 7 1926 - January 29, 1983) was a Japanese structural engineer, an engineering researcher and a doctor of engineering. He founded KOZO KEIKAKU ENGINEERING INC. and introduced the computer for the first time in Japan for structural calculation of buildings. He was also active in the establishment, promotion, and dissemination of software that was new to the Japanese society.

Biography

The memorial room dedicated to Makoto Hattori in KOZO KEIKAKU ENGINEERING INC.

Born in Aoyama, Tokyo, in 1926.

After graduating from Yamanashi Industrial High School, he graduated from the Department of Architecture, Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1951. He majored in architectural structure analysis under Professor Tadashi Taniguchi. After graduating from the university, he worked at the Construction Bureau of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation. Then he returned to Tokyo Institute of Technology and became an unpaid assistant. He also worked as a teacher at a night high school while studying.

In 1956, he founded Kozo Keikaku Structural Engineering Firm. The firm was renamed and established as Kozo Keikaku Engineering Inc. in 1959. He and the firm members undertook the structural design of a series of castles for reconstruction such as Kumamoto Castle under the instruction of the Professor Michio Fujioka, a Japanese architectural historian who was responsible for the architectural design and historical authenticity. During the course of the work, he strongly felt the need to utilize computers in order to release the engineers from cumbersome structural calculations and let them concentrate on more valuable and creative activities.

He visited Professor Nathan M. Newmark of the University of Illinois from 1959 to 1960 to study structural engineering using computer, during which he decided to introduce a computer into structural engineering. He and the firm prepared the import permit application, submitted it to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and successfully imported IBM1620 in 1961. He devised a method called "module programming", and started contracting structural analysis by computer. Thus, he and the firm developed a programming language for structural analysis.

In 1966, he worked with Junzo Sakakura and other architects on highway facilities such as highway toll gates.

In 1975, he and Morihisa Fujimoto and Fukuzo Sudo started a council on the use of computers at the Architectural Institute of Japan. The council evolved into a computer utilization committee in 1978.

In addition, since the end of the 1960s, he supported Toshio Ikeda of Fujitsu to develop Japan-made computers from a software perspective. At that time, his firm participated in establishing Japan Minicomputer Co., Ltd., a national policy company for minicomputers, with Morihiko Hiramatsu of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. He launched the production of Data General in Japan with Tadashi Sasaki at Sharp Corporation and Ikuo Takeda at Takeda Riken .

In 1972, he became the chairman of the Japan Software Industry Association and led the development of the software industry, aiming to establish software technology in Japan.

On January 29, 1983, he died at the age of 56 due to a liver disease. His memorial collection was published two years later with more than 100 tributes from domestic and international friends and partners in academia, government, and business industries.