Prefabrication experiments - 418 - M(dwellings) - Driemond Core House

 

Industrialization impacted the design of everything from cars to utensils. Once, artisanally produced objects were democratized by repetitive ingredients, flows, supply chains and mechanized fabrication. These ideas reduced costs per unit while stimulating similar organizing principles in all sectors; products were made up of manufactured subcomponents that played specific roles in their functions. In architecture, rationalization played out using rigorous grids, component cataloguing, assembly details along with zoning of served and service elements. The service core, an integrated unit incorporating wet and technical spaces, is symbolic of these design tenets, material frugality and potentially applying mass production to house construction. 

 

Theorized often but marginally applied as a manufacturing methodology for homes, architects and architectural pedagogy explore the core extensively to clearly define, separate and celebrate the relationship between served and service spaces. Strategically located, the core expresses a specifically modern vision for designing small dwellings related to the principle of a machine for living. Tuning and containing these spaces in a simple shape also contributes to a flexible or adaptable interaction between the anchored core and its surrounding spaces. 

 

Dutch Architects, The Way We Build have masterfully redeployed these modern canons in a 170 square meter detached home in the Dutch town of Driemond. A perfect 10 by 10 meter square, the ground floor plan is arranged by an asymmetrically placed core to achieve a clever interaction between the functional hub and its surrounding spaces. The core, a green one storey box delineates two principal areas and 4 smaller sectors: entry, kitchen workspace, flexible space and living, dining areas. Each relates formally to adjacent exterior spaces. The volume includes kitchen, integrated storage, bathroom, and a staircase to the upper floor. A murphy bed also included in the core transforms the flexible sector into a guest bedroom. A large gliding partition slides to separate the living area and fashion a guest bedroom around the deployed bed. Another smaller sliding door integrated in the core seals this flexible bedroom space. This small house is an artful presentation of the core’s potential to rationalize domestic amenities.  

The Driemond House by architects, The Way We Build

Prefabrication experiments - 417b - S(dwellings) - The Umbrella House

Small generalizable dwellings like the Levittown bungalow made famous in the United States, make creative use of simple organizations that serve inhabitants’ most basic needs in an affordable and productive fashion. Small houses respond to vital needs that have been interpreted since ancient times to include four basic components: protective roof, dry earthworks, clear demarcation of space, and a distinction between common and private areas for cooking, socializing, and sleeping. No architectural prototypes celebrate these inspiring principles of dwelling construction quite like Japanese traditional dwellings with their deep overhangs, vented crawlspaces, and modular structural grids based on centuries of links to territory, climate and reoccurring seismic activity. 

 

Japanese modularity and a strong bond to locus inspired modern architects to reproduce these values in their prospective proposals for original housing patterns. Frank Lloyd Wright and Antonin Raymond are just two iconic architects whose designs include core Japanese analyses to generate creative arrangements. Specific to both figures, the  horizontal link to place was deployed by a strict planning grid and based on the tatami proportions in the case of many of Antonin Raymond’s designs.

 

A beautiful manifesto of traditional dwelling tenets was disassembled, transported and set on Vitra’s Museum campus in Weil am Rhein in Germany to save the architectural prototype from demolition (https://www.vitra.com/en-gb/about-vitra/campus/vitra-design-museum). The Umbrella House designed by architect Kazuo Shinohara in 1960, was articulated to field studies of domestic architecture examining and extracting configurations from urban, village and countryside case studies. 

 

Transported from Japan in an ISO shipping container as a kit-of-parts, the streamlined disassembly and reassembly by a few master carpenters is a testament to the traditional crafting infused in this 1961 design and elucidates the potential for Japanese domestic practices to be as effective today.  The total 10m x 10m footprint is composed by radiating rafters from the center of the 7.5m x 7.5m square plan. A master class of organization, the plan is divided into two equal 3,75m x 7,5 m rectangles, one for cooking and eating and the other includes an elevated tatami room for sleeping and dressing.   

Umbrella House; Japanese small dwelling patterns

Prefabrication experiments - 417 - S;M;L;XL(dwellings) - The Prefab Villa

 

Standing, sprawling, expansive, and anchored to a picturesque setting, the villa connotes luxurious detached dwellings. In the countryside and usually articulated to its landscape by some type of monumental relationship, the villa is associated with architectural opulence. Axiality, symmetry and summits were used in classic architecture, sometimes referred to as Palladian architecture, to showcase this dwelling typology’s potency by dominating its environment. Modern architects implemented infinite horizontal free space to achieve a similar goal. Large panes of glass, continuous open spaces, and generous roof overhangs came to represent the modern villa.

 

The Case Study houses explored in California, Le Corbusier's iconic villas, and even Mies van der Rohe's Tugendhat villa inspired these novel tectonics and fabrication methods; balloon frames, steel skeletons or concrete flat slab construction were applied as efficiently produced systems that could bridge the gap between standardization and customization. Still, industrialization was only marginally harnessed by these affluent properties as their scope, size and highly customized nature had little to do with prefab approaches, which usually denoted affordability. Current interest in sustainable building, modern architecture's aesthetics along with mainstream media’s distribution of dreamy architecturally defined villas with industrialized lines has driven some manufacturers to the niche villa market: Turkel Design is a Boston based firm that conceives and manages the production and delivery of customized site-specific home kits. This is not a new idea; Carl Koch’s Techbuilt brand, also based in Massachusetts, idealized an analogous kit format for his clients in the 1950s and 1960s. 

 

Turkel has taken Koch’s business model to next level by offering superbly designed prefab. Their process has underlined the potential of contemporary design and manufacturing tools to streamline the house procurement process. Using the same materials, methods and third-party factories from project to project, the process is highly normalized without standardizing design. This design – fabrication - construction integration harmonizes architects and builders by placing factory optimization between the two fields. Each villa is a mass-customized production. Applying the same design attitude, components, teams, and systems thinking across multiple projects not only leads to a coherent architectural language for the Turkel villas but also to a highly perfectible process.

see Turkeldesign.com (portfolio)

Prefabrication experiments - 416 - S(dwellings) - The Patio / Courtyard House

 

The characteristic difficulty with tying standardized planning principles with architecture’s site specificness has long been a challenge for prefabrication and building industrialization. Vernacular, classic and modern homes have this required connection to locus in common. Climate, topography, and traditions inform regional particularities that disavow normalized designs or so it would seem. Notwithstanding this required singularity, even the most regionally specific architectural canons carry some generalizable principles; from modularity in traditional Japanese building, to stacking log joinery in Norwegian vernacular or even curved trunk blades in medieval English Cruck frames (early A-frames) were all democratized in their time and place.

 

An almost universal generic archetype used to define a house's attachment to place is the central patio. Atriums, positioned to concentrate and relate surrounding spaces, establish a focal void which opposes the way small tract bungalows are related to site. The patio house creates a specific focal point, while the typical bungalow is the center point; the two arrangements express very distinct ways of relating to positive and negative space generated by their geometries.  

 

The twentieth century Patio House was imagined by many architects as a counterproposal to the standard house to garden configuration for creating specific from generic lightweight timber framing to maximize interior and exterior connectivity. Alvar Aalto’s experimental summer house in Säynätsalo, Finland exemplifies these modern themes. The design is a modular grid planning masterpiece and deploys geometric proportions to define an anchored courtyard. 

 

Using the patio house as a central prefab idea, differentiating designs according to dynamic spatial arrangements, Australian House producer Fabprefab with CHROFI architects assembled their version of a courtyard house. Two principal volumes are placed in enfilade and contain living spaces, a reading room and a covered exterior space. A third, shorter manufactured box, is set partially against the first two generating a void defined by the flanking living box. The small house is a dynamic organization of day and night spaces clearly separated by two modlines attached by a bridging segment.  Enclosed by full height glass walls that reveal a spatial promenade between both patios, the exterior spaces can anchor this simple generalizable plan to any expansive site.

CHROFI architects and FABPREFAB's courtyard house

Prefabrication experiments - 415 - S(dwellings) - The Prefab Bungalow

The automobile transformed territorial planning; leaving the city for its surrounding suburbs or countryside fostered demand for quickly built homes and subsequently for leisure dwellings. A by-product of Henry Ford’s assembly-line principles applied to housing, the small serially produced bungalow on site or in a factory suburbanized America and converted house building into a promoter-based commercial transaction. Tracts of flattened sites were seeded with small reproducible fully-furnished homes. The bungalow, a one floor dwelling designed for the nuclear family is the symbol and central focus of formidable off-site built failures (Lustron) and prolific onsite built successes (Levittowns). The American dream of the utilitarian affordable single-family dwelling produced in an industrialized process was perfected in North America and idealized in globalized literature.

 

German author Walter Meyer Bohe’s  Prefabricated Houses studied the bungalow, outlined its concepts and design parameters for the production of what was put forth as a flexible type for the masses. A published case-study defines a straightforward building strategy not linked it to any specific construction system, but to strict systemic dimensional coordination; generating a harmonized material supply chain, reduced waste and iterative optimizations - all serial production ideals.

 

The manufacturing process could feasibly be mechanized but could also allow site customization by sharing the same spatial elements and parts; An alphabet of components adapted to multiple schemes or arrangements.  Houses respecting the strict modular framework could be scaled and expanded over time using basic panels catalogued with design features including elements like doors, small windows, or even large curtain walls. Today’s term used to describe this type of customizable pattern language would be:  a platform approach to design and construction.  The representation manifests a no-frills structure deploying normalized planning principles articulated to a 125mm grid and a night-day segregation elegantly positioning all private spaces around a collective living space extended by an exterior garden. The central bearing wall reduces spans to a manageable 3,75 meters and even demonstrates the ability to assemble this clear-cut plan from two factory-built boxes. The 94 square meter scheme is a superb illustration of a small modern dwelling.    

Bungalow from Walter Myer-Bohe's Prefabricated Houses (1959)

 

Prefabrication experiments - 414 - XS(dwellings) - Stardust Container Home

 

XS houses are normally associated with mobility or at least transportability.  They can be fabricated from lightweight materials to be easily lifted, carried or built like trailers on a mobile chassis ready to be towed to any site. Their flexibility and diminutive size do not impede their more permanent anchorage with regards to views or according to site conditions; even if the structure you are anchoring was originally sized for movement. These tiny houses can also be made from repurposed volumes meant for other applications.

 

Adapted shipping containers are a case in point and have come to represent a type of subculture dwelling type, recycling the steel boxes as tiny or even large dwellings that stack multiple volumes. Eight feet wide by a standardized length of ten, twenty or forty feet, the conversion from shipping volume into domestic space requires organizations that are both savvy and rational.  ISO boxes can be fitted-out and converted-to-order with amenities, insulation, weatherproofing and permanently fixed to a site-built foundation. 

 

Dream Tiny Living, brandishes many container homes; One specific model, The Stardust, stacks a 20’ unit over a 40’ standard shipping container to outline two exterior living spaces: a deck at the front end of the box and a roof terrace above creating a luxurious composition of spaces. As an ADU or as a permanent micro-dwelling, the space gains a full 4’ of exterior living space when the front doors are open. The interior includes, built-in storage units and a small kitchenette aligned with a dining space. A shower and bath space complete the basic enfilade of functions through the 40’ extrusion. A steel staircase adjacent to the container leads up to a second unit and a large roof terrace suited with fit garden furniture to create a roof deck with a Palladian villa vibe floating above the surrounding landscape. 

 

Exposed steel corner posts and fork-lifting apertures ensure the shipping container’s previous function is not forgotten. On the inside, however, the shiplap white timber cladding, elegant finishes, large openings and sliding barn door portray an aesthetic which would be at home in any contemporary setting.   

Extra-large views in an extra-small frame

Prefabrication experiments - 413 - XS(dwellings) - Nolla: a zero emissions A-frame

Extra-small permanent dwellings come in many shapes and can often be characterized by their relationship with extraordinary sites. Sheds, cabins, huts are rarely bigger than one room. What they lack in size, they certainly make up for in their relationship to a type of reverie and nostalgia for living modestly anchored to the earth by an extraordinary view, a rocky outcrop, or the silence of wooded homestead. 

 

Originally published in 1943 by Conrad E. Meineke, Your Cabin in the Woods depicted a myriad of small shelters along with their potential benefits for communing with nature, self-building and creating an individual haven. Pages were illustrated with plans and detailed instructions for straightforward builds using the most basic architectural and structural organizations. 

 

The «Squatter» built in one day by two men used the iconic A-frame structure. The 150 square foot tiny home highlights the triangular structure’s enduring attractiveness : uniting roof and walls, inherently stable, undemanding assemblies and off the shelf timber components easy to source in any context. From early cruck frames deploying divided curved tree trunks to fashion a compressive arch structure, to assembling dimensional timber stock or leaning two prefabricated oblique panels together in equilibrium, the A-frame is potentially the oldest representation of prefabrication as its elements were prepared in advance of their use. 

 

Extra small, the A-frame has certainly had one of the largest symbolic influences on leisure dwelling construction and is still relevant. The Nolla cabin, built in Finland by designer Robin Falck, is a contemporary expression of the Squatter type presented by Meineke over 80 years ago, showcasing its productive legacy. Nolla means zero in Finnish. The one-room shelter reimagines the A-frame as a modern off-grid - low emissions micro-dwelling. Fashioned entirely of pine and plywood, rafters are fixed to the bottom chord of the composing triangle truss with reinforcing plywood gusset plates. Extending oblique members are adjusted to and lift the cabin over any setting. All components can be precut, flatpacked and delivered to any site. No specialized details and the didactic nature of the triangle truss make it a breeze to build and to comprehend. 

Nolla, a reconceptualized A-frame for contemporary leisure

Prefabrication experiments - 412 - XS (dwellings) - Hitching a home

The ability to carry a home to any setting according to basic needs, employment opportunities, economic challenges, for leisure or simply to respond to a transient lifestyle is an enduring vernacular in architecture. Rational dimensions and ease of assembly/disassembly matters when it comes to moveable dwellings. Freedom will always be dependent on lugging capacity, trail accessibility and material constraints. 

 

The trailer home is the icon of movability and minimal dwelling aspirations. As early twentieth century automobile manufacturing improved, it inspired many to use this newfound affordable mobility to envision hitching houses to Henry Ford’s assembly line principles. 

 

Pioneer Arthur Sherman first built a box timber-frame trailer for a family camping trip in the early 1930s. The 3-meter long  x 1.8-meter wide no frills volume included sleeping bunks, a coal burning stove and a rear trap door to reveal an exterior kitchen increasing livability. Sherman’s trailers became so popular that the simple camping unit became the sustaining product of a prosperous 3-million-dollar company by 1936 selling 6000 box trailers. The mobile home is still one of the most successful products of industrialized housing. Manufacturing on a portable foundation, a steel skeleton, is certainly an intelligent way of travelling but is also a manufacturing «coup de génie» as the product moves around the workshop on a stable, working surface. Whether produced on a linear line or in a cellular production process, once finished, the house is simply hitched and carried away.   

 

Both conventional factory-built mobile homes and homemade tiny house trailers can afford luxuries found in permanent housing including push-out spaces, fully functional kitchens and even second story spaces. Some contemporary models are veritable rolling villas that have little to do with the liberties associated with XS dwellings.

 

From Sherman’s modest solution for leisure to subsequent 10’ wide and 12’ wide evolutions proposed by another pioneer Elmer Frey, the mobile home is a testament to the American speculator exploring opportunities and valuing housing as non-site-specific commodity; a conceptualization that has led to negative subtexts at odds with a longstanding architectural position of dwellings’ necessary anchorage to the spirit of a place. 

The Rollohome movable dwelling as an example of XS-S dwellings

Prefabrication experiments - 411 - XS (dwellings) - Sanyo Living Pod

 

Extra-small housing encompasses any dwelling that is small enough to be labelled as a tiny house or a micro dwelling, usually between 10 to 40 m², roughly the size of one or two rooms. XS housing archetypes can be set up as single family or multifamily dwellings when aggregated as kernels in patterns highlighted by Japanese Metabolist architecture. Geared for mobility, they abrogate permanent anchoring associated with conventional housing construction. Micro-dwellings can be both self-propelled and hitched. Today’s comprehensively commodified culture associated with intelligent connected objects has renewed interest for integrated capsule dwellings ready for purchase and delivery. 

 

Notwithstanding current interest in tiny homes, Capsules are a product of modernist design principles. The machine for living evolved into the optimistic and space age architectural imagery diffused post-World War 2. Not exclusive to Japan's design culture, capsules were however propagandized during the Expo70 international World Fair presented in Osaka, Japan under the planning authority of Metabolist architect Kenzō Tange.  The exhibit theme «Progress and Harmony of Mankind» underlined the high-tech culture fostered through Japan's major support of automation and manufacturing methodologies applied to housing production. Japan’s prefab housing industry progressed and exalted prefab capsules as a serialized product incorporating technological advancements. 

 

Case in Point, Sanyo, an electronics producer showcased their living pod during Expo70. The micro-unit suggested a future of technological integration in every part of our homes with electronic baths, television sets and mobile communications. The Sanyo Living Capsule, a spherical individually sized biosphere, also labelled as the Health Capsule, synthesized every living function in one extra-small ergonomic form. Perfected living conditions, light, atmosphere, heat, and ventilation were automatically controlled and would remain at monitored levels. Mass-manufacturable, they could be adapted for any collective support structure. 

 

The recent demolition of the Nagakin Capsule Tower stipulated a pragmatic end to the capsule culture associated with 1970s Japan. Still, the XS housing pod continues to be linked to prefabrication. Its diminutive size agues for and makes it feasible to control and finish work in a factory setting leaving minimal disturbance and simplified infrastructure connections to the job site. 

Sanyo Living Pod placed within a housing typological matrix

Prefabrication experiments - 410 - Modern Modular : Housing and Offsite Construction 4.0

The association of housing supply with offsite construction has been described as a union of reason. Notwithstanding prefab's potential considering the high levels of repeatability, the industry is still characterized by one-off projects - prototypes - even though details, components, arrangements, and materials affirm consistency. For varied scopes and scales the argument in favour of offsite is increased affordability, sustainability, productivity, and quality through systematized processes. Current design digitalization supplemented by democratized digital fabrication technologies suggest possibilities for outlining parametric cataloguing and modelling of housing systems outlined by reproducible configurations. 

 

Resolution 4 Architecture's «modern modular» approach examines these potential links between architectural housing arrangements and modular volumetric building dimensional criteria. While their mass-customizable schemes expose the idealized perfect storm driving current offsite constructions uptake, prefabrication and housing have been similarly federated before. From a precisely modern perspective, diverse housing typologies were devised to organize prefabrication's theories to address past housing crises. The mobile home, Levittown bungalows, Metabolist capsules and most notably the slab panel block, pointed to mass-manufacturing to simplify supply of affordable dwellings. These proposals were developed for two urban forms: suburbanization valued the bungalow's seriality and ambitious postwar urban renewal guided the development of the panelized block. The entire spectrum between individual and collective was explored by architects or inventors to reform housing from vernacular construction to standardized processes citing the advantages industrialization brought to other consumer goods. 

 

Resolution 4 Architecture's exploration renews these patterns by providing a glimpse into how contemporary digitalization can inform a conceptual framework for housing. The catalogue of modules contains basic «manufacturable» fragments for users to customize their own home as one would aggregate building blocks, composing a home from predetermined integrated chunks. As manufacturing in architecture can be linked to both Ford's assembly line (component catalogues) and Toyota's production system (lean construction), the current era of smart technologies is propelling a new generation of prefab ideas. Open-source software development theories have already spawned prototypes like the Wikihouse and other digitally conceived catalogues that pursue the enduring objective of reasoning architecture through generative tessellations.

Typological matrix by Resolution 4 Architecture https://www.re4a.com/the-modern-modular