Prefabrication experiments - 128 - material innovations - 9 - Lift-slab construction and school buildings as laboratories

One of the most instructive aspects of modern architecture and post-war modernity in the USA was that building progress became a part of even the simplest mandates. Governments underwrote innovation and research to examine techniques, systems, and recent operational organizations. Housing and educational construction inherited most of the era's consideration as population exploded through the post-war baby boom and immigration increasing the need for both dwellings and schools. Academic Buildings as test sites defined many school construction systems.

The SCSD (School Construction Systems Development), ABS (Academic Building System) or URBS (University Residential Building Systems) were all developed during the 1950’s and 1960’s in the United States.  Most systems were defined by integrating construction with the modern principles of flexibility and modular coordination. Many such buildings were erected and each participated in updating building culture to increase comprehensive efficiency and quality.

A small school addition of four clustered classes around a central service core designed by American architects Caudill, Rowlett, Scott, Neff in 1954 embodies the idea of buildings as test sites. The firm is best known for working from the project location earning it the moniker «squatters». Their design for Bartlesville elementary school was patterned over a prototype the firm had previously published in Life Magazine. The central core, another modern archetype, liberated the adjacent classroom spaces to be planned and altered as required. The simple concept organized by two horizontal planes employed lift slab construction.

Lift slab construction is normally utilized for tall structures as it allows for multiple slabs to be cast, stacked and then lifted into their final endpoint. A bond breaking material separates the cast slabs. In CRSN’s school addition special collars were built into the concrete slabs, which were fastened to steel columns. Lift-slab construction brings the factory to the construction site. Once the slab is cured, hydraulic jacks lift it into place. A variant of this type of construction casts slabs and hinged vertical walls, which are then bolted into place once the slab is lifted. The small school building designed by CRSN and associates was part of the firm’s larger production exploring open flexible space and spatial clusters as a form of campus building.

Small school addition using Lift-slab construction form AF October 1955