Under the
direction of George Romney from 1969 to 1973 the department of Housing and Urban
Development in the United States initiated a massive housing program to underwrite
the progress of mass marketable and reproducible strategies for all income levels
and particularly for low-income families. Along with reducing costs, Operation
Breakthrough was to redefine building culture in the United-States and generate
for the building industry what mass production had brought to every other economic
sector: greater productivity. A phase I request for proposals drew 236 entries
from which 22 test sites were chosen for prototype development. Of the 22
prototypes only nine test sites were eventually completed. The nine test sites included
Indianapolis, IN; Kalamazoo, MI; King County, WA; Jersey City, NJ; Macon, GA;
Memphis, TN; Sacramento, CA; Seattle, WA; and St. Louis, MO.
Further to innovation
in building, the program also proposed a fertile ground for cross
industrial/political collaboration. The program’s high expectations encouraged
partnerships and vertically integrated housing schemes from marketing to land
development and mass manufacturing. The cross-pollination was necessary to achieve
housing production in the hundreds of thousands in a relatively short period of
time. The lofty goals unrealized, the program is considered as another
failure in bridging the gap between construction and factory production. Production
never transcended the nine test sites, however the program did demonstrate some
radical building systems.
The Townland,
supported land system, was a notable example of 20th century megastructure
principles applied to low cost housing. Initiated by Boeing and suggested by
Building Systems Development, part of the ongoing research at Berkley, the 58
units were eventually built by a consortium headed by Keene Corporation. The
supported land system stacked concrete slab streetscapes. Each of the stacked
streets supported by a regular grid of columns was subdivided into private
(infill), semi-private and public pedestrian areas (infrastructure). A lightweight
construction system made up of steel channels was assembled on site to allow
for potential unit customization and adaptability over time. The massive
concrete infrastructure included provisions for exterior courtyards and landscaping
on every level. A novel form of vertical intense urbanism, the 58 units
at the Yelsler Atlantic site in Seattle, appear as a small fragment of what the
system intended.
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| Townland rendering and prototype photograph |
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