Dimensional coordination or the use of an incremental grid informed by construction material manufacturing is the root of modernist planning. Grids were established for optimal structural spans employing standard units to insure material coherence. This dimensional and manufacturing standardisation applied to building components and materials (macro and micro) potentially reduces resource waste and systematizes construction. Modularity and interrelating parts and pieces in variable and reversible organisations habitually define open Industrialized building systems. Advances in Steel production and the subsequent cataloguing and normalization of both components and connections helped define steel as the material of choice for rapidly erected adaptable structures. Paul Depondt’s standardized steel and aluminum modular kit-of-parts used in a 400-unit prototype in Chicago in 1971 represents this type of grid-based construction.
An associate of Lods, Depondt and Beauclair, a French firm recognized for their post-war industrialized housing projects, Paul Depondt worked through the research group Groupement d’études pour une architecture industrialisé, for the advancement of industrialization in the construction industry. The firm designed over 20 000 housing units in France, mostly in concrete. Depondt first became interested in steel systems during his studies at IIT under Mies van der Rohe. He later returned to Chicago in the late 1960s propelled by his success in France, to join a group of firms and builders known as the consortium for the Component Building System.
The Depondt system provided and stacked flatpacked floor modules (35x20 feet) onto steel posts to create a type of scaffold platform structure. Workers could then work safely on the platforms. Walls were erected by simply attaching aluminum wall panels into guides built-into the floor units. According to Depondt two men could install wall panels in five minutes. The exterior wall panels were a double construction enclosing an interior void that could be used to direct wires or service networks, which could be redirected though the open web floor plates. This type of simple steel structure is comparable to many steel skeleton structures that are erected today displaying the advantages of simplicity and quick assembly. Used mostly for school buildings the Depondt system showcased the rigorous use of a dimensionally coordinated modular grid.
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| From Architectural Forum volume 35- 1971 |
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