Prefabrication experiments - 183 - Exhibition houses - 04 - UNICOM construction method

A consequence of industrialization, mass production strategies made it possible to gain access to any number of commodities making them cheaper while increasing their quality. Standardization and factory process normalization guided this revolution of artisanal production methods diversifying and increasing consumption. Housing and its construction were also impacted. While only a small fraction of housing was and still is completely mass produced in a factory, housing production became highly homogeneous and mass production methods came out of the factory and were implemented on-site to facilitate every aspect of construction from material procurement, to controlled assembly of premade components and to an overall standardization of building culture.  

Every modern material, aluminum, steel and concrete was shaped from industrialization’s development. Although not a modern material per se, timber’s development nevertheless benefited from the normalization culture. The balloon frame is the case and point. Light timber framing became synonymous with American building culture. It spawned its own version of standards as applied to increasing productivity in construction. Proposed by the National Lumber Manufacturers Association in the early 1960s, the Unicom method of house construction was essentially a strategy for regulating every aspect of a house's timber construction. Unicom determined UNIformity in industrial production of COMponents as a way of increasing efficiency in construction.  

Based on a modular planning grid informed by a 4-inch (100 mm) building module, wall and floor-to-floor heights, overall dimension ratios, stair dimensions, roof slopes and overhangs were pre-established according to timber milling dimensions. Throughout modernity and even today, the Unicom 48-inch (1200 mm) major module remains familiar, dictating stud spacing, floor member spacing and overall dimensions. The standardized method also proposed a standard squared grid paper for designing with production in mind. The grid as a tool for designing is a staple of modern design principles as it links design with production. Exhibit houses built in Wheeling and Des Plaines Illinois illustrated the potential variability in the basic modularity. Standardized windows and doors, kitchen cabinets, and many other Unicom grid regulated pieces and parts ensured that, while not factory produced, the Unicom house was certainly mass- produced.  

UNICOM illustration from Architectural Forum October 1963