Prefabrication experiments - 445 - Mass Affordability - 06 - Typical Cell

 

Recognized for his contributions to the Russian avant-garde and Suprematist Movement in the early 20th century, El Lissitzky, a polyvalent designer/artist, embodied a total work approach to developing his ideas.  The designer as an actor for social change capable of improving living conditions was at the heart of his artistic and design positions. While his list of built architectural works is short, consisting of only one building (a printing plant), he left a long trail of prospective explorations and their representations. One of his experimental paper projects, at the intersection of housing, architecture, industrial and furniture design, the F-type Residential Cell (1927) projected a reproducible dwelling unit studied to harmonize all dwelling functions in a comprehensively integrated design. 

 

Built-in furniture composed the flat’s architectural arrangement around a split-level section accessible from a lower floor.  The potentially mass-manufactured unit was articulated around a two-flight stairwell dividing day and night spaces. The two-level organization shifted from the ordinary one floor flat showcasing that stacked units in a housing block could include multiple levels with the spatial qualities found in single-family dwellings. The modular multifunctional built-in services would facilitate production and lower construction costs as all cabinetries would be made from the same basic components and catalogued design options. The cell's amenities previewed a future for the house or dwelling as an ergonomic machine capable of responding to modern needs. Storage walls, transformable cabinets, movable partitions, all presented a flexibility and changeability adaptable to varying living patterns. 

 

Foreshadowing modern kitchen design, the F-type was equipped with modular cabinets that could be combined, based on the same dimensionally coordinated cases, to arrange multiple organizations. Looking at housing from the perspective of a cabinet or furniture design scales and applies the production and productive attitudes of component modularity to architecture; Built-ins not as onsite built elements but embedded in typical flats. Borrowing and adopting synergies from industrial design to achieve truly holistic architectural works, that could be repeated en masse to achieve what industrialization has rendered in every other industry apart from architecture: productivity, greater quality and reduced costs. 

Typical cell model photos