Prefabrication experiments - 519 - Modlines

 

Modular volumetric construction is characterized as both a quick and efficient way of erecting multiple building types with scalability linked to repeatability. Residential units, hotels, student lodging, tract housing that can use similar designs from one project to the next offer important exponential procedural potentials for applying mass production principles to stacking factory-produced boxes. Chiefly determined by transport criteria which can vary according to cities and countries, factory-made 3d modules can be aligned, aggregated and multiplied as long as loads are rigorously controlled through vertically aligned bearing elements.

 

Aligning sections, corners and modlines is the rudimentary assembly strategy that regulates an efficiently engineered design-to-manufacturing process, as lining up boxes both horizontally and vertically simplifies construction and avoids costly position-based structural modifications, often proposed the name of architectural variability: angles and cantilevers are two design elements that require module specificity and complexify the production process’ necessary replicability from one module to the next. Variations rapidly increase costs and limit the common-sense approach. Organizing repetition in these elements can also help reduce manufacturing-to-onsite stitching headaches. 

 

Projects with a greater module consistency factor will streamline supply chains and production, conceivably leading to reduced costs. Showcasing or camouflaging modlines is therefore the basic design question. Showcasing modlines and boxes often enhances the connotations limiting greater uptake of modular volumetric construction as buildings are qualified as normalized or too standardized lacking architectural personality. Modlines are the vertical and horizontal geometric contours where the boxes meet and are attached; Boxes’ surfaces can create some structural redundancy as they increase material use when compared to conventional onsite systems.

 

Simply stitching these modlines on site creates an architecture that speaks to modular volumetric while other strategies include stitching and covering these lines by completing cladding on site to erase any visual links to the production process. Architectural design whether conventional or modular is a function of revealing or hiding a project’s underlying construction processes, modlines can be used as devices to nuance, illustrate or camouflage these architectonic ideas.

Modlines and modular sequencing