For
multiple reasons, sustainability, reduced on-site craftsmanship, and optimizing
resource consumption, prefabricated systems for housing are back in vogue.
For the reasons mentioned above or for more selfish reasons,
namely architects finding it to be a good way to push a modern aesthetic,
it is a great time for prefab.
As
global demand for housing increases, on-site productivity stagnates, capacity
to serve demand decreases, prefab systems’ market share will
increase. This potential for a renaissance in prefab and industrialized building
systems will also be driven by BIM (building information modelling) and lean construction practises.
As
demand increases, it becomes necessary to frame current production techniques within
a historical context to reveal possible strategies that were brought forth in an
era of similar confluences to solve a housing crisis. We will feature
prototypical, experimental or marginal projects that explored prefabrication as
a building method capable of increasing production and quality while offering
reasonable cost quality housing.
Our
first project is the Prefabricated house system developed by the forest product
laboratory in 1937. A collaboration between the United States Department of
Agriculture Forest Service and the University of Wisconsin, it was a stressed
skin panel system. The report authored by R.F. Luxford states that the project
was developed as a solution to high demand for low-cost reasonable quality
housing in the context of increased cost of labor. The report also mentions
that in 1949 about 30 000 prefab houses were produced in the US by 100
manufacturers, 3 000 000 units !
The wood stressed panel system caught our attention as a fairly simple
system based on a «box-girder» structural strategy that optimises strength
while reducing weight and resource use. The second item that merits a second
look is that the system is used for floors as well as wall assemblies, which
reduces the total height of the building and further optimizes resource
consumption reduction. The patents for this system were dedicated to the public. This generosity is a welcomed form of sharing in a world of open source
collaboration. For more information the
report is available on the web at http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplrp/fplrp18.pdf
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| Experimental housing units by the USDA and US Forest Service _ see link |
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