Prefabrication experiments - 28 - Space Age living tubes

Architecture is closely related to the collective circumstances that organize its production and shape its ideas. The relationship between medieval Christianity and the grand mason guilds illustrates architecture’s reflection of its era and stakeholders. The military production associated with the beginning of the twentieth century introduced architects to new processes. The Eames' plywood leg splints typify the knowledge transfer from industry and war to design and building. In a larger context, even the most ordinary houses produced post-war contained some form of technology previously developed for military use. RCA for example, noted for television produced communication devices for the military.

Early modernist architects explored new technology to serve the masses but also in service of an aesthetic ideal. The representation of architecture as a product of industrialization, the commodification of architecture and the rise of the relationship between architecture and industrial design evolved within this framework.

The latter half of the twentieth century’s fascination with technology and space travel influenced architectural theory. The capsule/pod as a minimal dwelling unit analogous to a spacecraft summarized design imagination and inspired numerous versions of the living pod and its aggregation. Kisho Kurokawa’s capsule hotel was the flagship project of the era. The minimal dimensions, precise configuration and systemically integrated pods gave architecture a futuristic quality that combined technology and the representation future building.

Guy Dessauges’ cylindrical dwellings are another example of the combination of modernist abstraction and the capsule aesthetic. The tubes borrow their shape and structural system from stressed skin construction associated with the aircraft industry. The cylinders’ envelope made use of a polyurethane core sandwiched between two glass reinforced polyester sheets: a light and well insulated monocoque. The tubes or cylinders were based on two different radii: six and eight meters. The eight-meter version was a two floor and two bedroom configuration. The cylinder’s shell shape was suggested for its compressive strength and inherent stiffness.

The self-contained units were stacked in multiple configurations and offered a glimpse of potential futurist building systems. Although their aggregation was symbolic their internal organisation was traditional and exemplified the designer’s use of traditional architectural elements like light, views and interior/exterior relations : The balcony positioned in the diagonally sliced portion of the tubes was the defining architectural element.

Dwelling Cylinders - extracted from www.worldarchitecture.org