Prefabrication experiments - 32 - The School Construction Systems Development initiative

The coordinated assembly of systems method of building progressed during the first half of the 20th century and was influenced, in part, by the research of the Albert Bemis Foundation. Bemis examined the idea of modular coordination in the early 2Os. The module as the smallest unit of repetitive measure was used in the composition of buildings since Antiquity. The golden section or the Japanese Ken are examples of a module being used as a proportioning system. Bemis proposed modular thinking as an opportunity to rationalize the meeting of disparate elements in construction. This «modular coordination» was a major step in systems thinking in architecture.

Modular coordination as a tool for rationalisation still contributes to the way building construction is organized. The architect’s role as coordinator of disparate systems is a legacy of the systems thinking imbedded in modular coordination. Each building system can be related to an overall harmonious, conceptual and dimensional integration strategy.

The School construction systems development (SCSD) initiative undertaken in California in the late fifties was an ambitious project that proposed the use of modular coordination to rationalize school construction. Supported and funded by the Ford foundation, the Educational Facilities Laboratories, in reaction to the baby boom’s pressure on housing and education, initiated the SCSD. Architect and professor Ezra Ehrenkrantz was the director of this bold undertaking.

The program’s objective was to propose an open and flexible system for the construction of high quality schools. In response to the idea that better education came from better schools and that schools should adapt to changing needs, the open systems approach of the SCSD would allow for adaptability and resilience. Except for the building envelope every component of the schools strategy, including structure, mechanical systems, lighting and interior partitions, was envisioned as a modularly coordinated kit of parts for easy assembly, disassembly and reconfiguration of parts.

Articulated to a building module of 60 inches or 5’ (1.5m) this grid approach to modularity organized spaces of 10’(3m) 20’(6m) and 30’(9m). Each building system imbedded the necessary intelligence to comply with the whole. Many schools were built in California using this systems approach and many other School districts in Canada and The United States articulated their own systems approach to school building. 

Interior perspective of the SCSD systems