Prefabrication experiments - 40 - TRIGON 65

Geometry is integral to architecture and building. Its application has ranged from symbolic (golden ratio) to technical (modular masonry) to rationalizing construction (geodesic domes) or to organising design (orthogonal grids). Geometry and regulating lines in architectural composition are the order by which architecture is designed, built and studied. Modern architecture exploited repetitive geometry as a way of rationalizing building and planning. The use of grids, shapes, prisms and their assembly generated abstract form as modern architecture’s ornament. 

In contemporary architecture, the use of geometry is amplified by computer aided modelling. Parametric modellers are allowing powerful and variable use of mathematics to create limitless complexity. The accompanying computer aided manufacturing processes are boundless in their ability to give these complex shapes life.  The use of geometry in architecture and certainly in modern and contemporary architecture relate to the need for producing original ideas. The original idea sets architecture apart from building. The discipline’s effort to heuristically challenge itself is one of architecture’s greatest qualities.

In a consumer driven post World War II economy, the need for considerable amounts of housing stimulated numerous experiments. The link between architecture’s search for newness, its relationship with geometry, and its objective to produce better quality housing is illustrated in a triangular based prism experiment by architect Justus Dahinden: TRIGON 65 clustered triangles horizontally and vertically to produce a dynamic constellation of dwelling units.

As in canonical modern architecture the ground plane in trigon 65 is used as a reference to correlate and illustrate the capacity of geometric systems to adapt to varying contexts. In the case of Trigon 65 the ground plane can be a free space or a basis for the units. The architect used this three-sided polygon to demonstrate its dexterity terms of views, light, comfort and constructability. Originally planned as a steel superstructure with Glass reinforced plastic envelope the system also allowed for interchangeable skins on its adaptable post and beam triangular base. The triangle’s three intersecting points supported infrastructure (mechanical conduits or structure), which produced a totally flexible interior space. Proposed as a stackable dwelling component the TRIGON was emblematic of late modern architecture’s obsession with variable aggregation of cellular and modular units.

site plan TRIGON 65

Prefabrication experiments - 39 - Ken Isaac's living structure matrix

«Do it yourself» as a construction methodology and as a tactic for allowing user interaction has been theorized in architecture since the industrial revolution transformed construction. The industrial production of housing altered the relationship between people and their dwellings.  Building, however, still maintains a level of skill and workmanship that can be interpreted by the masses. Undertaking the building of one’s own home is an initiative that is still possible, but is almost unthinkable for any other industrial product.  The factory-made distance between user and device is being challenged by open source methodology and makers that are applying this do it yourself model to industrially produced artefacts in order to give some intellectual ownership back to the individual.

«Architecture without architects» predates man as many cave structures formed by erosion and eventually identified as dwellings had no human authorship.  Since the beginning of time man has assembled, knotted and joined simple materials to identify space and create shelter without any previous instruction other than tradition and necessity. This link to building has maintained the fundamental posture of housing : human and environment interaction.

Seen as a fundamental ingredient for human satisfaction, industrialized building systems producers often offer a potential for consumers to contribute to their dwelling. The customization varies from the basic colour choice to the intricate open systems analogous to the  «Ikea» type systems. The influence of industrialisation, component based building systems, modular coordination, the empowerment of the individual and a counter culture of anti-consumerism was the enigmatic confluence of factors contributing to Ken Isaac’s Living structures.

Based on Isaac’s previous work with industrialized building systems and a long standing interest in the problem of low-cost housing structures, he developed a matrix model design system that integrated diverse scales of spatial organisation from furniture to micro-architecture. Similar to the prevalent modular coordination and systems theory percolating the building industry in the first half of the twentieth century, the matrix was a three-dimensional grid system that defined standardized measurements for basic parts of a grid centred construction system. The structure was more of a conceptual framework for the construction of scalable, variable and adaptable devices for dwelling and working. The basic 24-inch cube founded on stick edges and panel faces could be assembled, stacked and scaled in an infinite number of potential combinations.

From Ken Isaac's building your own living structure

Prefabrication experiments - 38 - Paul Rudolf's mobile home aggregation

In «the prefabricated home» Colin Davies smartly highlighted the longstanding distinctions between the prefabrication of housing and the architectural discipline’s relationship with prefabrication. Although not completely related to the tension between multi-unit and single family housing, this debate certainly contributed to the strained relationship between process and aesthetics that continues to underlie the potential bond between prefabrication and architecture.

From the point of view of the architect, generally, creating variable spaces has conflicted with the sameness provided by industrialized building system. From the point of view of the prefabricator, success rests on the economical value of repetition. Post World-war II capsule architecture was emblematic of the strain between repetition and variability.

The basic unit of measure in this new collective housing utopia was the prefabricated housing pod. The industrialized house became a building block in a diversified vertical organisation that spanned Japanese metabolism and European rationalism. This collective aggregation of units linked the prefabricated home with the problem of social housing. This new modularity synonymous with container, pod or capsule urbanism combined an economical repetitive imperative with the architect’s need for singularity.

Within this culture of the pod, many projects attempted to idealize the vertical aggregation of single-family dwellings. «Putting houses in the sky» was an impulse of many architects’ visions. On a smaller scale, Paul Rudolf's Oriental Masonic Garden prototyped a horizontal development pattern based on the mobile home dimensions as the smallest unit of composition for his variable and dynamic combination of social and private spaces.

Sophisticatedly illustrating the zeitgeist of the post war relationship between architecture and collective housing. The prefab house or the mobile home was stacked in a three dimensional composition of masses and voids. The voids produced varied public and private exterior spaces that most industrialized housing blocks lacked, while the repetitive housing unit was to reduce construction costs. History was not very kind to this type of development and Rudolf’s plan was demolished in the early 80’s. Rudolf’s proposal used a singlewide house module and created a masterful composition of interior and exterior spaces. The project’s failure hypothetically lays in its relation the mobile home park’s negative connotation.

New Haven Masonic Garden development plan

Prefabrication experiments - 37 - Gerald Horn's space frame house

In a series of writings entitled «In Praise of Architecture», Gio Ponti characterized modern architecture's obsession with lightness and transparency as the disappearance of the wall. The relentless research for open and free space as a new architectural value was the foundation of architectural extremes intersecting Mies van der Rohe’s universal space as illustrated in Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Buckminster Fuller's optimized geodesic dome structures.

Quite different in their interpretation of how form, space and structure should relate, the two extremes shared the common concepts of maximum flexibility and industrialized material strategies. The absence of interior columns and the use of an overall structural strategy as a floor or a roof element to span large spaces without structural hindrance became the mark of adaptable architecture.

In the «turning point of building» Konrad Wachsmann argued for the space frame as a coming together of the values of open planning and the material potential of building industrialization. He designed a series of space frames for military airplane hangars. The use of the space frame for housing experiments was marginal and largely limited to high tech British architects. The relatively small scale spans implied by housing make it less cost effective than more conventional approaches.

An ambitious example of the space frame for housing was a non-built project by American architect Gerald Horn. Educated and influenced by the modernist heritage, most notably Craig Ellwood, Horn’s proposal used the space frame as a spatial device for adaptability.  The proposal combined a triangulated space frame, a modular grid based plan and the low-cost wooden two by four.

Horn’s objective was to portray the simple use of materials and assemblies as a low cost alternative to the balloon frame. The roof structure was a triangulated roof truss supported by 4 truss columns. Both the space frame and the columns used a double cord two by four bolted to a steel node that standardized the triangular module.

The free plan also used a modular and moveable ceiling panel to make the variability of space an evolving component of the proposition. The only fixed non-moveable walls were the core elements. The proposal was akin to the canonical glass houses of the modernist movement with the wood space frame being the proposal’s original element.

space frame house from Arts and Architecture november 1965