As their colonies in America developed,
France and England looked to these resource rich settlements as pacific and undemanding
alternatives to importing wood from northern Europe. The eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries intensified the harvesting of old growth forests and the operation of
lumber mills as territorial development moved west. Advances in railroad
transport and the industrialisation of saw mills added to the efficiency with
which the industry progressed. The manufactured precise pieces of lumber standardized
export ready components for building. The
American balloon frame generated form this industrialization of the forest
industry renewed the «do it yourself» building culture in America.
The industrialization of lumber
milling strengthened the prefabricated building culture throughout the
industrialized world. From the American Sears Roebuck house to the German
Christof and Unmack system, the wooden kit of parts produced in a mill became representative
of the manufactured house industry. Big name companies like Alladin, Liberty
and the German Huf Haus produced pre-cut intelligible kits of house elements
optimally packaged and delivered wherever the client wanted. Later, to increase
efficiency, prefab housing producers turned to factory produced modular boxes
and the kit of pre-cut parts became a peripheral strategy for prefabrication.
The Liberty Ready-Cut House typified
the industrially produced component based kit and was part of the approximately
500 000 units produced in the United States during the pre and post war housing
crisis. The Liberty «kit» included all the required lumber for structure,
siding, mouldings and finishes. The bundled parts included nails, screws,
windows, doors, siding and easy to follow instructions for the assembly of a
quality home. The Liberty catalogue of multiple designs «architecturally
designed for simple living» were all based on a simple 2 by 4 frame structure
for walls and short spans of 2 by floor joists and roof rafters. The simple to
build 2 by 4 frame and the steel nail were the core components of an infinite
architectural variability. Windows were also made to standard sizes and to fit
multiple plans. Doors, siding and built-in furniture were similarly adapted to
fit all the designs. The pattern book of house types demonstrated the company’s
view of personalization and included an order form for a complete house kit
delivered and identified to optimize on-site assembly with or without a hired
builder.
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| Packaged house from Aladdin Ready-Cut Homes (similar company to Liberty) |
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