Prefabrication experiments - 52 - The Maisons Phénix (Phénix Houses)

The technological convergence that amplified the strength, manufacturing precision and modern symbolic of steel made this material emblematic of innovative building during the 20^th century. The effective refining of steel from carbon rich pig iron offered additional possibilities for larger spans, improved sections and greater compressive and tensile strength. The continuous production of rolled, pressed, extruded and forged steel components altered building strategies and induced a structure versus skin paradigm in architecture and building.

In architectural theory, steel relates to images of the latter Case Study Houses or the glass x-ray architecture of Mies van der Rohe. Mass housing while less architecturally iconic had its representative, if not always successful, attempts to link steel to mass housing. The American Lustron Home proposed enamelled steel panels on a steel frame and the British Dorlonco steel framed house offered an outlet to Britain’s steel industry during the labour and material shortages of the twentieth century.

The period of conflict spanning almost 50 years between the beginning of the first and the end of the second World Wars, generated a creative knowledge transfer from manufacturing tactics to building culture leveraging technology into post-war growth. The massive rebuilds from the United States to the Soviet Union crossing through France, Britain and other European nations were analogous both in their massive investments and in the housing systems that were initiated. The Phénix Houses, (Maison Phénix) established in 1944 and still producing houses, was France’s solution comparable to the American Lustron and the British Dorlonco. The Phénix steel frame structure included roof trusses and a steel post and girder grid based modular construction system. Phénix’s light skeletal steel structure was promoted as stronger, more resistant and more durable than wood and quicker than masonry.

Influenced by the British steel and iron tradition, the Phénix radically distanced itself from France’s traditional craft based construction as it highlighted steel for structure and concrete for floor slabs. Although many steel systems have contributed to an evolution in building culture, its use in single-family homes remains fairly marginal. Steel’s greater production costs implies repetitive design and component based strategies. While its strength and durability are not contested its high-embodied energy has recently made a case for a greater use of wood in construction.

Maison Phénix structural components