Prefabrication experiments - 56 - Walter Segal «self-build»

Today’s «do it yourself» and «maker» movement applies tangible control over the exclusive nature of our commodity culture.  The progress in personal manufacturing technologies such as laser cutters, die cutters or 3d printers feeds an empowering sentiment toward crafting everyday objects. These new technologies accompanied by «open» collaboration can transform our current manufactured material culture which impedes any systemic user-product interaction. The «global village construction set» is an existing «open source» approach to building almost anything that offers «makers» or «product hackers» a perceived technical and political autonomy.

In architecture, «do it yourself» or «self-build» has and continues to constitute a marginal segment of production. The «self-build» posture evolved from individuals’ visceral need to fashion shelter from branches, bones and stones. This direct relationship between man and milieu still defines architecture’s greatest specificity: context.

The industrialisation of architecture linked to commodity culture in the 20th century erased a portion of architecture’s specificity as production techniques and post war building programs organised repetitive building patterns.  Prefabrication often bears the blame for the resulting impersonal architecture, however only 5 - 10% of our building stock was factory produced. Promoters, land use planners, and builders are the true stakeholders of a cookie cutter building stock; factory produced components lend themselves to beautiful as well as ugly architecture.

The «self-build» segment in architecture has had its proponents from Charles Eames’ use of off the rack components in Case Study House 8 to Ken Isaac’s living structures. Representative of the self-build lineage in architecture, Swiss Architect Walter Segal conceived a method for wood frame buildings and their procurement. Developed during the 1970’s Segal proposed a lucid modular assembly of skeletal and panel components.

Derived form the traditional English box frame, the wood structure akin to the 2x4 balloon frame was organized on a stringent grid devised to reduce material waste and minimize wet building techniques. The basic concrete pad foundations were the only subcontracted elements of the building process. Related to wattle and daub construction, the traditional straw and mud infill was replaced by coordinated building panels. Segal sought to simplify investment, educate would be builders, and optimize adaptability within a simple skeletal open frame. Complemented by a precise bill of materials and detailed assembly guide, Segal established a «self-build» process that inspired a grass roots movement of collaborative building.

Walter Segal - self-build construction methodology