Prefabrication experiments - 61 - Herbert Yates' Plydom or plydome

The conceptualization of architectural form through a seamless link with architectural production was one of modern architecture’s principles. Manufacturing processes activated geometric based compositions, which leveraged components and repetition to challenge past models. New industrial methods supported a factory-produced architecture and specifically introduced the industrial design of building systems as a part of architectural practise. The relationship between the architect and the factory converged and supported this industrialized building culture.

Industrial development and inventive praxes instituted design, manufacturing and building unity. Assembly, folding, bending, machining, cast-moulding and bonding renewed design methods and architectural exploration.   Folding, in particular, related design to making or manufacturing and is still part of architectural pedagogy and exploration. Traced to traditional Japanese origami, paper folding elucidates the unified aesthetic of space, form and structure. The transformation of a two-dimensional plane into a shelter or a covering by an educated, geometric and rigorous production process correlates structure and architecture. From Eugène Feyssinet’s hangar at Orly, to Walter Netsh’s Airforce Academy Chapel at Colorado Springs, folded plate structures presented shape and dihedral angles as contributors to matter’s inert strength. 

The accordion linear fold was the basis for folded plate structures’ performance. In addition to the folded plates in reinforced and prestressed concrete, folding evoked paper as a structural material in architecture. Scaling the process from study models to prototype details and to an actual size was the basis for the 1966 migrant housing experiment by Herbert Yates for the International Structures corporation: the polydom (or polydome) houses. Neither polygon, nor dome, the folded plate barrel arch employed a three-hinged frame fold to create an easily foldable and transportable space. The interior ceiling plane revealed a geometric character that elevates structure to architecture.

Several hundred polydom structures were set up for temporary agricultural workers in California in the 1960s. Two folded vertical plane components sealed the vault on either end and a canvas canopy completed the shelter, which was anchored to a chipboard stressed-skin floor plane. Cardboard-based polyurethane core panels were polyethylene coated and articulated by impressing and creasing each fold line. The schematic proposal included and central furniture core for storage and sleeping. The shelter could be transported as a flat pack of thin pleated panels and easily deployed and anchored to its prefabricated base. 

Plydom(e) schematics and photos 

   

Prefabrication experiments - 60 - Ramot Housing Complex by Zvi Hecker

In the latter half of the 20^th century architectural practise continued a steady shift from craft to representation. Modernism’s social principles were challenged and the architectural project became about iconography. The post-modern need for symbolic differentiation and legibility signalled an end to the confluent relationship between housing, industry and architecture, which underpinned avant-garde modernity. However, a defiant industrial – based architecture fused representation and geometric combinations in a wide range of materials toward abstract, formal and typological innovation. From bubbles to capsules, units were superimposed, juxtaposed and arranged in variable living structures aiming to completely detach from traditional imagery. 

The period following World War II saw a baby boom and a building boom promoted to revive stagnant military-based economies. The relationship between mass-housing and architecture was articulated to a plug and play variable social infrastructure containing individualized living units. This Industrialization suggested a lack of site specificity. The capsule building related to a futuristic aesthetic and a colonizing architecture that to some extent ignored its setting.

A particularly fascinating exploration that attempted to relate formal composition and place was built in Jerusalem by Polish born architect Zvi Hecker in the 1970’s: a 720-unit aggregation of dodecahedrons. In reaction to the capsule aesthetic and the lack of formal innovation in housing, Hecker proposed a rigorous and modular assembly of 12-faced polyhedra. He researched, explored and coined the term «polyhedric» architecture. His objective was formal innovation showcasing architecture’s potential for more than traditional cubic shapes. Controlled by a post six-day war(1967) housing program, the new Israel territory demanded a formal challenge to traditional forms. The Ramat Polin housing project was articulated to this demand for innovation.

Inspired by the recognizable stone unit shapes in a traditional aggregated stone opus, the overall composition speaks to traditional dry-stone walling.  Each dodecahedron unit was put together with prefabricated reinforced concrete panels. As in a polyhedron folded paper or cardboard model, edges were simply joined together to identify each shape and its relationship to the whole volumetric massing. Hecker's aggregation of polyhedra has been linked to a pleasing beehive aesthetic but the liberties taken by the project's inhabitants reveal its lack of success or repeatability as a housing concept.

From the Cube and the Dodecahedron in My Polyhedric Architecture

Prefabrication experiments - 59 - Modern Structures Inc's circular house kits

For the most part in the history of architecture, dwellings arranged in circular shapes were related to prehistoric, vernacular or mobile shelters: the dry assembled stone «trulli» in Italy, the portable yurt in Central Asia or the snow-packed igloo for harsh Arctic Winters. These traditional forms of housing were shaped by contrasting lifestyles and geographic settings, however their circular shapes demonstrated a parallel focal distinctiveness and an individualized arrangement for land sharing. Beyond these traditional dwellings, the circle’s use in architecture was typically associated with a galactic or sacred relationship between the earth and the heavens. Seamless, complete and infinite, the circle is emblematic of hearth, harmony and placemaking. 

During architecture’s modern and industrial era, architects and manufacturers explored new techniques, new shapes and their potential to revisit and update housing archetypes. The circle related to ancient forms but also severed ties to established classical tradition. Wallace Neff’s bubbles, Buckminster Fuller’s dymaxion, May von Langenau’s miesian round glass house and George Fred Keck’s house of tomorrow for the 1933 international fair held in Chicago are a few experiments that explored the cylinder as a basic shape for dwelling. A combination of pure abstract form, limitless space, horizontal interior and exterior continuity, and simple building systems made these projects exemplary solutions to the mass production model of the early and post-war 20th century. 

Along with the aforementioned examples, Modern Structures Inc’s take on the roundhouse typified the relationship between prefabrication, architecture and the cylindrical shaped building. The «roundhouse» kit offered a modern lifestyle within an atypical shape. The firm's principal partner Leon Meyer appears to have been the roundhouse designer. The circular houses were a small segment of a larger progressive architecture movement synonymous with post-war California. 

The simple wood frame kit of post, beam and panel infill was fundamentally a balloon frame structure organized to emanate from the center to a visually unbounded exterior wall. The pre-cut lumber kit reduced site work and site disturbance. The predominantly transparent circular enclosure plane employed acrylic panels for continuous interior / exterior space while providing a greater insulating factor than single pane glass. Ordered around a central core, the spatial quadrants radiated toward a continuous space articulated to California’s post-war spirit. 

Round House Kit - reference unknown