Prefabrication experiments - 67 - Dan Kistler's Omega Structures - kit-of-parts

Prefabricated building systems can streamline construction but have repeatedly provided for a limited scope of work in an overall building strategy. Most commercial kits target structural components or wall systems but are incomplete in terms of integrating other systems and their functions. Insulation, weatherstripping, wiring, plumbing, finishes, ventilation and infrastructure connections are the most complex parts of building and excluding them from most building systems’ manufacturing has impeded the growth for industrialized building systems. On-site building maintains the bulk of the process and of the deployed products in our building culture.

A total system approach implies one company purchasing and controlling all of the buildings elements and their coordination unquestionably increasing the complexity of manufacturing. The factory must be set up to include all trades, materials, pieces and processes, which is the model that is used by most modular volumetric builders and associated with mass production and little flexibility. A factory-made complete kit optimized for variability and all building systems is difficult to line up. Procurement and process costs rarely converge with the necessary demand for implementing such systems. The manufacturer must support inventory and marketing costs, further loading the cost structure as compared to on-site builders. This total systems approach increases factory intricacies but offers increased craftsmanship and quality control that comes with factory production.

Dan Kistler’s Omega Structures incorporated was set up to combine custom home design with a prefabricated kit of parts for a global approach to building systems. Along with the regular components such as posts and beams for structure and materials for cladding panels, Kistlers’ proposal included wet and mechanical cores for baths and kitchens. The frame, panels and cores provided an open modular design system which offered clients unlimited potential in terms of design variants. This component-based system completed, pre-wired, pre-plumbed and pre-finished, walls in the factory. Floor panels were ducted in the factory and their overall factory coordination facilitated site work. The methods for achieving infrastructure connections left on-site, are unclear, as is the case with most kit of parts systems. Still Omega structures exemplified standardizing design and production leveraging this consistency toward unrestrained customization based on a modular grid and simple building block type components.

Omega Structures by Dan Kistler