Prefabrication experiments - 81 - The core wall by Bensonwood and MIT open-prototype

As societies moved to service commerce after the industrial revolution, buildings became more complex. Building culture evolved into an assembly of disparate manufactured components. In addition users and inhabitants demanded a range of amenities in a climate controlled comfortable environment. This evolution of user needs contributed to an increased number of systems from electrical, to mechanical, to air-conditioning, to heating, and involved their unrelated cablings and distribution. These systems were usually designed, built and commissioned as though their inner workings had no impact on adjacent systems and their relationships evolved into an ever-entangling clutter.

Today’s developing BIM (building information modelling) ideology was founded on the idea that building and coordination of systems had become increasingly complex and somewhat chaotic.  In the history of prefabricated building systems, the service wall, the mechanical core was explored as a way to achieve a clear organisation of systems and their components. The Ingersol Utility Unit proposed by Borg-Warner Corporation of Chicago in 1947 predated today’s building coordination strategies but similarly aimed to simplify on-site construction and infrastructure connections. Arranging systems into well-defined vertical or horizontal paths helps sort out on-site coordination.  Open building theory also supports the orderliness of systems, while considering their distinct life cycles and consequently planning for long-term adaptability and flexibility.

As the construction industry aims for greater productivity, BIM, prefabrication and open-building seem to be attracting both conventional builders and researchers’ interests. Bensonwood homes along with MIT house_n research explored the  corewall as a mechanical hub around which variable building systems could be designed. A similar strategy to that of the motherboard in computer technology, Bensonwood’s hub or corewall is a timber framed service panel, which includes all the house’s complex components and connections. The offsite constructed vertical wall organised for a two-storey building includes access panels to facilitate future retrofitting. The mainstream construction methods employed also avoid the excessively specific proprietary nature of certain mechanical cores that impede future adaptability.  Along with corewall research project Bensonwood home’s approach also includes removable baseboards to simplify cable and electrical distribution, as the baseboard is an easily accessible conduit.  Adapting or adding new technologies becomes fairly simple as all systems for easy replacement or alteration.

The mechanical core or hub