Prefabrication experiments - 102 - Techbuilt open steel frame

The steel frame structure ordered by a rigorous modular grid typifies the efficiency of modern architecture and construction. The steel skeleton identified transparency, the open plan, simple assemblies and repetitive industrialized components as tenets of a new architecture adaptable to various functions, lifestyles and programs. The lightweight framework also contributed to construction’s 20^th century systems theory. Architects and industrialists explored the three dimensional planning grid and its scalability to argue for component based building systems and their overall dimensional coordination. The latter case study houses in California, the work of Jean Prouvé in France, the steel based Dorlonco houses in Great Britain, and George Keck’s house of the future is a small sampling of projects, which idealized and rationalized the steel frame in matters of design, production, assembly, organization and quality control.

Developed by architects Sernebald and Skarin, the Swedish Techbuilt steel frame construction system continued the modern tradition of the grid-based steel skeleton as a substructure for all building systems. The system’s core components were the mass-produced cold-formed 2mm sheet steel posts, joists and connectors. Foundation and services were completed on site. The structural system was bolted to cast-in-place anchors. The system’s intelligibility was geared toward non-skilled labour but with the potential to achieve high quality results. Comprised of a modular grid of posts and beams, the kit of industrialized parts leveraged dimensional repetition toward a variable architectural language. The open web floor joists were bolted to a central connector, which coupled four branching joists. This unique post to multiple beam connection was at once elegant, simple and comprehensible revealing an ideology designed for adaptability, reproduction and personalization.  Simple assembly and disassembly allowed users to add or remove structural bays in order to customize the flexible spatial organisation according to their varying needs.

The modular system included corresponding wall systems connected onto the Meccano style grid elements. The simple structural grid and simple fixing devices regulated the integration of all interior systems and components from doors, to windows, to cabinets and to various built-ins. A modern example of open building systems, Techbuilt portrayed steel’s precision and production quality in matters of flexible design and efficient construction. 

Techbuilt assembly and detail