Prefabrication experiments - 157 - Open Building - 08 - Infill Reversibility

Time based or season based architecture, which varies according to evolving and changing conditions is generally linked to extreme climates. Window shutters or easily assembled temporary structures such as carports or entry vestibules materialize from assembled components to protect us in winter and eventually come down in summer as effortlessly as they arose. Referenced by Bernard Rudofsky in Architecture without Architects as a vernacular example of this time based adaptability, the lemon growing greenhouses (limonaie) on the shores of Lake Garda in Northern Italy portray a simple reversible and adaptable building strategy. Simple planking covers the pergola’s skeletal roof in winter while glazing is inserted in the spaces between the columns to construct a makeshift green house to protect plants. A building that not only adapts but also facilitates changes can heighten its useful service life.   

Programming this type of adaptability is central to open building theory. Applying this type of adaptability to all building systems and functions requires some form of systemic rationalization as well as complete separation of adjacent units; building systems must me designed and coordinated to minimize restrictions between owners and neighbours without disturbing collective infrastructural integrity. Proponents of open building such as Stephen Kendall have explored the separation of supports (invariable infrastructure) and infill (variable fit-out strategies) since the latter half of the twentieth century. Theory argues for systemic mechanical disentanglement by using components and reversible connections that facilitate change by unscrambling systems differentiating individual and collective possibilities. This individualization reduces the risk associated with residential retrofit lessening waste.  

Professor Kendall has explored the practicality of open building theory. His retrofitting kits, Kitfit prototypes, posit infill as building parts that facilitate change within dwelling systems where partitions and MEP systems are completely inter-coordinated and independently assembled for simplifying retrofitting. The Kitfit prototypes utilize elements such as under-floor and baseboard networks to make rewiring and accessing mechanical elements simpler. Under-floor mechanical matrixes also propose a system grid to allow for a certain amount of change to plumbing and ducting. The main structuring element of the Kitfit prototype is based on component reversibility, like the simple glazing units of the limonaie allowing time sensitive architecture to flourish.

For more examples of Professor Kendall's Kitfit see https://ballstatekitfit.wordpress.com/#jp-carousel-485

Prefabrication experiments - 156 - Open building - 07 - PAC houses

The open plan is an enduring design strategy inherited from modernism and the reforming of building culture from load bearing massive systems to large spanning thin building elements such as steel beams or concrete slabs supported by a rational grid of posts. The reforming of building methods helped introduce and generate variability and flexibility as ideals for adapting spaces at any time without affecting architecture’s structural integrity. The combining of the free plan with another of modernity’s obsessions, the factory made house, yielded countless component based building systems all geared to planning freedom while benefitting from streamlined mass production efficiencies. Exploration of manufactured components was wide-ranging and included small connectors or pieces and complete sub-assemblies for buildings. The utility core and the previous posts’ Misawa wall units represent how the factory could simplify onsite construction and delineate a system’s adaptability and alterability. 

Using pre-packaged architectural pieces was the basis of Eero Saarinen and Oliver Lundquist’s winning proposal for the design for postwar living housing design competition sponsored by Arts and Architecture in the late 1940s. The entry was entitled the PAC (Pre-Assembled Component) houses. Singlewide boxes manufactured in three different configurations were the anchor elements for the customizable building system - the mobile home sized rectangular units contained service spaces, kitchens, baths, integrated plastic furnishings and bedrooms. Mechanical elements such as plumbing, electrical systems and radiant heating were distributed throughout the proposed resin-bonded plywood stressed-skin hulls. The boxes served as limits for defining totally flexible adjacent architectural space. Each box would be manufactured to order and delivered onsite where other spaces would be connected and interconnected by the box units.

Juxtaposed, aligned, placed freely or simply stacked to achieve any modular design, the outlined configurations included BiPAC, TriPAC and row house arrangements. The PACs organized spaces in a simple mass to void relationship. The basic BiPAC positioned two boxes face to face sandwiching an unrestricted area spanned by hinged roof elements. Specifically modern in its relationship to planning, factory production and technology the PACs belong to the research field linking prefabrication to open building strategies, specifically in matters of infrastructure to infill relationship and through the conception of free adaptable space.

PAC proposal submitted to design for postwar living competition

Prefabrication expeirments - 155 - open building - 06 - Misawa Homes wall unit service cores

Japanese prefabricated home building flagship company Misawa Homes recently sold control of their company to Toyota Corporation. In an attempt to streamline their activities and restructure their supply chains ahead of a declining housing market. Misawa and Toyota will share technology and information to face a changing consumer base. A mainstay of the Japan prefab housing industry since postwar industrialisation, Misawa pioneered technologies such as ceramic infill (a type of lightweight concrete mixture using air bubbles to replace aggregate) panels and an easily deployed unfolding capsule unit dwelling. The generally recognized Misawa system used the infill panels over their patented light steel framed modular box-unit. 

Beyond their basic modular system, Misawa’s in house research and development team contributed to a future vision of building which was the emblem of Japanese industrialized building systems in the latter half of the twentieth century. The dwelling capsule as an industrialized product; attached, removed and replaced, capsules posited the future of prefab as integrated components fastened to a plug and play infrastructure. Intended for changing lifestyles, new mobility patterns and the technological potential of integrating systemic adaptability, the company proposed mechanical wall-units as predetermined building subassemblies. Each linear service core was approximately the size of a standard closet and was designed as a device for relating to the adjacent spaces without permanently limiting its position.   Misawa offered six dimensionally coordinated modular service wall-units: a storage wall, a bath and personal hygiene unit, a kitchen and food storage unit, a home entertainment / audio-visual unit, an air-tempering unit and a window wall unit. Individual units could be replaced over time but could also be redistributed within the living space's perimeter.  

Component based construction facilitated retrofitting options as each unit was built from dimensionally coordinated parts. Easily transported and connected, the units were designed for any building system, industrialized or not. Showcasing the link between Japanese metabolist design theories, industrialisation and nascent open building theories, Misawa’s modular wall units proposed a type of off-the shelf customization; individuals could plan, adapt and rearrange their homes using integrated industrialized life-size service core building blocks.

Misawa Capsule Units