Prefabrication experiments - 166 - Building Kits - 07 - Intergrid Building System

Industrial designed toy construction sets such as the Meccano or the Erector set, communicate DIY kit building. In construction, sets analogous to Meccano use precisely shaped pieces produced in timber, steel or even aluminum to simplify the building process. Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace (1851) is the archetype of industrially produced kits for architecture. Prefabricated, pre-cut, connectable and coordinated parts are developed for post and beam, platform frames, box frames or in industry for racking, scaffolding, temporary shelters, and portable buildings. The compatible mass-produced parts inform a myriad of potential design variants. 

Although not habitually related to kit architecture, reinforced precast and prestressed concrete systems have also been developed to explore quick assembly.  The metabolist mega-structure used as a receptacle for personalized dwelling units elucidated the kit strategy applied to large scale architecture and even to city planning. Other simplified versions such as the Intergrid Building System (Britain 1960s) arose addressing the objective of building robust, fire resistant structures while reducing the site intensive work normally associated with onsite cast concrete. These systems responded to the overwhelming need for post-war rebuilding in many industrialized nations. The Intergrid system is basically a platform post and beam skeletal system with floor structures composed of precast and prestressed girders. 

The system uses four categories of beams, which are fashioned and regulated by their hierarchy within the system, from floor girders, to connecting tie beams and to principle supporting beams. The column and beam connections are pin doweled and grouted in place, creating a rigid assembly.  The arrangement is organized by a 1000 mm planning grid and a 250 mm vertical module. The prestressed beams could achieve spans from 12 to 18 m according to required floor loads. Prestressed concrete uses steel tended cables before or after casting to reduce component weight while increasing tensile strength, addressing two of concrete’s weaknesses. The girders’ open web facilitate service distribution by creating a two directional void network. A giant concrete meccano set, the modular organisation was used for many building typologies from schools to offices. The large spanning open plan allows for the building to easily adapt and evolve according to users’ changing needs.

Intergrid assembly diagrams

Prefabrication experiments - 165 - Building Kits - 06 - Lightweight tensile structures

The architectural kit of parts draws attention to one of twentieth century architecture’s most famous questions: How much does your building weigh? Buckminster Fuller and his acolytes obsessed over this question conceiving both building systems and components with the sole purpose of reducing the amount of material used to optimally cover architectural space. Geodesics and tensegrity elucidated this objective isolating the productive elements of a structural system and efficiently demonstrating a new architectural language from basic parts through geometry and physics. Cables and struts effectively assembled to demonstrate the inseparable functions of tension and compression in every structural system was the epitome of weight reduction.

The purpose of lightweight structures as developed throughout history was to transport architecture and shelter to any context. From the Yurt as the archetype of mobility to today’s deployable tents, the compressive frame held together by a tensile structure obsessed another of twentieth century’s structural masters, Frei Otto. Otto employed experimental modelling techniques. Empirically conceived soap film models and large scale weighted models allowed Otto to conceive and create his free-formed architecture in a time before computer modelling. While the German Pavilion he designed for Expo67, the Man and his world exhibiton in Montreal, is certainly his most famous work, the dance pavilion at Cologne (1957), is an emblem of his quest for simplicity in spanning fabric structures.

Not designed as architectural kit per se, the structure remains a testament to the very idea of mobility and lightness, as it is simply a frame and a covering stabilized by a network of tension and compression rings and cables. The PVC-coated fabric covering spreads out from a central tension ring in a star shaped hexagon pattern. A large compression ring at the base of the structure clamps the vertical masts and cables running from the mast to the ground stabilize the system. The basic principles of a type of catenary showcase the simple principles of how compression and tension relate to create a floating covering over a 33-meter span. Anchored to point foundations, the light structure floats over and covers a performance space. The cables, masts and fabric covering are the three basic components of Frei Otto’s hovering kit(e) architecture.

Frei Otto's Dance Pavilion at Cologne (1957)

Prefabrication experiments - 164 - Building Kits - 05 - The «Beachcomber» as a kit of canonical architectural components

Producing or making architecture from a kit of parts normally refers to the dimensionally coordinated components that facilitate or ensure an easy construction or assembly. A historic and interpretational view of the architectural kit underlines its direct link to industrialisation but perhaps more interestingly reveals how the kit strategy defined the spatial and organisational components that underpinned modern architecture.  Modern axioms such as the separation of served and service spaces developed from new functions and their centralization within spaces. Repetitive use of standardized pieces and modular grids or patterns contributed to a brand of kit language. The elements of modernisms that sought to reform traditions were linked to a rational use of pieces and space. Post-war architecture’s fascination with kit building produced many experiments, which applied a standardized approach for the masses uniting accessibility in matters of cost with the quest for architectural quality. 

The «Beachcomber» is an Australian expression of the modernist kit aesthetic applied to architecture for the masses. Developed as an affordable post war housing type, its basic components relate to a simple modern syntax combined to overlook adjacent landscapes. The Beachcomber’s stilts, vertical core and airy floating volume relate to the canonical Villa Savoye while using accessible aluminum cladding and insulated panels. A result of a partnership between Land Lease Homes (a post-war initiative in Australia to offer low-cost mortgages) with Le Corbusier inspired architect Nino Sydney, several hundred demonstration «beachcombers» were built. They inspired kit houses by the department of War service in 1964 and a Mark II display home in 1961.  The architecturally robust statement of floating over a magnificent beach adjacent property is timeless.

The perched massing of a covered space delineated by a living space volume allowed the beachcomber to have natural ventilation and work as a multifunctional canopy for the access spaces below. The three basic components of a Beachcomber, stilts, canopy and vertical core simply adapted to any site brought the spatial quality of an fresh Piano Nobile to the middle class. The simple box frame combined with platform construction made the beachcomber an unpretentious build, combining the spatial qualities of modern architecture with the most accessible and straightforward building methods: a perfect kit.

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