Prefabrication experiments - 177 - Geometries - 08 - Hexacube and plastics in architecture

Modernity in architecture in pre World War II social and manufacturing reforms evolved into 1960s and 1970s high modernism. Military technology and the ensuing space race inspired visionary architecture. Plastic production garnered particular interest to commodify architecture’s production as it had done for other consumables. Simple to produce shapes and objects became the source of combinable and coordinated architectural components. George Candilis proposed the Hexacube in the early 1970s employing matching and stackable fiberglass reinforced shells to form dwellings. The cube facilitated clustering while hexagons were used to match cube faces together.

Many such projects developed concurrently for different scales and different settings. The DO-bausystem in Germany, the Tetrodon in France, Guy Gérin Lajoie’s modular plastic panels for the Arctic in Canada and the Ventura and Futuro houses by Matti Suuronen in Finland all employed similar systems casting fiberglass reinforced plastic components for producing buildings. Units or panels could simply be snapped or bolted together streamlining construction. The Hexacube’s basic unit was a moulded half cube, which could be employed as the upper or lower part of the cube. Each 5 m³ cube was moulded with half-hexagonal shaped openings, which formed full hexagons when the half cubes were matched. The hexagon opening acted as the hexacube’s reproductive organ; their alignment and subsequent affixing made it possible to achieve multiple arrangements.  The openings could be adapted with a series of facades or functional hexagonal shaped units, varying the Hexacube’s function and appearance. A series of accessories, rectangular prisms half the size of the cube programmed by function, hygiene, storage, kitchen or other services, could be plugged into the basic unit creating an infinite number of patterns and uses. Each half cube could be piled for efficient delivery, eight deep, as one would stack plastic utility chairs. The cube’s edges were tapered and chamfered to facilitate casting and recasting using the same moulds.

Dubigeon Platics produced Candilis and Anja Blomstedt’s hexacube in 1972. Although only a marginal number of units were produced, the system showcased a manner in which knowledge transfer from the plastics industry to architecture made it possible to fabricate objects, architecture, and cities with similar processes.

Hexacube (left); Tetrodon (upper mid); Modular Arctic Houses (upper right);
Do-bausystem (lower-mid); Futuro (lower right)

Prefabrication experiments - 176 - Geometries - 07 - A house of modular furniture

Throughout architectural history distinctive architects have become synonymous with their era. If Walter Gropius or Jean Prouvé were representative of twentieth century prefabrication theory uniting industry and craft through architecture, then Shigeru Ban is certainly their equal when it comes to contemporary innovative construction systems uniting Japanese culture with modernist spatial ideals.

Modular geometry, a focal point of Japanese vernacular is infused in Ban’s designs. The tatami mat, a component of Japanese domesticity proportions room sizes and their juxtaposition.  Along with the tatami mat, japanese artisans, for centuries, have devised replacement parts for post-seismic reconstruction of timber construction with regulated timber spans and sections; a type of artisanal standardisation. 

Reacting to the devastation of the 1995 earthquakes’ 7000 deaths and 60000 injuries, Shigeru Ban designed a series of case study houses exploring materials and methods for simple cost effective and durable reconstruction.  CSH 4 or the Furniture House is the most recognized. The Furniture House design harvests themes from traditional Japanese construction. The proposal is founded on a modular grid and intricately deigned built-in furniture. 

The volume is a square based prism of approximately 11 x 11 x 3.5m. A reinforced concrete base anchors the floor plane to its descending site and conceals a technical space for service distribution. A series of storage / active walls are assembled by 0,45 x 0,9 x 2,4 m plywood chests. Theses storage containers form the bearing elements and the house’s furniture avoiding the injuries associated with falling furniture.  A reinforced concrete slab is supported by the storage walls and is placed directly over the base plane creating a type of furniture sandwich.  The house’s simple geometry is composed on a square grid, which harmoniously includes a 1:2 sub-module displaying a giant tatami inspired composition. The union of tradition and modernity inspires this at once modest and Palladian house dominating its surrounding landscape as a monument to simple construction techniques. 

Recently in 2013 the furniture house inspired a partnership with Japan’s version of Ikea, MUJI, a lifestyle retailer, to imagine a prototype production version of Shigeru Ban’s manifesto.  Filled with MUJI objects this product comes close to the modernist ideal of a complete dwelling environment.

Furniture House (left) prototype production house (right)

Prefabrication experiments - 175 - Geometries - 06 - Fabricating Geometry or materializing matter

Stonework and earthwork are hardly suggestive of innovative building systems as industrialization rendered complicated masonry detailing non-relevant within modernised production methods. New manufactured materials such as steel, reinforced concrete or plastics and their components could be assembled with such ease and reproduced in massive quantities. These modern methods challenged longstanding construction techniques putting them on a hiatus, as intensive and precise craftsmanship did not evolve at the same rate as modern construction methods. 

As digital manufacturing devices integrate day-to-day construction, complex objects could be produced with the same ease as Henry Grey’s wide flange steel beam at the beginning of the twentieth century; a revolution which was equally reforming. Further as digital fabrication devices are implemented, architectural components are integrating very complex geometries and will be made-to-order. Emerging Objects, an architectural firm has been exploring 3d printing, an emerging technology for construction, as a way of giving new life to age-old construction methods. They have developed a masonry unit, which requires no mortar. The 3d printed mixture of sand, sawdust, ground-up tires, salt, pulverized bone bound into a type of concrete piece together so precisely into a giant 3d puzzle. The firm was inspired by ashlar stonework in which each stone is precisely cut and dry bedded to form a robust structural system for walls or columns.

As stated by the architects this type of dry stonework (without mortar) displayed a greater resistance to seismic pressure. The organizational principle is that dry stonework can move and resettle after seismic loads. Informed by the study and analysis of ancient Incan stonework, their Quake Column combines precisely defined and numbered elements to facilitate assembly. Various geometric patterns are possible and could be shared with the click of a mouse. As complex geometry no longer requires the steady hand of the stonemason, each individual unit didactically displays its shape relating to a whole individualized pattern. Each chunk’s Geometry is completely self-locking.

This type of file to component production method nuances the traditional debate between on and offsite construction as a large-scale 3d printer produces project specific components reforming the ideals of normalization and standardization normally associated with architectural production. 

animation from the firm's website at 

http://www.emergingobjects.com/project/quake-column/