Prefabrication experiments - 182 - Exhibition houses - 03 - The Core House

The core-house is a housing concept organised around a basic functional unit planned for adaptability. Constructed as either a central service device, a social hearth or as the starting point of a pliant housing system, the core was used as a strategy for rationalising a dwelling’s basic requirements. In 1929, Gerrit Rietveld, best known for his De Stijl influenced red and blue chair developed a prototype core house surrounding a vertical central hub. As Walter Gropius had discussed before him, the difficulties associated with producing and marketing a completely manufactured house inspired this system for a customizable home; In Rietveld’s core house, the vertical nucleus could be multiplied for individual or clustered dwellings. 

The core is a platform for combining production and individuality and has evolved in the  past decades into a strategy for offering an elementary shelter that quickly serves essential needs. The houses inhabitants can consequently adopt their own housing patterns affixed to the proposed initial construction. Atelier Bow Wow, a Japanese architectural firm established on 1992 by partners Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima, designed a housing concept, in 2013, that envisioned this process for quickly assembled post disaster adaptable shelters.  

The firm’s modular timber structure combines Japanese timber know-how, the no-nails Itakura panel system with a basic one room plan and more traditional elements such as tatami grid and large overhangs to cover exterior spaces. Structured by vertical slotted posts, the panel walls are constructed by simply sliding and stacking horizontal timber boards along the vertical grooves.  Along with facilitating assembly this simple structural system could as easily be disassembled and moved to a different site requiring only minimal earthwork.

Designed for the specific needs of fishermen from the Tohoku coastline, the core-house is a rectangular prism, which provides all the necessary services to address basic needs (sleeping, eating, hygiene). The design’s modular appendages / terraces regulate the manner by which other cores or modular structures are combined and juxtaposed to create larger living spaces responding to a growing family’s evolving needs. Added elements could expand individual units or be used as a basis for a type of expandable village. 

Left: Model of Gerrit Rietveld's core house - Right: Atelier Bow Wow's core house

Prefabrication experiments - 181 - Exhibition houses - 02 - The Kwikset Lock company and the Eames' office

Crossbreeding industrial knowledge with architecture was an underlying theme of modernism. As the post WW2 era set off a baby boom brought on by both economic expansion and a renewed optimism of peace time, the modern house and its definition was the topic of many architectural machinations. Many architects had been employed toward the war effort and the material knowledge they acquired was being deployed toward civilian use. Charles and Ray Eames’ office was notably active in bring modern materials such as plywood and plastics to daily use in furniture or for housing. The Eames’, known in architecture for their work on their Case Study House 8 and partnering with Eero Saarinen on Case Study House 9, were active in all design disciplines from industrial design to graphic design. 

A lesser known work by the Eames’ office was mandated by the Kwikset lock company. The interest in housing and producing prototypes for the modern world was shared by architects and industrialists as both sought to serve and supply the masses. The Kwikset lock company was founded by Adolf Schoepe and Karl Rhinehart in 1946 on the basis of a quickly installed tubular door lock. in 1948 the company set up as factory in Anaheim and became familiar with the Eames’ and their work through common acquaintances. 

The Kwikset house prototype designed in 1951 was never built but was proposed as a self-build affordable timber kit. The Kwikset company intended to market and sell the kit to include their hardware. The simple kit was composed of a vertical post and curved beam timber structure which outlined a flexible and adaptable interior space. The one-inch model that was built to showcase the design included Eames’ furniture and the signature modular curtain wall organisation developed for the CSH 8 and in other homes designed by the Eames office. The focal point was the curved plywood roof that would cover an entirely free and open simply organized living space. The square plan was divided in two.  Clearly defined sleeping quarters included three bedrooms. The living space was divided by modular furniture that could rearranged as needed. The kwikset prototype envisioned a customizable transparent environment sandwiched between a modular floor plane and an arched canopy roof.

1/2 inch model and system axonometric