Prefabrication experiments - 184 - Exhibition houses - 05 - Marimekko house

Well known for branding beautiful products, from clothing to household items, Marimekko is a Finnish based company founded in 1951 by Armi Ratia.  When her first business venture into producing bold colorful and patterned fabrics failed, Ratia hired a fashion designer to design a clothing line from the fabrics. The first fashion show’s popularity helped launch a successful company that endures as an icon combining beauty and everyday products. 

Perhaps a little less known is the company’s incursion into the factory production of architecture. A prefab dwelling and a sauna were part of the company’s efforts to bridge architecture and its production. Armi Ratia together with architect Aarno Ruusuvuori and builder Polar Osakeyhtiö formed a partnership to build a factory and a 250-unit prototype village based on modular dwelling clusters. In the early 1960s, Ruusuvuori a Finnish architect was already known for his purely modern aesthetic.  Contrary to Aalto’s more regional Finish modernist approach, Ruusuvuori’s modular systems were more in tune with a globalized modernism. The village, Marikylä was to be a manifestation of Marimekko’s successes in clothing applied to modern building methods. The master plan included 60 to 120 square meter dwellings. Designed as a composition of  masses and voids, each individual unit either defined an exterior courtyard space or surrounded a private courtyard. 

The only house that was built, was an expression of modern sensibilities showcasing a simple box aesthetic rejecting any regional associations. The basic rectangular prism was a linear assembly of 4 factory regulated modular building sub-assemblies (segments) measuring 3x4x2.4 meters.  The prototype 48 square meter minimal dwelling employed a simple structural system, a timber stud core framework clad in modern veneered materials, expressing a simple mass elegantly punctuated by window placement. The stressed skin was chosen for its stability and simplicity for a factory production. The dark blue color was most certainly a way of linking the house to Marimekko’s boldness, applying the idea of a colorful skin to the architectural volume. The prototype’s first occupants were Armi Ratia’s son with his family. The factory project failed as it is said that the proposed type of worker housing was no longer socially acceptable.

Marimekko house in its context

Prefabrication experiments - 183 - Exhibition houses - 04 - UNICOM construction method

A consequence of industrialization, mass production strategies made it possible to gain access to any number of commodities making them cheaper while increasing their quality. Standardization and factory process normalization guided this revolution of artisanal production methods diversifying and increasing consumption. Housing and its construction were also impacted. While only a small fraction of housing was and still is completely mass produced in a factory, housing production became highly homogeneous and mass production methods came out of the factory and were implemented on-site to facilitate every aspect of construction from material procurement, to controlled assembly of premade components and to an overall standardization of building culture.  

Every modern material, aluminum, steel and concrete was shaped from industrialization’s development. Although not a modern material per se, timber’s development nevertheless benefited from the normalization culture. The balloon frame is the case and point. Light timber framing became synonymous with American building culture. It spawned its own version of standards as applied to increasing productivity in construction. Proposed by the National Lumber Manufacturers Association in the early 1960s, the Unicom method of house construction was essentially a strategy for regulating every aspect of a house's timber construction. Unicom determined UNIformity in industrial production of COMponents as a way of increasing efficiency in construction.  

Based on a modular planning grid informed by a 4-inch (100 mm) building module, wall and floor-to-floor heights, overall dimension ratios, stair dimensions, roof slopes and overhangs were pre-established according to timber milling dimensions. Throughout modernity and even today, the Unicom 48-inch (1200 mm) major module remains familiar, dictating stud spacing, floor member spacing and overall dimensions. The standardized method also proposed a standard squared grid paper for designing with production in mind. The grid as a tool for designing is a staple of modern design principles as it links design with production. Exhibit houses built in Wheeling and Des Plaines Illinois illustrated the potential variability in the basic modularity. Standardized windows and doors, kitchen cabinets, and many other Unicom grid regulated pieces and parts ensured that, while not factory produced, the Unicom house was certainly mass- produced.  

UNICOM illustration from Architectural Forum October 1963