Prefabrication experiments - 193 - current practices - 04 - DIY Hermit House micro dwellings

The do-it-yourself, maker and hacker era is placing the aptitude of making things back into the hands of the many reforming manufacturing and gaining traction in multiple sectors of trade and industry. Crafting, modeling and fabrication tools are getting cheaper. As the comfort level grows within the population, people will be likely to take on bigger and more ambitious projects. Houses, cabins, sheds and dwelling construction have forever been in the hands of DIYers as house construction was historically a social phenomenon. Industrialization modified these social conventions but today, people can literally take «matter» back into their own hands, transform it and build their own spaces. The open source distribution of plans, models and processes amplifies the possibilities as the amount of available information grows at an exponential rate. Architects are tuning into this evolution creating DIY processes or systems democratizing the added value of intelligent and informed design principles. 

Using predefined modules to organize a house, generating a house from readymade components and fabricating to measure from a set of variables are three different strategies that have been used to facilitate the DIY house. Digital fabrication is particularly suited to the third strategy and portrayed nicely in a recent proposal designed by Daniel Venneman and Mark van der Net. The Hermit micro-dwelling combines the simple idea of house segments with the robust geometry of folded plate structures. The three-dimensional prismatic living environment created from a flat sheet material such as plywood separates this micro-dwelling from the more customary cube or basic rectangular prism.  The small 14 sq meter footprint aligns a series of sectioned triangular solids to form a saw-tooth pattern in plan and in vertical section. Assembly of each saw-toothed segments increases strength as the triangular shapes keep the adjoining prisms stable as adjacent arcs in aqueduct construction. A prototype was built as part of a research project examining market potential for modest living spaces. Built from standard plywood sheets, the home’s organization is customizable using an-on line configurator offering various options: height, width, depth. The plywood is then cut, flatpacked and delivered to any site and assembled to suit any number of uses from studio, to guesthouse, poolhouse or a small home office space.

Hermit house from the company's websitehttps://www.hermithouses.nl

Prefabrication experiments - 192 - current practices - 03 - Aligning A-frames with urban agriculture

Authored by Nancy Jack Todd and John Todd in 1993, From Ecocities to Living Machinespresented concepts for designing with nature and proposed strategies for combining urban planning with agriculture. The vertical farm building was one of the proposed themes blending dwelling functions with cultivating plants and animals; a utopian vision of a vertical farming system that would rethink waste in our contemporary cities. The envisioned collective vertical structure employing all the necessary requirements for producing enough energy to power itself seems all the more possible today as techniques for energy harvesting and harnessing are becoming mainstream. 

A small Austrian firm, Precht, has spent the last couple of years working on a proposal for an inhabitable vertical farm. The tall timber structure communicates an ideal of vertical production defined by an innovative modular timber construction of stacked triangular dwellings. A form of regular A-frame construction, the mega space frame is composed of cross-laminated timber panels and diagonal glue laminated brace beams. The triangular grid is fairly straightforward, simple to build and inherently stable. The grid’s panels could be produced off-site flat packed and delivered to be easily lifted and anchored into their diagonal pattern. A three layer oblique panel composed of an interior finish material, a mechanical core and a climate resistant exterior layer structures the stacked A-frames.

The prototype, if built, would provide a complete ecosystem where waste is deemed a resource. Each individual component’s output is used as an input for a different part of the system. An agile living machine the megastructure is composed of multiple living configurations from single family to larger two floor units. Potentially inspired by Habraken’s view of a natural relationship in mass housing, the units’ overall structure is collective while the interiors can be designed, developed and built according to inhabitant’s needs, preferences and their growth, both increased or decreased. The vertical truss is not completely filled in and can be ventilated naturally as interior circulation could be open to the elements. A veritable vertical city-farm, it is conceivable that this prefabricated tower «kit» could be implanted as an urban activator in multiple contexts. 

A rendering of the tall urban farm by https://www.precht.at/the-farmhouse/

Prefabrication experiments - 191 - current practices - 02 - small houses by Koda

Every generation of architects seems to develop a fascination with modular, moveable and minimal dwellings. Addressing functionally, flexibility and adaptability with limited space, architects have used and continue to use the small house as a platform for experimentation. Perhaps it's the potential to control every aspect of design and production or the capacity to optimize and define every square-mm, the tiny house sector has certainly led to a wealth of designs, possibilities and approaches. The ability to live well in a small efficient space also aims to counteract the increasing environmental footprints associated with traditional construction. In a tiny house, smallness is large and showcasing innovative multifunctional furnishings outlines an instruction manual for living simply. The tiny house can be a perfect «oeuvre complète - complete work» relating architecture, interior design and industrial design with production, marketing and commercialization, a type of inhabitable commodity. 

Developed in Estonia by company founders Hannes Tamjärv and Ülar Mark as a way to reduce energy consumption and derived from a dwelling's most basic functions, Koda is a series of small / micro dwellings that are completely factory produced, transported by truck and positioned on-site by crane. The integrated leveling system allows owners to move their house to any site. Available in different sizes, materials (concrete and timber) and configurations, the Koda could also be affixed to a floating structure and used as a type of houseboat. Approximately 4m wide x 7m long x 4m high the house’s organisation is based on a completely glazed front wall which leads to a simple two-zoned plan: a living space adjacent to the glazed wall and a service core comprised of a bathroom, a small kitchen and a mezzanine sleeping space. Inspired by nautical design, the house seems as at home on land as on the water. Connected to the infrastructure grid in just a few hours, the cross laminated timber container like structure is intended to be delivered and positioned in place without any foundations and uses its weight as a tie down. The front sled like lip detail makes it possible to imagine this small home quickly sliding right into any infill space.

transportation and interior view of the Koda house