Prefabrication experiments - 198 - current practices - 09 - Additive manufacturing and low-cost housing

The premise of prefab has always been to achieve affordable, customizable, quickly built, sustainable and efficient housing systems for the many. If the adaptable building kit was last century’s response to the pursuit, this century’s solutions seem more akin to what would have been identified as science fiction only a few decades ago. The use of robots in building, partly in reaction to the greater use of information technology from planning to fabrication and construction, is reforming prefab concepts, particularly when it comes to on-site 3d printing of components and systems.

3d printing or additive manufacturing consists of continuously depositing layers of material from a computerized moving nozzle. Reinforced clay, cement-based polymers, polyurethane foam and fibre-reinforced concrete are just a sample of materials being explored to generate mass construction systems. Primarily suited to compressive shapes, vertical walls, arched vaults, domes or shells, the accumulated strata authentically translate the construction process.  The nozzle’s three-axis displacement is precisely controlled and determined from a computer model comparably to any 3d slicing software used in comparable small-scale 3d printing. Speed, material temperatures, viscosity, thickness and web structure are optimized to enhance overall cementing, strength and material savings. 

Certainly not the first and only 3d printed home experiment on the market, the Batiprint3d project established at the University of Nantes has caught attention for its use of polyurethane expandable foam as a customizable formwork into which reinforced concrete is poured. The system is relatively inexpensive and avoids costly and specifically rectilinear formwork, which is usually discarded. The 3d printed formwork is deposited in any shape and once cured with the concrete infill creates a strong bond and a superior insulated wall. Particularly suited to contexts where material procurement and delivery are difficult, however this simple construction method can be deployed in any context. The robot is mounted on an automated vehicle and controlled with laser precision making any shape where verticality or compression is maintained as the principle acting force. As robots make their way into the construction industry, the 3d printed house will surface from the research laboratory as demand for quality, low-cost and quick dwellings increases at an exponential rate. 

Batiprint 3d is a collaboration beteween Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique in Nantes (University of Nantes, CNRS, Ecole Centrale, Inria, IMT Atlantique) and the Institute of Civil and Mechanical Engineering Research, CNRS, Ecole Centrale)

Prefabrication experiments - 197 - current practices - 08 - Housing System of Functional Units

Making architecture from industrialized pieces stemmed from the reforming of construction methods from the vernacular piling, lashing, and fastening of on-site cut and amassed materials to factory produced, catalogued and specified components for every building system. Granted, the industrialization of architecture is not the same class of complete industrialization achieved for commodities. However, manufacturing positioned components and their tailored assembly as the basis of a type of architectural «bricolage» and guided the way a major portion of architecture gets produced today. Combining bigger factory-made integrated components evolved and was envisioned as a way of adding value from a production standpoint while reducing on-site construction tribulations. The building module, segment, sub-assembly, chunk or capsule are all variations on the same theme; delivering an optimized building unit / section made from a harmonized design and production process. The units’ organizations or configurations facilitate customization as the whole building is not predefined but assembled from programmed volumes to suit individualized needs.  

Designed as part of the Hello Wood Hungary design build summer studio, IR Architectura used sectional prefabrication as the conceptual starting point of their low-cost housing system.  Varied architectural relationships and configurations are composed from functional housing room-chunks. Chunks for eating, cooking, sleeping and storing are positioned according to users’ needs and surround an open living space which could be built locally and adapted to site conditions. The low-cost housing system includes modules for passive heating and cooling such as integrated trombe walls and solar panels. Defined as an overlap between an industrialized construction system and basic shed construction the project endeavours to bridge the gap between standardization and customization. 

Each service unit is part of an overall building strategy set up on site to maximize adaptability and resilience. It is possible to imagine an adaptable / and evolving building system established on the acquisition of indispensable functional units which would be assembled to take into account changes over time. The space between the units is completely customizable. Influenced by a plug-and-play and impermanent view of architecture each individual living unit could be erected, used, disassembled, and reorganized several times over a family’s lifetime.

Functional units from IR Architectura website