Government assistance through financing or policies intended to industrialize construction for increased productivity, solve war induced housing shortages or produce low-cost options propelled research and development of off-site construction strategies and prototypes throughout the twentieth century. The standardization of the single-family dwelling by the FHA (Federal Housing Authority) in the USA or the expansion of manufacturing and automation in Japan are two analogous examples of post-war construction sponsored by government intervention and programs. Post-war USSR is the superlative example of political support. Regime-run factories tested, evaluated and conceived of new technologies for building. Previously explored in the early twentieth century by Ernst May and his construction group, concrete panels were identified as the system of choice; they were flexible, easy to produce and required little factory logistics. Further the panels’ connection details required little specialized labour onsite. This type of concrete panel construction became synonymous with low-cost socialist housing experiments.
According to Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev’s (leader of Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964) vision, architect and industrialist in chief, Vitaly Lagutenko managed two factories where he defined, normalized and standardized everything from flat planning, room sizes and assembly details. Leveraging and developing his previous experiments with pre-cast concrete components for frame structures, Lagutenko streamlined design, construction and mass-production. The result was the K-7 building system. Designed to avoid costly components like elevators, the five-storey building employed other various questionable rationalizations to reduce costs including low ceilings. Typical flats included 30 m2 for 1-room, 44 m2 for 2-room and 60 m2 for 3-room options. Along with normalized plans and panels, complete bathroom pods were built, coordinated in factories and delivered to sites to be plugged into the building’s infrastructure.
Lagutenko epitomized the early dream of mass production applied to housing. Thousands of the standardized flats were constructed and attest to the strength of the centralized building program. Originally planned as temporary with a 20 to 25 year life-span the concrete panel building kits were designed for speed but not quality. Insulation, both thermal and sound was inadequate and poorly detailed. The system connoted substandard construction and many of the buildings have been demolished and replaced.
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| K-7 building system representation |
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