Although Operation Breakthrough did not radically change the way housing was built in the USA, its enduring legacy as an exercise in industrial collaboration is underscored by the amount and variety of corporate consortiums that proposed housing systems, procurement options and integrated supply chains. George Romney, owing to his background as an industrial lobbyist was able to federate his brand of «cooperative capitalism» evident in partnerships that resemble industrial clusters. Emphasized in a proposal by Alcoa, the Aluminium Company of America, the list of affiliate companies included partners ordinarily portraying a fragmented building industry, however they were brought together to develop a horizontally and vertically integrated business model for a three-tier housing scheme for low-density, medium density and high density through 12 different building possibilities.
Mass-produced service cores and storage wall modules were common to the twelve systems. Each process type displayed a particular approach to cost and product optimization with basic component sharing and modular coordination. Eleven systems in Alcoa’s proposal were conventional interpretations of either panelized or componentized parts over steel or reinforced concrete skeletons. The most ambitious plan was Alcoa’s tension-framed high-rise system composed of steel mega-trusses cantilevered from a concrete core. Illustrated in the image below in a historic downtown core, it symbolizes the type of a-contextual, technology at all costs, consenting high modern ideologies seen in a majority of Operation Breakthrough’s proposals.
The 10-30 story structure’s plan was determined by vertical circulation and mechanical ducts rising with a reinforced concrete core. Steel cantilevered trusses formed the gallows of this tower-crane building. Cables attached to the mega-cross beams would simplify raising manufactured volumetric dwelling capsules into place. Each volume suspended from the central core could be recessed or cantilevered horizontally or vertically over its neighbouring unit varying the exterior massing. The reinforced concrete and steel lift literally hung dwelling modules in order to avoid the usual structural constraints associated with stacking and reinforcing individual modular boxes. Edge framed in steel or aluminium, the dwelling units would be completed in a factory and the proposal’s proponents argued that less staging areas would be required on-site making this mega-structure particularly well-suited for dense urban environments.
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| Alcoa's Tension Frame Structure illustrated in context and in action |
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