Architect, inventor and founder of Suspended Structures inc, Christian Frey represents a particular type of industrialist, that from generation to generation sees industrialisation as the way out of lagging productivity issues for construction and for developing affordable housing. Involved in research and in expanding his own visions and building systems, Frey’s most ambitious project is arguably his patent for modular dwellings suspended from a central core. Published in 1967, Frey’s patent, Suspended Module Buildings(US52323465A) proposed a central mast from which cables carried gallow-like cantilevered beams onto which any dwelling unit could be assembled. This class of open systems has been studied and explored in various formats and share the idea of a collective infrastructure with unrestricted floor areas for individualized housing.
For Operation Breakthrough, Frey’s proposal is a toned down version of the patent; what remains is the idea of a sequence of suspended platforms. The rectangular floor surfaces attached to the structural core organize the open framework. Each floor panel structure would be assembled from open web joists to form lightweight slabs cantilevered from and attached to vertical columns. The floor panel loads are carried to transverse rib beams connected to vertical columns. Together, the horizontal frames, rib beams and vertical columns form what the inventor identified as an «URB» Universal Building Rib. The «URB» planning module could be aligned, juxtaposed, stacked to create a spatial variety acquiescing any individualized interior arrangement.
The floor pallets and their open webs and grids connect to vertical ducts for distributing wiring, pipes and ductwork. The unobstructed vertical and horizontal network idealize a dynamic framework expandable in every direction and planned for large scale and small-scale dwelling aggregations. Separating and layering structure and interior organization follows the «open building» tenets. This essence of open systems continues to illustrate the conceptual distance between architectural designed industrialisation and the requirements of manufactured building. This archetype of fixed infrastructure and variable infill does not respond to manufacturing constraints of modular building, it is merely a structural concept. Further it doesn’t address the architectural singularity sought by many architects. Like many of its contemporary open systems, this architect’s dream and obsession gained little traction in industry and in architecture.
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| Universal Building Rib and patent section (extreme right) |
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