Prefabrication experiments - 258 - Operation Breakthrough - 09 - Pemtom's three-dimensional housing matrix

 

Mat modular housing is a longstanding idealized experiment in planning spatial and geometric relationships for dwellings. The regulating grid unites housing dimensions, criteria and collective dynamics with standardized production parameters. A dwelling field, clusters expanded horizontally and vertically could be programmed for low, mid and high-density patterns. Further, the volumetric tessellation could be mapped over any topography and setting as each unit is a type of generic kernel.  

 

The Pemtom group’s proposal for Operation Breakthrough represents still another view of this highly peddled architectural experiment. Each factory-produced volume would be composed of walls, roofs, and floors, outlined by a rigorous grid module, 13’ (3.9meters) x 13’ (3.9meters) x 9’ (2.7 meters) and constructed from stressed-skin panels. The structural insulated panels (SIPs) of stressed skin construction employed the same composite structure, a laminate of plywood layers and an insulating urethane core, as the panels that had been previously been studied by the US Forest Service as far back as 1937. Pemtom’s proposal references USFS research.

 

Nine juxtaposed, stacked and aligned building blocks would be required to organize a 1500 square-foot three-bedroom dwelling. Each volume was programmed for particular dwelling functions, rooms and living spaces, while more mechanically complex designs could be used for bathrooms, kitchens or service cores. 12 spatial units were provided in the proposal as a catalogue of composing parts.  The sections attached to one another formed a uniform structure with a few composing parts. The clustered volumes or boxes would be mass-produced and their on-site juxtaposition streamlined up to fifteen stories high within a concrete or steel cradle or mega-structure. As described and illustrated, the three-dimensional grid regulates of every part of the building system without any evident hierarchy or separation of the public, private or common areas.

 

Pushed in many forms, this type of normalized housing has been largely opposed by market forces perhaps because architects and manufactures never provided for the conceptual interfaces between architecture, production and individual habitability. Pemtom’s proposal foreshadowed current information based experiments and DfMA approaches where building platforms are delineated by and limited to a controllable quantity of customizable options in a scalable housing system.

Pemtom's catalogue of parts