Prefabrication experiments - 269 - Connectors - 10 - Pattern Buildings or Platform Building

 

Context and setting in architecture habitually refer to a site, a building’s staging area, or a geopolitical place where an edifice is moored. This concept implies the singular notion of anchoring. A building’s attachment to place speaks to its regional connection to an infinite number of factors. Industrialized building in this sense must address the generic with the specificity of site. How can Off-site construction create a unique product that relates to different settings and contexts? Is it possible to industrialize building construction considering the necessary interaction with particular topography, climate, social conventions, etc.? 

 

As globalization and information technology reaffirm industrializations basic principles of making quality products affordable and accessible, construction's industrialisation is once more being touted as a way to reform construction, with one major difference: If twentieth century prefab could be described by industrial driven proprietary models or one-off architectural designed experiments, a new generation of architects is tackling the generic / specific issue to bridge the two conditions. Whether inspired by open-source and crowd sourced business models, a shareable architecture is taking hold based on the same principles being applied in parallel industries. This new setting for architectural production based on industrialized systems is «platform or pattern» based. 

 

Platform here refers to automobile production or other industrial production models where a number of differentiated objects, products or models can be created from a predetermined set of modular, interoperable and coordinated components, not unlike a programmer who defines an application from a shared language and syntax. While certainly not unique within this conceptual framework, 369 Pattern Buildings is the work of a cooperative of professionals and academics proposing a modular timber chassis applicable to varied building types.  The basic modular component is analogous to an ISO container arranged with timber edges and braced by ribbed plates/slabs that are assembled with steel corner or vertex connectors. The sectional volume can be stacked and juxtaposed to define a plurality of arrangements. Facade elements, dividing wall elements, mechanical as well as plumbing systems can be designed and fabricated according to underlining modular dimensions to easily fit into the overall platform. While the system remains marginally applied, its setting is truly contemporary as it allows anyone to download and iterate generic components into a personalized architectural product.  

Basic room module from https://patternbuildings.com/projects/m6-prototype/

Prefabrication experiments - 268 - Connectors - 09 - Sip Panel Joinery

 

Stressed skin panels, either stud-framed or laminated with an insulated core, were developed through research at the beginning of the 20^th century. They are a successful segment of industrialized building construction. The flat-packed panels used for walls, floors or roofs can be assembled in simple box frame configurations. Three most common forms are: wood frame and skin, skin and core, or composite materials. Every type of panel used as a shell component integrates a loadbearing layer, an insulating layer and in some cases a protective waterproof layer. Even with the important structural and insulating properties of each dimensionally coordinated panel, total performance hinges on the weathertightness and accuracy of the connecting joinery. Particularly for structural insulating panels or Sips, weathertight connections are essential for reducing heat loss and maintaining structural integrity. 

 

Systems are designed to achieve an uninterrupted insulating core by using a type of tongue and groove assembly which overlays a portion of insulation between two juxtaposes panels.  Openings for windows and doors can be milled in the factory. Panels arrive on site to be assembled as the large-scale pieces of a 3d puzzle. With the exceptions of greater assembly accuracy and more stringent dimensional tolerance this type of building panel has not really changed since the beginning of the twentieth century. 

 

Murus is an American company producing a SIP panel which in all respects seems like a fairly standard panel. However, to increase both precision, weathertightness and structural robustness, an interlocking cam connector has been patented and included in the proprietary panel. The hardware is in the panel's core and once two panels are juxtaposed aligned and put together, the connector can be rotated locking the panels in place from the outside of the panel with a key-like locking device. 

 

The panels are available in modular sizes and thicknesses with optional composite layering materials from oriented strand board, to plywood. Although not marketed to be disassembled and reused, it is easy to imagine this type of panel, assembled, locked, unlocked and disassembled to be reused.  Depending on the composite assembly specified, a 150 mm panel could range from a R value of 23 - 28. This value is uninterrupted by studs as would be the case for traditional timber framing.

Murus SIP panels with a joint connector

Prefabrication experiments - 267 - Connectors - 08 - Ikea's Better Shelter

Focused on the design, fabrication and marketing of affordable furniture, Ikea has also developed housing concepts looking to expand their business model from commodities to affordable mass housing. Bloklok is their modular housing concept, which has had marginal success but has not been able to transfer Ikea's design zeitgeist to housing. The source of the multinational's success is the democratization of good and contemporary design at an affordable price. Transferring this knowledge to architecture is a complex undertaking since edifices incorporate many more parts, systems, subsystems and cultural criteria when compared to furniture. Developing the same type of Design for Assembly approach to buildings leads to less holistic concepts. 

 

The Ikea foundation has recently developed a shelter for refugee camps or climate emergencies, which uses a small number of components to assemble a temporary dwelling. Considering the fact that most transient dwellings need to endure a service life of more than the few months accorded by tents, the Ikea foundation's better shelter offers a lifespan of three years and could theoretically be disassembled a few times and relocated during its lifespan.

 

A galvanized tubular frame shapes the basic geometry of the archetypical shelter. The frame is stayed and braced in place by steel anchors and crossties. Analogue to similar temporary tent shelters, the tubular frame is far from an original proposal. The plastic wall and roof panels are fastened to the structure using simple brackets, bolts and rivets. Flat-packed in a cardboard box and delivered to any location, the structure can be nailed, screwed or tied to any surface with its adjustable and levelling strut and plate connector. The anchor is tied to a depth of 250mm into local soil to prevent horizontal movement. A tension tie is inserted to a depth of 700mm to prevent uplift. Familiar to Ikea's furniture designs is the minimal number of components and their intelligible nature reducing specialized labour and promoting self-build.  The shelter's dimensions of 3,3 m x 5,5 mm x 2,8 m in height and its structure organizes an unobstructed interior. The floor tarpaulin and envelope panels are connected to the galvanized steel structure ensuring weathertightness and adequate resistance to wind, rain or snow.

connectors and components from better shelter.org

Prefabrication experiments - 266 - Connectors - 07 - Hauserman's moveable partitions

Modernism and its manufacturing advances pointed to facilitating assembly as a definite way of increasing productivity in building construction. The specification of identifiable elemental layers and systems also simplified procurement, management and on-site component sequencing. Construction was reformed into Taylor(ed) and streamlined tasks by manufacturing dimensionally stable and coordinated elements and pieces. Merging design for assembly with idealized mass production reduced the need for specialized labour onsite. Modernity also implied new functions, utilities and mechanical devices increasing building complexity making it important to normalize construction strategies. 

Further, with the advancement in the service economy, flexibility, mobility and adaptability in spatial organisation became a prerequisite for every building type from office to commercial spaces. Designing for assembly with coordinated systems implied that disassembly would also be possible, making it conceivable to organise and reorganise office arrangements multiple times during a building’s service life; The era of the open plan office space with moveable partitions was born. 

 

In 1913, inventor, industrialist, E.F. Hauserman acquired a material supplies company. He began contracting interior steel framed partitions and expanded in other markets because of major wartime defense contracts. The company’s well-known products were part of Ezra Ehrenkrantz’s school construction system in the late 1960s. The systemic separation and independence of movable partitions and parts made them ideal for schools’ design flexibility and adaptability at the heart of Ehrenkrantz’s philosophy. The partitions invented for the school construction system combined a cold-formed steel stud profiled with diamond shaped connectors on either side onto which variable panels could be clicked and friction clamped in place. The vertical studs were clipped in the same way onto ceiling and floor tracks. Telescoping sections included on the stud’s extremities allotted for structural deflection and ensured independence of the partition’s support system. The panels could be sheathed in any material from simple gypsum board for acoustical applications, chalkboard or corkboard for interactive partitions. The patented vertical stud symbolizes the type of dry construction methods that modernity assimilated from automobile and other commodity production.  Partition Systems such as DIRTT in the lineage of Hauserman’s developments are common in today’s marketplace and have become suitable for any type of interior partition system that requires many changes over time. 

Clipping stud connector