An acute need for affordable housing, specialized labour shortages and the digitalization of architecture and construction are outlining a new era for modular and off-site construction protagonists to argue for construction’s industrialization. As was the case between and after the two world wars in war ravaged nations or for supplying the needs of the baby boom, factory production was touted as the way forward to quickly supply affordable, sanitary and adequate living quarters. Today’s circumstances present a similar state of crisis (environmental, migratory, sanitary) leading governments, trade associations, and professionals toward prefab and a new harvest of experiments ranging from mass produced models to one-off prototypes both making the case for applying manufacturing principles to building construction.
Architects specifically, have rediscovered the modernist tenet associated with providing affordable housing that examines the relationship between production and habitability. The concept of habitability was linked to personalisation; staunch modernists, Gropius, Le Corbusier and their harsh functionalist critics such as N.J. Habraken posited similar visions that industrialization and individuality could be synchronised through generic frameworks complemented by customizable parts or planning principles. From this basic vision, the open building theory, the argument for supports and infill, and the notion of adaptability percolated architectural academia and spawned a great variety of proposals pursuing the systemic separation of shared structure and personal interior dwelling systems. These ideas were represented in a number of formats, however LeCorbusier's famous sketch of a hand inserting an individual unit into a vertical structural racking is perhaps the most notable. He offered an ideological simplification of how a modular city could be structured.
Founded in 2013 by architects Dayong Sun and Chris Precht, the architecture studio Penda imagined a similar modular framework onto which customizable elements would be attached or layered. Designed forVijayawada, India, the vertical tower, designed as a generic shared infrastructure, is a recent example of the separation of supports and infill. Dwellers could pick and choose fit-out options from a catalogue. Further the architects have a proposed a series of elements like balconies and vertical gardens to suit dwellers’ individuality. The juxtaposition of Penda’s sketch with Le Corbusier’s famous representation shows the cyclical nature of mass housing ideas for applying industrialization (generic) to architecture (specific).
 |
| Penda Studio's representation (left) ; Le Corbusier's (right) |
No comments:
Post a Comment