Prefabrication experiments - 296 - Trade literature - 07 - Serial postal building

 

From delivering houses to building new schools, normalized buildings intellectualized and characterized as repeatable have been a focal point for industrialized building system protagonists. Serialization of specific building types could be planned to facilitate every part of the construction process from assigning professionals to purchasing materials and commissioning builders. Repetition mitigates the risks associated with conventional design and building practice. Even with the connotations associated with producing identical architecture, serial building with manufacturing design, production and management principles makes it possible to determine, compare, evaluate and gauge quality. Public and civic buildings, part of government purchasing policy, have in many countries been a fertile ground for promoting or sustaining industrial clusters by developing a coordinated building process through prearranged typologies. 

 

An interesting case project undertaken in Italy in the 1970s leveraged the reinforced concrete industry to develop a standard post-office building system from made-to-stock precast reinforced concrete components. The precast modular pieces were conceived for a one-story structure. Pier-Luigi Spadolini, architect and industrial designer, was mandated to design this simple system for updating civic structures’ quality being built in small communities in Italy at the time. The post-office as a pattern would inform all manner of civic buildings to ensure coherence throughout public procurement and production policies. 

 

Mandated by the Italian Postal service and department of Telecommunications, the standard building was arranged on economical modular structural spans, either cast on site or in steel post and beam skeletons.  The spans’ division into smaller grids coordinated all other systems and components.  Measurements, arrangements and model sizes were defined by community needs, ministry regulations, bylaws and existing spatial criteria. The precast components and curtain wall elements included textured panel elements for walls, columns and transom panels. These patterned elements would become, in theory, the trademark of the postal service. Spadolini’s comprehensive approach deployed the modern design principle of «oevre complete» - complete work.  The small postal building’s kit-of-parts included physical building components, details and a coherent strategy for everything from signage, to wayfinding and building identification. This type of serial or batch building applied to civic structures exemplifies the potential for a shared approach to streamline design, procurement and management for government agencies. 

Modular precast concrete panels 

 

Prefabrication experiments - 295 - Trade literature - 06 - Patterns

Patterns in architecture are shaped from years of common knowledge and have been studied extensively. Christopher Alexander and John Habraken have written comprehensively about how patterns define validated relationships between elements and parts of the built environment. Pattern books in architecture connect to this concept of composing form from longstanding strategies, components and imagery. How a porch relates to a street, or how a window relates to a courtyard, or even more formally how a series of façades relate to a plaza or a public square. These are established ways of making cities or edifices and invoke the open sharing of knowledge that underscores building culture. 

 

In their most basic form, patterns inform, educate and multiply recognized organizations, configurations and relationships. Patterns also relate to other design fields. In fashion, pattern drawings or stencils are used in do-it-yourself culture, making it feasible to cut and sew anything from dresses to coats and sweaters. In architecture, the complexity of building and the number of arranged parts have impeded similar normalized instructions for fabrication. 

 

Today the platform approach to DFMA (design for manufacturing and assembly) promoted as an efficient way forward for industrialized construction, is based on the notion that building is all about repeating patterns for procurement, fabrication, delivery, setting and positioning or for assembly. Further these patterns could lead to a customizable architecture from encoded parts. Architects, trade associations, modular groups are theorizing this platform building approach to provide models to construct collective framed typologies. One of these initiatives, 369 Pattern Buildings ( https://patternbuildings.com ), is a cooperative effort conceived in mass timber. The design showcases how, in a similar way to the automobile industry, multiple buildings can be constructed from the same chassis or modular frame. The mass timber skeletal framework and steel connectors are used as a modular unit in a type of stacked, aligned or juxtaposed container system. Licensed under collective commons, it is assembled from a series of interoperable parts; the structure, infrastructure, mechanical and spatial elements are defined leaving the interior fit-out to be personalized. This structure versus infill approach stems from the continued influence of pattern building forged by pioneers like Alexander or Habraken. 

Parts of the 369 Pattern Building system

 

Prefabrication experiments - 294 - Trade literature - 05 - Politics, materials and the war effort

Cooperative capitalism or nationalistic autarky are influential themes in architecture. Both stem from similar political perspectives for representing authority.  Combining political rhetoric with industrial clusters and trade guilds in the formalization of monuments has been the basis of architectural symbolism in all civilizations. Through industrialisation, trade associations and material lobby groups became vital actors in enacting policies. This type of commercial promotion or patriotism was intensely utilized to uphold and nourish military capabilities during the tumultuous decades before and after World War II. The aviation sector was a flagship area for this type of experimentation. Reinforced concrete, in Europe and in Italy in particular, became the emblematic material for the war effort. Pier Luigi Nervi's experiments with military devices including airplane hangars substantiate the use of a material to depict architectural potentials and political potency.

 

Even though concrete, steel and aluminum are often associated with the war effort and military buildings, North America’s bountiful forests begot milled timber as the symbol of nation building in the USA. The balloon frame became the primary system used to build horizontal cities from small repeatable pieces. The National Lumber Manufacturers Association endorsed wood as a modern material adapted to any use and even military use for certain types of buildings. Their periodic publication «Lumber and Its Utilizations» in 1941 showcased timber’s potential for prefabrication and airplane hangar structures. The publication described how timber could be used in all manner of truss systems to attain considerable spans for shed roofs of any scope or size. From bowstring, to flat and lamella trusses, the description compares timber span potentials to other materials citing significant savings of 25% compared to other materials. Along with cost savings, the authors describe timber structures as simple to assemble and disassemble, mobile and adaptable to future changes. 

 

Fire safety has always been a contested part of timber construction and its regulation as it is a combustible material. As is still the case today, the wood association argued that compared to steel which often becomes an entangled fused and melted mess after a fire, mass timber's auto-extinguishing capacity makes certain members salvageable by reinforcing them on-site after removing a charred thickness. The catalogue includes sample buildings with bills of materials and components suggesting the trade association acting as building promoters.

Beech Aircraft Airplane Hangar

Prefabrication experiments - 293 - Trade literature - 04 - Lobby groups

Advocates for the use of new techniques in architecture come in many shapes; Architects, industrialists, or inventors have played an important role in providing successful examples of how materials can contribute to reforming construction.  Steel, reinforced concrete, plastics and aluminum all associated with modern architecture were invented and perfected during years of important social turmoil and technical advancements. Materials were part of the war effort, concrete for bunkers, steel for arms, and aluminum and plastics for lightweight components. As knowledge and experiments with these new materials crossed from specialized military to more general use, producers and their associations took part in their sponsorship. Lobbying for sustaining both supply and demand for particular materials in construction is still the main goal of trade and manufacturer associations using publications, trade shows and marketing. The affiliation between architects and these trade and manufacturer associations is not a recent one and in some ways carry on the role of medieval guilds. 

 

Architects through their experiments and material use advocate and argue for specific strategies and in some ways become advertising pawns supporting the work of trade associations. This is evident in the 1964, 174-page publication by the Portland Cement Producers Association titled Architectural Applications on Concrete in buildings. The catalogue presents projects from all over the USA employing reinforced concrete in original ways ranging from more normalized use in skeletons to more magnificent forms employing thin shells or illustrating the efficiencies of precast components leveraged toward multiple building systems. 

 

Rendered or photographed as collected fragments each system is included as part of a growing corpus of works underlining the creative relationship between architects and a material brought to the forefront by producers.  An interesting side bar note in the catalogue : a list of architectural projects showcase exposed concrete (released of its formwork) with little decorative work then an entire section at the end of the catalogue showcases little architectural work but a great variety of potential surface textures. The contrast between modern architectural work, validated by the discipline, and more common use reveals the distinct role of both lobby groups’ intentions: architects for architecture and producers for production, two solitudes and fields brought together through a common objective. 

Page from the catalogue

 

 

Prefabrication experiments - 292 - Trade literature and associations - 03 - Patent for saw-toothed roofs

Building techniques, construction methods and strategies are explained and displayed everyday on on-line platforms, through social media or specialized websites, supporting the idea that architecture and building is a democratic, shared and collective phenomenon. Proprietary knowledge or systems did not really exist until the 15th century.  Subsequently during industrialization, the number of patents filed for different building methodologies exploded morphing architecture and construction from artisan based common processes to fragmented and enterprise directed practices. 

 

Even the most mundane construction methods became the object of published patents. Building types, assemblies, processes, machines were the subject of industrial secrets to be controlled and circumscribed by copyright laws. Companies portrayed themselves as holders of a unique production method, which could only be used through licensing or contracting. 

 

What is known today as a building platform, commercialized to achieve mass production, is in a sense a by-product of patent culture.  The Ballinger Company of Philadelphia, a collective of architects and engineers obtained a patent in 1921 (USRE15133E) for a method for constructing saw-tooth roofs. This type of roof is recognised as the icon of the factory building. The roof cross section is composed of a series of inclined and vertical planes (creating a profile similar to a saw blade) alternating from opaque roof (inclined) to transparent (vertical) for daylighting interior spaces. In their company catalogue published in 1924, the Ballinger Company promoted the Super-span Saw-tooth building as a novel way of covering industrial properties improving the quality of interior of factories through natural light and ventilation. The Ballinger company's proprietary component was a super-span truss, where the inclined and vertical edges outlined a horizontal filigree beam, spanning open spaces unrestricted from interior supporting columns, an improvement to regular saw-tooth construction, which required beams and columns at each roof valley intersection. The company preferred to be mandated for both architectural and engineering services for their buildings, however they would licence their system to other builders as well. 

 

Hennebique, Freyssinet, Nervi, Fuller, and their modern acolytes used patents to monopolize their architectural obsessions. The patent evidenced knowledge of a topic and in the best cases looked into the existing art outlining a complete understanding of a technique. Company literature structured this knowledge and offered design guidelines for deploying proprietary systems.

Page from Super-span truss catalogue