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