Prefabrication experiments - 301 - Then and now - 01 - Mechanization

 

Construction in its simplest form can be described as moving, lifting, positioning and assembling materials and components in a setting to make inhabitable macro-objects: edifices. Since prehistory, humans have fashioned aids and devices for tasks difficult to accomplish by human power alone. Simple levers, inclined planes, screws and pulleys are inseparable from building culture. Industrialization improved and expanded these implements by replacing animal or human power with formidable and efficient energies: steam, oil and electricity. All manner of devices for every job or scale transform construction sites into veritable open-air factories. Mechanization outlined an ethos of efficiency and increased output on construction sites which remains an impactful obstacle to the real potential of prefabrication or factory produced sub-assemblies, as mechanization makes on-site construction both flexible and adaptable.  

 

The self-propelled overhead crane (Rudolf Bredt, 1875) is a symbol of how industrialisation simplified making things as any size objects could be moved around factories and sites with relative ease. In some instances, machines even made it possible to invent new materials; reducing carbon content to produce steel is directly related to the Henry Bessemer's invention (Bessemer Converter, 1856). 

 

Today, mechanization continues to influence greater efficiencies on construction sites, and has been complemented in the last decade by powerful computerized tools and even artificial intelligence that direct autonomous machines to achieve a variety of building tasks. Robot masons, autonomous site inspecting cobots, or the precise casting of fluid materials by drones are examples that relate to the same basic “moving, lifting and placing”, but are controlled digitally. 

 

In relation to construction's industrialization, machines were invented to increase affordability and apply principles of manufacturing to house construction. Two interesting examples, The Tournalayer one-cast house system (1946) and The Apis Cor 3d printer (2014) are part of the same culture of mechanization in two very different eras. Both aim to improve efficiencies and simplify dwelling construction in any context. The methods are compared in the schematic below to show how they are part of a similar spectrum of industrialization, to illustrate how each relates to an overall production methodology. This comparison highlights elements that continue to defy offsite construction's uptake or to underline the debate between customization or standardization, namely the complex relationship between design, construction and manufacturing.

Comparative analysis of the Tournalayer and Apis Cor - drawings by pre[FABRICA]tions

Prefabrication experiments - 300 - 00 - What have I learned ?

After 300 posts and eight years of applied research in the field of off-site construction, post 300 seemed like a suitable milestone to stop and ask a simple question: Even with all the cited advantages of offsite construction combined with the current research pointing to uptake supported by the fourth industrial revolution, why is the percentage of manufactured building still fairly low and why is a resistance still palpable in both implicated fields: architecture and construction?  Academics, industrialists and protagonists point to fundamental improvements in the fabrication of every commercialized object, automobiles, cellular phones, computers, both from manufacturing methodologies and the industrial design process in particular, buildings remain mired in one-off processes. 

 

After (66) years, perhaps Sigfried Giedion's (1954) take still expresses the underlying problem, especially in housing. Even though each house is similar and relies on identical products and customs, consumers like the idea of getting a bespoke dwelling that they feel they had a hand in producing. While this is certainly a cultural precept and countries like Japan, and some Scandinavian countries seem to have less of a singularity complex when it comes to housing design, an overwhelming need for uniqueness remains present globally. If we examine Gideon's theory further it can lead to the idea that building was a cultural and social construct before becoming an industrialized one; cars, boats, phones and other commodities have been manufactured and added to the home as individualized add-ons, as accessories to the fundamental act of dwelling. Houses and buildings are not products in essence but productions of socialized building culture based on contextual variables. 

 

This leads back to another reactionary theory on industrialization. Habraken's conceptualization of supports and infill admitted the necessary interaction between an inhabitant and his or her dwelling: Understanding one's capacity to build, modify or even adapt one’s own environment. Habraken argued for industrialized collective elements, while individualized elements could be contextualized based on design pattern methodology.  Where do both ideas direct the future of offsite construction? While commodities are mass produced and are relatively the same in every country, building techniques, methods, bylaws, codes, trades, customs still and arguably will continue to vary from country to country and sometimes even within countries; building in the south of Canada is completely different from building in the its Arctic territories. Contextual variables, site, climate, traditions, impede the same type of mass integration that goes on in other production sectors. 

 

Still, prefabrication was and can be an important part of building culture and remains an object of study proposing to rationalize building. The platform approach being posited by many today admits the necessary customization and envisions open kit systems that could be made adaptable to a great number of varied situations from similar parts and processes. Perhaps this more open form of industrialization combined with a digitally driven prototyping process develops a new era of mechanisation in construction. Co-bots, robots or even drones applied to construction increase the potential efficiencies of onsite construction, making the onsite - offsite construction debate moot as digital fabrication can increase uniqueness while increasing productivity.  

Giedion's take on barriers to prefabricated housing

Prefabrication experiments - 299 - Trade literature - 10 _ Government intervention

 

Beyond the lobbying efforts of trade organisations looking to increase industrialization of construction, for their members' benefits, political agendas have also played an important role in disseminating manufacturing methodologies in construction. To increase productivity and reduce expenditures for civic buildings, policies have ranged from obliging a percentage of offsite construction to specifying performance-based offsite practices. Both strategies imply that governments become promoters of off-site construction. 

 

Two notable historic examples, Operation Breakthrough in the USA (1969) and the GSK program in Japan (1971)  discussed construction's lagging productivity and idealized efficient manufacturing methodologies to argue for applying production theories to architecture. While both programs did not immediately succeed in reforming artisanal construction, they were a fertile ground for developing novel ideas, systems, methods and strategies. About a decade ago, in Malaysia, a similar initiative for increasing productivity outlined the phrase Industrialized Building System from the examination of best practices in industrialized construction in both Europe and America going back to the 1960s. As of 2008, seventy percent IBS content of all contracted public work’s buildings became a requirement. 

 

IBSs include but are not limited to the use of open and interoperable component based modular volumetric systems employed for a variety of building types. The government promotes an open systems approach for harmonizing on and offsite construction and has devised a plan for increased interoperability between systems. Almost a century after it was first studied in other nations; MC or modular coordination defines a dimensional matrix applied to building materials and components. 100mm or 1M is the smallest unit, like Bemis' 4-inch module used in construction since the early twentieth century, modular coordination facilitates planning and leads to simpler and repeatable assemblies.

 

While the government has defined the basic framework of IBS and prescribed the 70% threshold for all public buildings, some data shows that conventional builders still seem to prefer onsite building methods as the greater startup costs in IBS precludes fair competition. IBS requires more upfront planning, greater stakeholder collaboration and increased overhead costs linked to factory production. Even as offsite's advantages are clear and seem too great to pass up, especially in an era of rapid urbanization, increasing uptake still remains challenged by the artisan's perceived flexibility and adaptability. 

Box units or modular construction is part of the 70% baseline for IBSs in Malaysia

 

Prefabrication experiments - 298 - Trade literature - 09 - Modular and Portable Building Association's learning hub

The acute demand for affordable housing in cities is well documented. In the UK for example, it’s estimated that up to 8,4 million people live in either inadequate, unaffordable or unsafe conditions (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-49787913). As in past eras of housing crises, the problem’s enormity forces all stakeholders involved in the procurement or provision of dwellings to scrutinize all aspects of housing’s development. Construction's stagnating productivity is a subject that gets ample publicity and attention as an area that could be improved to deliver quality and affordable dwellings. Today as in the past, off-site construction is promoted as a way forward. Prefabrication's sometimes questionable reputation and connotation was generated in these moments of social turmoil. Post-war prefabs were wrought with doubtful construction quality giving the entire industry a standing that it’s still, in some ways, trying to abdicate. 

 

Every industrialized nation seems to have a similar record with offsite construction driven by early twentieth century production methods and sustained through trade organizations and government policies. Recently the industry has been tackling these connotations in an increasingly aggressive fashion as modular is envisioned as a growing field responding at once to a need for houses and to critical labor shortages in certain traditional construction trades. While modular is becoming mainstream, it's potential to compete with traditional construction both in matters of cost and quality is largely still a matter of perception and sometimes ignorance regarding its true potentials. 

 

Britain’s Modular and Portable Building Association was founded in 1938. Like many other modular building institutes, it is a member driven lobby group that promotes modular construction through its role as an advisory body working to normalize processes and products toward a greater uptake in Off-site construction. An important initiative, part of their role in promoting quality, is the MPBA's learning hub which strives to leverage education and training to offer National Vocational Qualifications, fostering methods and strategies framed by best practices. The Diploma in Innovative Modern Methods of Construction for Modular, Portable Building addresses the need for training tradespeople with the specific knowledge required to offer quality manufactured buildings. Trade associations play an important role in educating both the consumer and the producer.

Link to the Learning Hub
http://learninghub-mpba.biz

 

Prefabrication experiments - 297 - Trade literature - 08 - Prefab NZ and the Unipod

Membership based organizations are a form of trade group or cluster that federate stakeholders through corporate ambitions to either boost their market share or advertise untapped potentials. These organisations, usually funded by founding partners or companies can also be initiated and sustained by government policy. Recently, the Off-site construction industry has set up multiple manufacturer member associations in various countries to announce the benefits industrialized construction.

 

PefabNZ was created in 2010 following the publication of a student's master's thesis (Pamela Bell) who argued for Off-site construction as a more sustainable way of building explicitly in reaction to New Zealand's housing crisis. Prefab NZ organizes training, publication and design initiatives to move the industry forward through industry and practice-based research. A notable design competition organized in 2016 requested proposals for utility wall or service cores; integrated baths, kitchens or combo pods that could be factory produced, delivered and set into buildings on-site. 

 

The winning entry designed by First Light Studio is essentially a «thick» core-wall containing a back-to-back configuration of kitchen and bath connected to all necessary ducting, plumbing and wiring. The Uni-pod proposal articulates its procurement and design methodology to an open source framework and can be included as part of any building system. The idea of a pre-approved open-source service core is not a new idea. Prefab NZ in this respect continues some of the theoretical exercises related to prefab since the early twentieth century. 

 

The service core is a recurring experiment positing efficient synchronisation between factory and onsite building. The Unipod and what has been described as «The service Unit» or «The Heart Unit» or even «The Home's Engine» endeavour to simplify plumbing connections to avoid on-site conflicts.  Very simplistic core units were installed in the UK's post war prefab houses. The UK-100 designed by the UK Ministry of Works included plumbing for kitchen and bath and was linked to a hot-water tank. Built-into prefabs as of 1946, it is important to note that many UK houses did not have indoor toilets at the time. This was an innovation that inspired many of the advances in service distribution within industrialized dwellings. The Unipod in the same way reimagines the core as an integrated piece of conventional construction refocusing prefab strategy toward primary functional spaces within dwellings. 

Unipod (left), UK-100 (right)