The concept of a design platform, sometimes identified today as platform DfMA (design for manufacturing and assembly) is a manufacturing principle potentially applied to architecture. First employed by General Motors, platform theory is the application of a structural or modular framework among several nuanced products. Automobile manufacturers generate a range of models from a series of shared component, research, and production optimizations. In architecture and industrialized construction this idea was conveyed by Walter Gropius’ expandable house in 1909. The modular design yielded design variants from a small number of normalized components.
In 1933, Bemis in «The Evolving House» envisaged an analogy between building and automobile production to improve construction’s productivity. This analogy is still cited today as a source of inspiration to make building construction more efficient. In 2004 architects Kieran and Timberlake published a manifesto «Refabricating Architecture» affirming a comprehensive vision for applying industrial methodologies used for making automobiles, airplanes and ships in the building industry. Arguably a contemporary synonym for «industrialized building system» without the connotation of mass repetition, the design platform implies a much more integrated model of production involving all stakeholders in design, manufacture, production and distribution.
Powered by new modelling potentials, the DfMA platform approach encompasses a digital thread to control, manage and construct, the entire building process before it is shaped on site. In addition, the exchange of data rich objects, pieces or elements allows different stakeholders to adjust design parameters and details in real time; While debated as a new way forward by Bryden Wood, Project Frog, Mod Z modular, WOHO, 369 Pattern Buildings and many more, the platform approach carries an enduring legacy defined by General Motors, Bemis, Gropius and important prototypes like the Descon System. Descon Concordia's proposal for Operation Breakthrough in 1969 is perhaps one of the most comprehensive building systems of the 20th century that foreshadowed the integrated building systems and platform conceptualizations we see today. Using a basic panelized precast concrete modular building kit, Descon defined all aspects and criteria of the planning, manufacturing and construction process into a streamlined, rationalized and coordinated system. Some 50 years later, platform building puts a new spin on this old idea and is an affirmation of how forward thinking the system was.
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| Comparative analysis of two platform systems |
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