Prefabrication experiments - 319 - Icons - 09 - Motel «pattern language»

Mass production reformed all sectors of economic and societal development. In a relatively short time before and between the two World Wars, manufacturing fully evolved from artisanal, time intensive processes to specialized repeatable tasks leveraged toward the continuous, efficient and constantly improving production of goods. Industrial development’s influence on architecture, design and construction inspired architectural composition and variety from premade parts. Company literature and catalogues illustrating every component for building instructed architectural specification. Modern architects unlike their predecessors no longer invented project specific components, but detailed and specified catalogued elements. The repetitive and codified nature of this revolution also guided the commodification of particular building types; Standardization was notable in housing, tract or collective, and in the roadside travel culture spawned from the prosperous and productive years following the second World War. 

 

Along with modular roadside diners, park visitor centers, perhaps the most iconic expression of standardized territorial decentralization was the motor court inn or the motel. Motel design exemplified modern modular, geometric and grid organizing and construction principles. Complementing automobile culture, most provided a series of simple no frill rooms accessible from a collective «motor court», a replicable archetype developed from the idea of arranging cabins under a continuous roof and clustered around a paved area which sometimes included a swimming pool. The planning principles were certainly repeated, however only a marginal amount were factory produced. 

 

Most exalted the car to room connection. An abbreviation of motor-hotel, 61000 of these one-two floor buildings swiftly made the road-trip a highlight of Americana. The horizontal spatial layouts coincided or perhaps were a result of the development of American and California modernism more precisely, which has become known as mid-century modern. Most employed modernist figures, flat or shed roofs, or long and continuous horizontal patios related to the large expanses of surrounding emptiness. A direct consequence of industrialization applied to building, the relationship between car, room and courtyard became a motel «pattern language». The zig-zag plan used at the Capitol inn (Sacramento California, circa 1950) exemplifies this coded design strategy. The repetitive nature of lodging makes it a perfect and fertile ground for modular construction and many hotel promoters are presently driving a new era of industrialization in the lodging sector.

Capitol Inn plan (Sacramento, California)

 

Prefabrication experiments - 318 - Icons - 08 - Shipbuilding

The convergence and influence of manufacturing methodologies on modernism in architecture have been largely considered in literature.  Henry Ford's assembly line, the Toyota production method and other manufacturing strategies have been fostered and federated by architects and industrialists to proclaim efficient ways forward for building construction. Along with automobile production, naval architecture’s multifunctional constitution and largescale shipyard management model was cited by Le Corbusier in Towards a New Architecture (1923). Megaship production was seen and is still mentioned as closely related to and as a pattern for the construction of edifices. 

 

Like buildings, pre-industrial ships were produced in a linear process; tasks were completed sequentially. Through industrial advances, many systems in today's ships are manufactured decentrally and concurrently: cabins or other systems are completed in factories, delivered, and fitted into place while the mega hulls take shape. This overlap of tasks makes scheduling more efficient.

 

As acute labor shortages affect building productivity, costs and schedules, shipbuilding has again garnered attention by industrialized construction protagonists for multiple reasons: first, the scale and scope of shipbuilding compares to building construction, second, the number of systems and components that require a coherent interconnectedness and weathertightness resembles the systemic complexity in architecture. Finally, supply chain management of enumerable disparate pieces and components dwarfs the logistics demanded in buildings. Shipbuilding inspires modular building approaches showcasing largescale assembly of factory-made volumes and sections.

 

Further, construction management in naval yards, which function as open-air building factories, exemplifies integrated project delivery.  An umbrella firm superintends the coordination of all trades and their subassemblies. Using a mega-block strategy common in the industry, «giant blocks» weighing as much as 1000 tons a piece are made in assigned workshops and integrated in the naval yard. The giant-chunks, which contain every functional and technical requirement are welded together to form the monocoque structure and shell.  

 

Another interesting area of overlap between architecture and shipbuilding is the required adaptability over time. Ships like buildings need to be retrofitted. This systemic adaptability is achieved through intelligent nesting. Long-lasting elements are permanent while exchangeable short-term pieces are unitized and designed to facilitate their removal and replacement. 

Ships as multifunctional buildings : representation by LeCorbusier. 

Prefabrication experiments - 317 - Icons - 07 - Jean Prouvé and curtain walls

 

Despite their promise, applying industrial principles, mechanisation, factory production, repetition and componentisation to architecture became predominantly an exercise in representation. Few architects actually fulfilled the potentials of Fordisms or Taylorisms to revolutionize building construction. A specific area of building construction where industrialisation has been applied successfully is in curtain wall façade elements. Unitized, panelized or skeletal repetitive elements are produced in a factory and assembled into a framework into or onto which glass or spandrel panels are inserted to create a lightweight skin to be suspended from any structural system. The curtain wall’s commercial and globalized use became the symbol of the international style. Experiments in engineering curtain walls go back to early experiments in window walls, skylights and the development of conservatory buildings; the Crystal Palace being the most famous. 

 

Maison du Peuple de Clichy (1936-39) developed in a suburb of Paris (Clichy-la-Garenne) elucidates early experimentation with «cobbled» curtain wall elements.  Architects Beudoin and Lods enlisted designer, producer and master industrialist Jean Prouvé to design and fabricate most of the building's façade and structural components. In an open, transformable and adaptable plan the multi-use building housed cultural and community activities all under one roof. The interior could be transformed from an open covered clustering of market stalls into a grand hall for festivals or gatherings.  Standardized steel components made it possible to completely transform the interior of the building in just a few hours. 

 

The building’s innovative envelope included standardized folded metal plates shaped to house glass or metal skin panels.  An ancestor of current curtain wall systems Prouvé’s interpretation uses the folded metal plates, a series of curved interior and exterior mullion elements, to sandwich metal, glass or any other material into a panelized lightweight surface.  The rigorous 1m grid used by Prouvé in many of his projects allows for efficient batch production for mullions, glass and metal elements. Clear corrugated acrylic translucent panels (Rhodoid) inserted within the same system diffuse lighting by day and create a light box effect at night. Operable, moveable skylights on the roof amplify the open-air market character of the multi-use space. Slated to be remodelled with a new urban multi-use tower in 2017, the Maison du Peuple remains a master class in modern and industrial curtain wall principles.

curtain wall sketch

 

Prefabrication experiments - 316 - Icons - 06 - Carl Koch Unfordable House Package

Facilitating onsite construction has been and remains the chief argument for prefabrication. Ordering materials, contracting tradespeople and mandating professional services make the process of building daunting even for the most ambitious. Simplifying and streamlining every part of the home building and purchasing process has constantly motivated industrialists, inventors, and architects. 

 

Simplifications have encompassed dwelling systems that can be delivered and literally build themselves with little human effort and minimal onsite assembly. Particularly in the mobile home sector, making house parts extendable, retractable, or even telescopic were conceived to augment space, function or flexibility once unpacked after delivery.

 

Well-known for his Techbuilt house timber kits based on simplified and contextually adapted modernist principles, Carl Koch also experimented with an unfolding house package.  Through a partnership with John Bemis (son of prefab pioneer Albert Bemis) they envisioned a low-cost home package from modular components and repurposed surplus military materials. Their objective was to mass-produce a box-type packaged house for approximately 7000 $ per unit to serve an acute postwar need for affordable housing. 

 

Like other similar experiments, the house design isolates service spaces (core) from served spaces (flexible unwrapped spaces). The central core container unit (8’x9'x23' or 2,4mx2,7mx7m) incorporated kitchen, bath and all technical spaces. The standardized dimension would make it simple to transport. Pivoting bearing panels were attached to the core using giant steel hinges. Once delivered and fixed to a concrete foundation, the stressed skin panels, made from a phenolic paper honeycomb core laminated with plywood, opened outward to arrange floors, walls and roof elements outlining a livable space of approximately 800 square feet. The honeycomb composite panels were inexpensive to manufacture, lightweight, easy to work with and integrated advances made in glues and polymers; An impregnated resin made the panels, robust, rigid and waterproof. Exterior laminating skins in plywood or masonite could be produced with any coating. The unfolding process would only require 32 man-hours to configurate the house platform. However, bogged down by local resistance and code issues only one prototype of Koch and Bemis’ vision was built in 1947.

Container before and after unfolding