Prefabrication experiments - 324 - Manufacturing methodologies - 04 - Made-to-order

 

Sometimes called custom made and frequently associated with made-to-measure this type of production method implies a personalized experience and perhaps relates in the most basic way to building construction. Buildings are generally designed and made to specifications to reach an envisioned uniqueness. Like a tailor-made suit in the fashion industry this does not impede the use of certain patterns that communicate ascertained ways of putting things together. For example, A tailor will consistently place buttons according to models, use the same stitchwork patterns or pockets sizes and so on, even if the garment is uniquely suited to the body for which it is intended; repeatable parameters mark out its production. 

 

Building is similar, even though many argue that edifices are singular creations, underlying and existing patterns regulate a building's design, assembly, and construction. Span tables, product catalogues, code requirements, ergonomic standards and bylaws all influence the limits of uniqueness. Buildings may be designed as one-offs, but they rely on made-to-stock production for most of their components. 

 

Industrialized building systems and Offsite construction direct a contrasting methodology where a building is assembled from preset parameters chosen and arrayed to produce or compose an engineered-to-order building. The manufactured steel building, for example, Butler Manufacturing’s portal frame hangar is an obvious example of the difference between made-to-order and engineered-to-order. The same building frame and components could be purchased by a consumer in northern Canada or in the southern United States, and while components are basically the same, each building will have to be designed and calculated for specific contextual constraints, snow loads, wind loads, hurricane and seismic conditions as all these factors will differ; steel profiles may be engineered to be thicker and heavier to respond to greater loads, however the appearance of the building will remain the same. 

 

Customization, in made-to-order is often determined and limited to some basic principles: making certain changes that require little reworking in the factory to get done. Complete customization and taylor made prefab systems are rare and based on artisanal approaches. Light frame panel producers are a notable example where each bespoke design is pushed out of the factory according to a completely customized design.

Butler steel portal frame building