Prefabrication experiments - 339 - 10-storey building assembled in one day

Speed - prefabrication, industrialized building is promoted as a quicker alternative to conventional construction. Large building chunks and sub-assemblies can be made and then assembled in a factory while site preparation and foundations proceed on site. This parallel task completion challenges the linear process that usually characterizes building construction. Apart from task overlapping, most industrialized building systems are also designed to facilitate on site setting and systemic itemizing as a way of rationalizing coordination. The integration of details to simplify assembly is illustrated by a new modular building platform presented by Chinese promoter, Broad Group. The proposal uses three interrelated concepts: a proprietary stainless steel stressed skin panel for floors or walls (the b-core), standardized grid for regulating x,y and z dimensions, and folding appendages for floors and bay windows. The box-stacking concept goes up in record time; A 10-storey building was assembled in a single day. 

 

The b-core is a composite stressed skin panel with stainless steel plates as skins structuring aligned steel tubes. The robust panel can span both vertically and horizontally and is used to manufacture the boxes. As the shipping container like volumes are delivered they are installed over steel beams that span adjacent vertical modules. Floor plates are then unfolded from the basic prism over the supporting beams. The 2,4x12x2,7 m boxes create a checkerboard pattern of masses and voids. The service (module) versus served space (unfolded slab) arrangement is repeated vertically as the volumes and unfolded slabs are aligned and stacked by anchor points at their corners. Analogous to shipping container connections, the anchor points are used to lift, set and attach each unit in place. Once in place, other hinged factory made accessories like balconies and bay windows are also unfolded into place. Architectural variability is limited to a number of planning configurations, which ultimately maintain all normalized details and speed of erection; standardization is key.  All interior elements and systems are 100% completed in a factory maximizing prefab theory; speed is not only linked to overlapping of tasks but manufacturing as much as possible leaving only foundations and assembly work onsite.

Stackable container-like units - from Broad Group

Prefabrication experiments - 338 - Zero waste kitchen

In the quest to industrialize building construction, dwelling functions have been analyzed, examined and explored as potential integrated subassemblies to be mass-produced and assembled into entire edifices. Bathroom pods, service cores and kitchens in particular have been theorized since the beginning of the twentieth century as building systems and elements conducive for applying manufacturing methods developed in parallel industries. The kitchen benefitted from this industrial product perspective and has become a modularized and highly industrialized manufactured component of any home;  Today, Cabinets are never really built-on site but arrive in simple to install kits and have even been furthered by industry specific software streamlining the design to market process. 

 

The rich heritage of the modular kitchen owes its industrial legacy to architect Margarette Shütte-Lihotsky. Her work on the Frankfurt Kitchen designed as part of Ernst May's New Frankfurt social housing planning and construction project was envisaged as an efficient machine for cooking and spawned the laboratory kitchen associated with modernity in architecture. Nearly 100 years later, the kitchen still fascinates as an integrated device to promote healthy living.  Another Austrian Architect, Ivana Steiner, has designed a kitchen with sustainability in mind. The simple linear kitchen organization facilitates its integration in any space but is planned as an island type dissociated from wall elements, it is proposed as a central element. Contrary to the Frankfurt kitchen this spatial interpretation invites the idea that the kitchen is no longer simply a machine, but a space for socialization as well as production. 

 

The prism 4m long x 0,6m wide x 0,9m high combines recycled stainless steel and glass for all of its components. Each part of the kitchen makes an ecological statement questioning elements like overpackaging, proposing bulk purchases, and facilitating composting. For the longest time our kitchens have been passive elements for creating waste; the zero-waste kitchen houses an herb growing garden showcasing how housing components can be an active part of the home’s ecosystem. The linear modular unit uses recycled steel and glass to argue for low-emission building and durability of materials. Designed to teach and educate like the Frankfurt kitchen, the zero-waste kitchen updates the machine for cooking to a device for eco-friendly living.  

Frankfurt kitchen (left); Zero waste kitchen (right)