Prefabrication experiments - 340 - Ycube modular units

Stacking modular units has long been presumed to revolutionize building construction. Producing identical dimensionally coordinated boxes professes to save time and money. Units are manufactured while work proceeds on site abbreviating the linear process associated with conventional construction. Bringing complex coordination into the factory is another one of the major selling points of this type of building system. Even with its advantages, why has it been so difficult for modular to gain traction as a generalized building method? Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that in order to optimize costs design standards are repeated from one unit to another and further from one building to another as the only type of logical and successful application of modular construction is deploying identical units. This required repetition has challenged architects' quest for singularity. 

 

This quest for originality seems to be changing as undifferentiated objects and commodities increasingly inundate our lives. Age-old connotations associated with prefab are being transformed by globalization. Architects are rediscovering the systemic nature of offsite construction they had abandoned through the latter half of the twentieth century. The affordable housing crisis along with architecture and construction’s digitalization is driving a new era of experiments to creatively unite architecture and standardization. 

 

Y-cube designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners for a YMCA in South West London is a prime example of modular and manufacturing values applied to architecture. The building is made up of repeating 4 x 7m units: a simple 1-bedroom apartment to reintegrate vulnerable populations. The container-like units are stacked and aligned without modifying their design. Exterior appendages for circulation, exits, and canopies are added to the simple boxes to introduce some customized and customizable components.  Related with the platform approach to building being promoted in the UK by Bryden wood, all required elements could be itemized, classified and purchased in bulk and distributed among several nuanced projects. Volumetric subassemblies and other modular elements, timber columns, slabs for gangways, can be developed as part of modular kits using harmonized supply chains to increase efficiencies and increase affordability.  

Y-cube system by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners