Prefabrication experiments - 360 - Fabricating Modern Structural Form

 

Notably during industrialization with the invention of new materials, methods and building types, achieving maximum spans with minimal material informed structural theory and pedagogy. Correlating these two objectives, modern architects and engineers explored varied and variable structural systems that have become synonymous with their era. From ribbed slabs to castellated beams, reducing weight while maintaining and profiling structural integrity requires intelligent constructions, assemblies, and geometric finesse.  The geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller, the grid shell tessellations of Pier Luigi Nervi, August Komendant's concrete space frames and Robert LeRicolais' lightweight beam experiments all materialized structural conceptualizations by decreasing material use; all shaped geometry, points, lines and their networks to respond to stresses and strains in an optimal manner. 

 

Through examining beam principles, compression, and tension in upper and inferior parts of a beam with forces neutralized closer to the center of the beam, matter is directed to eliminate waste and in response to loads, producing systems that are physical illustrations of their most favorable load transmissions. Today, generative design tools make it possible to optimize the representational and structural relationship even further between modular elements, structural form and geometry; grid shell systems combine resistant forms and shapes with lightweight struts or other modular elements that can be arranged according to underlining physical criteria and material characteristics. These structural optimizations can also lead to construction efficiencies based on similar ideals of modularization, assembling edifices from multiplied dimensionally coordinated components; An idea eloquently defined by Pier luigi Nervi's patent for structural prefabrication.  

 

Stacking boxes, aligning frames, organizing, or mapping shapes from tile-like elements all speak to the relationship between structures and reproductible components - a type of piecework quilting to achieve building form.  Further, modern structural prototypes with increasing spans defined a uniquely modern syntax linked to universal, flexible, and adaptable open spaces free from any structural obstacles.  The next ten blog posts will examine structural archetypes, the modern use of grid, modularity, geometry, and replicability to showcase innovative building systems.  Prefabrication, industrialized building systems, offsite construction and platform principles applied to architecture, all, in some way, employ similar modular schemes to propose the efficient production of edifices. 

Gatti Wool Factory ribbed isostatic slab by Pier Luigi Nervi

Prefabrication experiments - 359 - Containerization of housing

 

Residential housing design employs repetitive organisations and has been the subject of industrialized production using volumetric boxes or panelized building systems in a variety of materials. Spans are relatively small and rectangular. Apartments are often repeated from one floor plate to the next with interchangeable modular built-ins for wet spaces (kitchens, baths).  These patterns guide the housing market making it an ideal sector for normalized fabrication and process replication. A notable production analogy devised to improve efficiencies in housing uses the ISO container storage unit, a stackable block determined by intermodal transport with standardized dimensions and connections as a model for building construction.

 

Normalized containers generalized and communicated a way of shipping things across the planet. The boxes also outlined a common way of storing things, aboard a ship, in a port or in warehouses.  A similar containerization strategy is behind English company Verbus’ way to quickly put together mid-rise housing.  The basic building block, a generic module looks and works much like a shipping container that has been modified and tuned according to multi-unit residential requirements. The volume, 3,6m width x12,2 m length x2.9 m in height includes openings for a central corridor, which defines a double loaded floor plate of small studio flats. Windows and balcony elements are provided on the units’ extremities.  Service shaft holes above and below the container structure standardize duct placement to pre-set vertical mechanical distribution. 

 

More than just a container, the Verbus system has been designed with attachment points to vary massing from straight linear plans to rhythmic alternating and protruding compositions. Cladding and brickwork hangers are also incorporated for any number of wall systems to be attached to the basic steel structure. The generic floor plan presents a 12’ grid with 5 juxtaposed containers, 3 of which have the corridor scheme while the two end containers complete 2-bedroom units, without the hallway space. The steel structured volumes can be stacked up to 16 stories high and have found resonance with hotel design, a definitive outlet for a containerized design.

Verbus massing and floorplate diagrams

 

Prefabrication experiments - 358 - Sterckeman caravans and a house for everyone

For better or for worse, prefabrication often evokes the preconceptions associated with the mobile home. Objectively, the negative press, suspect construction methods and low quality materials have long been forgotten. Today’s manufactured dwellings have nothing to do with pre and post-war prefabs. The obsession with mobility, the possibility of towing one’s home and using industrialized materials and processes to offer accessible dwellings endure as the objectives of the mobile home. The Sterckeman family, based in France in the small town of Seclin near the Belgium border started producing mobile homes or «caravanes», in accordance with the optimistic leisure-based dreams post WW2. As was the case with other mobile home companies, the Sterckemans also attempted to produce inexpensive fixed housing prototypes. 

 

A long-lasting partnership with well-known French architect Paul Chemetov, who had designed commercial and industrial buildings for the family, led to the company's experiment related to one of modern architecture's central themes: A house for everyone. Charles and Ray Eames, Jean Prouvé, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, Cedrick Price, and the list could go on have all taken a stab at the problem of affordable, manufactured, and well-designed single-family dwellings. The Chemetov-Sterckeman relationship spawned a house made from mass-produced components. Developed on modernist canons, the house floats on pilotis (slender posts) but is grounded by a vertical service core that leads to and serves first story living spaces. A core-house in its most canonical expression, the centralized outward radiating grid-based geometry arranges the plan, its structure and supports external appendages suspended from the steel skeleton. The house showcases its elements as a part of an industrial kit; bay windows are made from repurposed skylights and tubular railings expose the design's link to off-the-shelf zeitgeist and narrative that architects love to argue for to reduce costs. 

 

The architectural prototype is a protected heritage landmark and was extended during its service life. The Sterckeman dwelling was part of an exhibit on Chemetov's work at the Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine in 2012, showcasing the continued interest in the modernist dream of combining manufacturability with architectural impetuses.

Sterckeman - Chemetov house and excerpt from caravan catalogue