The relevance of factory production in architecture and construction has often been expounded by crises. The enormous material and human devastation of World War 2 combined with accumulated housing shortages in Europe underwrote massive housing production and its normalization. In North America, returning soldiers and the baby boom also pressured housing supply; both continents needed to build more and quicker. Standardization became key to two evolving building systems that in a sense represented their contexts’ political and social progression. Balloon and platform light timber frame construction complemented by onsite rigorous sequencing became the go to system for single family dwellings whereas standardization elevated the use of concrete panel systems for collective flats in Europe. The large panel building was democratized using a very simple structural system: the wall and slab monolithic hive archetype combines surface elements to create inhabitable cells in plan, section, and elevation. Bearing walls and spanning floor surface elements arrange simple one floor unidirectional tube-like apartments on either side of a central corridor.
The planar bearing elements and spanning slabs are connected through monolithic joinery. Extending reinforcing steel bars are tied together and specially formulated high strength low-shrink mortar fills the gaps bonding vertical and horizontal elements. The panels were sometimes cast in place or in a factory but usually on some type of horizontal casting surface or vibrating table. Flat-packed and transportable, the reinforced concrete panelized structures are monolithic, inherently fire-proof and robustly stable with vertical and horizontal panels contributing to lateral resistance. Panels for exterior walls could be faced with ceramic, brick, or any other material, but it's the structural simplicity that made the system successful in so many different contexts. The panel and slab system including standardized planning principles could be deployed and improved from building to building, deploying replicable details and processes. The wall and floor frames have recently been examined once again in relation to affordable housing stock only this time highlighting mass timber potentials. CLT panel and slab buildings use similar configurations to concrete large panel typologies with the added advantage of carbon sequestration.
Large precast reinforced concrete panels and prototype building in USSR
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