Prefabrication experiments - 406 - Modular naval construction as a model

Industrialized building / offsite construction protagonists have contemplated successes in bordering industries for inventiveness to increase productivity in construction. Automobile manufacturing served as one of the earliest benchmarks of serial fabrication potentially suitable for architecture. Assembly line principles led to the development of the mobile home and later to more factory intensive building systems, namely heavy precast panels in Germany, France and beyond. Recent digital advances in manufacturing methodologies have reinvigorated the links with car production as an icon of platform thinking, making differentiated products from the same composing parts, underbellies, or chassis. Aeronautics has also been projected onto building production as planes are assembled with large factory-made hunks that are seamlessly integrated according to models, known as digital or fabrication twins. 

 

Perhaps the most compelling comparison is with shipbuilding, as it has evolved into a type of coordinated stacking of big chunks inspiring construction of buildings with similar large-scale factory-finished boxes. An example of multi-trade prefabrication or near-ship prefabrication, parts are fashioned into large blocks which are then assembled as a complete hull. Further, shipbuilding, especially cruise ship building, addresses the same challenges posed by buildings, as they are basically large floating hotels with spaces, functions and even components that collective housing blocks include. 

 

Modularity in shipbuilding is also suggested as a way of reducing costs, delays and waste associated with complete ship overhauls to face changing and evolving needs. As in buildings, ship life spans can be increased substantially by integrating intelligent assembly and disassembly principles to make any modifications or updates simpler. Interoperable components, dimensional coordination, plug and play self-contained boxes and repeatable ship segments that can be used across multiple crafts are all elements that cross the boundary between naval architecture and building design.  Commonalities between ships can be typical galleys, medical facilities, rooms, and service cores that can be designed to fit into multiple ships distributing their planning costs over multiple product lines. This modularity and platform theory applied in naval yards is seen as a strategy to combat premature obsolescence and to harmonize complex supply chains, an estimable model for modular buildings.     

An example of modular ship hull composition