Prefabrication experiments - 460 - Notes in passing - 05 - Platforms for Life Timber Kit-of-Parts

 

The affordable housing crisis affecting many is pressing stakeholders to assess the lagging productivity of conventional construction. For building new dwellings or for retrofitting aging 20th century building stocks, traditional trades and procedures lack the required swiftness, optimized resource management and takt times that the present state of housing development economics requires.  Planning, permitting, financing, approvals and contracting are all time-consuming stages that can be facilitated by kit or platform approaches. Using predetermined processes, components and parts outlined to streamline procurement increases production capacity aligned with offsite construction potentials.

 

The Platforms for Life design system initiated by the Intelligent City project https://intelligent-city.com/urban-housing-product/ proposes a comprehensive building system that uses mass timber components in rationalized, standardized, modular and flexible configurations adapted and modelled for any site. Articulated to optimized spans in relation to flat dimensions, the online metrics configurator expedites preliminary feasibility studies that encompass all project criteria; ready-to-go from the initial planning meetings. The manufacturable parts facilitate everything from gaining city approvals to architectural detailing as projects repeat identical chunks, stitching and joinery. Each site-specific project is distilled as a digital twin integrating the design, fabrication, assembly and construction processes through BIM software.

 

Iterative studies are adjusted and tweaked in real time without losing their integrated manufacturability as grid-based aggregations all deploy the system's underlying DNA. Once confirmed, the parametric models include capacities for detailed design or even analysis. A prime example of digital based integration of the design and construction processes, each building is devised with the same parts, then sequenced and delivered to the construction site to facilitate assembly. The nimble industrialized building system includes criteria for reducing energy consumption, span optimization and topological diversity. This type of union between design, fabrication, assembly and adaptable just-in-time delivery exemplifies how DFMA and offsite construction are leveraged to respond to high demand by organizing a supply chain of stakeholders, professionals and products through centralized design devices harmonizing normalized hardware and software components.

Platforms for Life artist rendering