If precast reinforced concrete panels epitomized prefab production in the 20th century, flexibility and adaptability emerged as two symbolic theories developed by architectural pedagogy as a way forward for linking mass production’s required repetition with architecture’s ingrained culture of bespoke designs. Iconic explored this tension through the systemic potential for industrialized elements to accommodate various functions and organizations based on a set number of configurations and parts.
Literature on this type of modularity is broad with flagship architects like Konrad Wachsmann arguing for a radical change in building construction. From airplane hangars to universal spaces and connectors for houses, his book published by Reinhold in 1961, The Turning Point of Building outlined a variety of strategies for modernizing structures and design. Predominantly articulated to rigorous grids with replicating joinery at each intersection to deploy thick surfaces in every scope and scale, Wachsmann's explorations were inspired by furniture making, Mero connectors and by Buckminster Fuller's octet trusses for packing and spanning spaces. The publication establishes the space frame as an efficient strategy for a myriad of arrangements and large open spans. The open-plan concept, above all others relates modern architects' view of innovation in architecture to skeletal building systems. Using the universality of grids and their joints, Wachsmann argued for simple connections toward an infinite number of aggregating and tectonic affirmations.
The elimination of bearing walls and the reduction of weight to the bare minimum required for structural performance would optimize both adaptability and rationalize costs. Today, these principles first explored in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are providing a renewed framework for industrialized building systems. The exploration of grids and modularity still represents a large portion of architectural theory as well as practice and pedagogy, aiming to bridge the gap between mass-produced components and customizable arrangements. Identified as platform theory applied to architecture, the ideas expressed by Wachsmann as a turning point are again being highlighted as ways to increase prefab's social acceptability by reinforcing systemic production without the echoing connotations of subpar designs.
Excerpt from The Turning Point of Building
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