Prefab Architecture: A Guide to Modular Design and Construction

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These houses were remarkably simi- lar to Fisher's company in that they had flat roofs and used a metal sandwich panel system for ex- terior walls. While General Houses and American Houses developed an innovative panel system, the Pierce Foundation prefabricated a services core that housed kitchen, bathroom, and all plumbing fixtures. The core also held heating and air conditioning ser- vices.

American Houses implemented the Pierce Foundation's service core in their prototype. The ser- vice core in the American Houses showing was one of the first identifiable modular examples in prefab- rication building. This prefabricated service module mirrored Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House pod, which will be discussed in Chapter 2. Builder George Fred Keck developed both the 1.

On display were a number of examples of steel used in housing. Keek's prototypes featured steel frame and glass infill walls. The House of Tomorrow comprised a 1 2- sided, 3-story structure that resembled an airplane hangar more than a house. Keck used prefabricated steel elements to develop the steel superstructure, enclosure panels, and railings. It is reported that , people visited this house during the first year of exhibition but not one buyer was secured. The Crystal House built upon the steel frame con- cept and could be erected in an impressive three days.

It too was unsuccessful in market and sold for scrap to pay off Keek's bills. As World War II was coming to a close, returning soldiers increased market demand for hous- ing. In , the U. This initiative sparked numer- ous efforts in postwar housing design, including ar- chitects Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann's "Prepackaged House" proposal, which will be dis- cussed in Chapter 2. Although this mandate did not reach its envisioned breath of impact and comple- tion, it gave rise to a number of prefabrication hous- ing companies over the course of a decade. The houses were traditional in form, simple, with modest gable roofs and porches, but innova- tive in that they were constructed of entirely prefab- ricated enamel steel on the exterior and interior.

Carl Strandlund, an industrialist from the prewar years, took the concept of automobile process to hous- ing even more literal than experiments in the 1 s with metal sandwich panel technology. The method and even material in this case were literally to be fashioned after automobile manufacturing.

Just as a car, the house had contained too many pieces to be feasible in construction. The components did not always make sense in their sizes in relation to manu- facturing standard sizes of sheet metal and therefore created unnecessary waste. In the end, the houses were too expensive for modest income buyers. After only 2, homes were built, the company closed in In addition to the method of production being problematic, Lustron homes were cold, both visually and in temperature.

Employing little insulation, the metal house would heat up in the summer and freeze in the winter. This Lustron home still stands in Madison, Wisconsin. Instead of producing homes in the factory, Levitt systematized the onsite process. Using principles of assembly line production and adding a separation of construction planning and execution borrowed from Taylorism, Levitt organized crews to maximize production ef- ficiencies and material use. The homes were unremarkable, very similar, and were the plausible foreshadowing model of cookie cutter de- velopments in the United States.

In California, Joseph Eichler similarly developed a systematized method for onsite construction by de- veloping entire communities of housing. However, having grown up in a Frank Lloyd Wright house and being a lover of the arts, Eichler was appalled at the lack of variety and aesthetic appeal in Levitt's prod- uct. Eichler, therefore, hired architects on the West Coast to design courtyard and exterior-interior rela- tional plans that employed post-and-beam design and large expanses of glass. These homes were designed and built on a rigid grid, and featured standardized mechanical and plumbing systems that allowed for variety within a set system.

Eichler was not only interested in style being influenced by California modernists, but was a socialist, wanting to open modern architectural design to the middle class of housing. In comparison to Lustron, Levitt, and many others already discussed, Eichler's mission was somewhat successful, building developments in Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, and San Rafael. Eichler began in the mid-1 s and, by , had become so efficient at delivering modern homes Figure 1.

This house in Utah is modeled after mid-century Eichler houses. There are neighborhoods throughout the western United States that are built within the principles of courtyards, large expanses of glass set within a post-and-beam structure. The impact of these homes on prefabrication technique is next to none; however, in studying what prefabrication promises— increased quality and reduced cost— it was influential.

At the end of the day the reason these homes succeeded and continue to succeed from one owner to another is attributed not only to their aesthetic appeal and unparalleled location, but to the commitment, attention to detail, design, and quality that Joe Eichler himself was willing to offer to the process. Nissen huts, the UK equivalent of the U. Ouonset hut, provided much- needed shelter during and after the war. The United Kingdom used innovative technologies of the time, including steel framing and asbestos cement clad- ding, timber framing, precast concrete, and alu- minum.

The homes were not overly stylized, and employed prefabricated kitchen and bathroom sys- tems. It was at this time that many of the wartime and postwar prefabrication housing companies in the United States provided and influenced hous- ing in the United Kingdom during their rebuilding efforts. In particular, the Tennessee Valley Authority project for the Roosevelt Dam in employed prefabricated temporary shelter for workers on the dam.

This technology was used in the United Kingdom, for its recovery efforts, learning from the Americans' methods as well as receiving actual houses that were produced in the United States and were shipped across the Atlantic for rebuild- ing efforts. The difference in the UK programs when compared to prefab initiatives in the United States, is that the houses were intended to be temporary, focusing on speed rather than quality.

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Similar to the UK temporary housing programs, mo- bile homes were completely built as a module on a chassis in a factory and then trucked to site. Mobile homes kept their wheels, making them capable of transport, but in most cases were never moved.

By , mobiles accounted for a quarter of all single- family housing in the United States. This housing type was affordable and tran- sient, an ideal model for those struggling to find work in different regions. These trailers were used as tem- porary housing for migrant and emigrant workers during WWII, thus furthering its widespread use. After the war, many companies that began as recreational mobile trailer manufacturers shifted into producing permanent mobile housing.

As this temporary hous- ing type slowly became a more accepted means of permanent housing, it eventually became larger and more sophisticated in its methods of production and marketing. A major shift in the transition from mobile to perma- nent housing was the move from an 8-foot-wide to a 1 0-foot-wide trailer, allowing for more comfortable liv- ing. This shift had not only technical adaptations, but also social implications being accepted widely. This change continued to progress as 1 2-foot-wide and even 1 4-foot-wide mobile homes were manufactured in In , large mobiles called "double-wides" were introduced.

Each module was pulled to site and set in place making a foot-wide home. In , the code changed, distinguishing permanent homes as being those designed to the standard code i. Today, the HUD code homes have changed their name from mobile to manufactured housing. Sometimes confused for manufactured housing, modular homes are built to IBC code, are without a chassis, and are set onsite permanently. This is due to its lack of design variety and construction qual- ity.

Mobile dwellings have been the victims of hur- ricanes and tornadoes, becoming a talking point for construction professionals, many of whom would like to see manufactured housing fall forever. But the mobile home meets the basic needs of shelter, and at a cost the majority of citizens can afford. Despite society and architects' loathing of this building type, it is estimated that the manufactured home indus- try accounts for 4 percent of the market share for new single-family housing in the United States.

It has succeeded because it is not a part of the waste-laden architecture and con- struction industry methods of delivery. It has emerged autonomous and has thrived on its own terms of sup- ply and demand for nearly a century. It is built to a lower code. Because of this, prefabrica- tion, the method by which manufactured housing is realized, has come under attack as a subpar method of construction for all housing. It is only recently that manufactured methods of housing production are be- ing evaluated to create different levels or degrees of quality in mainstream housing.

This can be most eas- ily seen in the work of modular housing companies and prefab architects like Michelle Kaufmann and Joe Tanney at Resolution: The key tenants of these homes center upon the advantages that the manufactured housing industry teaches— that build- ing in modules considerably reduces the overhead and onsite labor and can dramatically reduce initial cost. Unlike mobile homes, Kaufmann and Tanney have used modular housing to infuse a higher level of sustainability, quality control, and craft.

More will be discussed concerning modular construction and other architects working in this area in Chapter 9. Early indications that precast was used can be found in the evi- dence of precast fountains and sculptural pieces in early Roman and later during the nineteenth cen- tury. Precast has also been found in burial vaults in cemeteries across the United States dating back the turn of the twentieth century. Despite the ad- vances made by the Romans, concrete was lost to the world for 13 centuries until, in , British engineer John Smeaton used hydraulic lime in con- crete.

Later, in the 1 s, Portland cement was first used. Joseph Monier made concrete flowerpots with wire reinforcement. The greatest advance to concrete construction was taking this concept into 1. Advanced pouring techniques and the availability of raw material make concrete acces- sible for a myriad of functions. The first use of rein- forced precast is attributed to French businessman E. Coignet, who developed a system of compo- nents similar to elements in the construction of the casino in Biarritz in Five years later, Frangois Hennebique is attributed with the first precast modu- lare, developed for gatekeepers' lodges.

Therefore, prestressed, precast concrete was first widely used in civil engineering projects such as water culverts and bridges. Kahn and engineer August Komendant employed prestressed concrete on the Richards Medical Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania campus, one of its first uses in ar- chitecture in Prestressed precast today is common, however, and continues to be used more often in larger commercial and industrial buildings that warrant its great strength and mass, as well as its financial investment.

Prefab Architecture: A Guide to Modular Design and Construction - Ryan E. Smith - Google Книги

The development of prestressed concrete is congru- ent with precast developments. Prestressing at the plant allows precast elements to be stronger, lighter, and an overall better use of material. Although a San Francisco engineer patented prestressed concrete in 1 , it did not emerge as an accepted building ma- terial in the United States until a half-century later.

The shortage of steel in Europe after World War II coupled with technological advancements in high-strength concrete and steel made prestressed concrete the building material of choice during European post- war reconstruction. North America's first prestressed concrete structure, the Walnut Lane Memorial Bridge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, however, was not com- pleted until In conventional reinforced concrete, the high ten- sile strength of steel is combined with concrete's great compressive strength to form a structural ma- terial that is strong in both compression and ten- sion.

The principle behind prestressed concrete is that compressive stresses induced by high-strength steel tendons in a concrete member before loads Figure 1. Using elaborate cast iron formwork and machinery allowed for up to three-story houses to be cast in a single pour. The iron formwork proved cumbersome and difficult. It was not until Charles Ingersoll, a wealthy New Jersey manufacturer who brought the idea of making the forms out tof wood, that Edison's single-pour concept was built. Construction began in in Union, New Jersey.

Fewer than houses were actually realized. However, today's methods of production in auto- mobile manufacturing have moved dramatically beyond notions of standardization, economy of scale, and flow. This enlightenment is af- fecting not only prefab technology development, but the social constructions by which buildings are produced, their contract structure, and the inter- face of players.

Digital fabrication is potentially a method by which the promises of prefabrication — complementary increase in design and production quality— may be realized. First is the link to the Industrial Revolution and mass pro- duction already discussed in this chapter. The other is that of digital automation. Automation is more computer technology than manufacturing. It is the process of creating machines that are automata, or have been purposely built to mimic the process of skilled human labor, controlled by instruction given via numerical command or computer numerical control CNC. Developed in the military, the Air Force after World War II sought to expand its manufacturing system to produce repetitive and complex geometric com- ponents for planes and weapons applications.

Lewis Mumford in Technics and Civilization shares the history of Benedictine monasteries in which numerical control emerged as a technique of regularization for the behavior of the monks. Mumford states that this marked a change in the human perception of time, relinquishing our physi- ological bodies from the rhythms of solar move- ments and seasons to being dictated by numerical control.

Bookkeeping methods advanced in tandem with trade calculation, and soon after, the notions of per- spective drawing, cartography, and planetary science expanded.

This all has come into fruition by virtue of the implementation of mathematics to understand spatial and social ends. This infatuation has not re- ceded; in fact, the Industrial Revolution opened the door to modern-day computation through a 1 1 sequencing. Numerical sequences became impor- tant to America in the materials, patents, and com- munications systems related to the telegraph and railroad era.

This was accomplished by using punch cards as the nu- merical input similar to numerical sequencing drives in contemporary computing. The Jacquard Loom is an excellent example of the theory of pro- grammable machines.

Punch card technology stayed relatively rudimentary in its effects on building and manufacturing until computers became widely avail- able. Early systems developed by Herman Hollerith in the mechanical tabulator based on punch cards were not that different from the Jacquard punch card system until advances were made to coded tapes, and ultimately into the hard drive of machines by up- loading information.

It was not until the s that computers were used for manufacturing production, opening up possibilities for digitally controlled ma- chinery. Today, small manufacturers and fabricators use CNC ma- chinery for their day-to-day operations. The advances that led to this proliferation can be attributed to the following: The decade brought a host of software applications from mechanical engineering such as CATIA, and other parametric platforms that allowed individuals to rationalize the design pro- cess of highly irregular nonplatonic geometry.

This same idea is now being implemented into architecture and construction practice by way of building information modeling, or BIM. On the surface, digital design and manufactur- ing has the potential to offer innovative solutions, increase quality, and stabilize cost.

The promise of prefabrication that was touted by Ford and others may be realized in this new paradigm as society and the building professions continue to shape its future direction. The chapter will re- view the evolution of the architectural profession as it emerged in the twentieth century in the United States and the lessons learned from failures in prefabs dur- ing this time.

The lessons can be applied to future successes in the twenty-first century. A master builder during the Renaissance was an architect, engineer, and contractor. Brunelleschi, for example, served as master builder to oversee the design and construction of the Duomo in Florence in This model of practice continued until the Enlightenment Period, an era in which traditional thought was questioned. Often referred to as the Age of Reason, science began to take a role in every- day life in the eighteenth century. California Crysta l Palace. Great B ritain Pre-cutwood housing, U.

These movements manifest themselves in architectural education by the establishment of sys- tematic teaching methods and models for the edu- cation of masses in the building sciences. The Ecole Polytechnique in the late 1 s and the subsequent Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in the early s established the "modern architect. Within his philosophy of architecture was a deep understanding of the architect in indus- trial production.

Consequently, education placed an equal emphasis on technique and composition. In the early s, there were three primary methods of becoming an architect: Most architects of the time had a combi- nation of the three training options in some fashion. However, the United States had an additional option to training— a culture of the self-taught professional- ism that stemmed from the young American pioneer- ing spirit. These self-taught technical pioneers were a bit skeptical of formal education and therefore, a shop culture or apprenticeship was always favored in tandem with university learning.

In addition, in- i Figure 2. The left column of the timeline includes the nonarchitectural events discussed in Chapter 1 while the right column lists selected archi- tectural events covered in Chapter 2. Many of the first schools of architecture were developed in institutions where sci- entific research was rapidly progressing and readily accepted, including Harvard, MIT, and Penn. In order to compete in the building market, an area that was readily overtaken by craftsmen and do-it-yourselfers, architects had to distinguish themselves as use- ful tradespeople.

In retrospect, this might have done architecture more of a disservice in the U. More importantly, however, "science" implied that there existed a sys- tematic method of delivering a technical education by which one could become an architect. This was also the case for engineers, mechanics, and others as- sociated with building industry trades.

Although the system for becoming an architect was not scientific in our current understanding of applied sciences, it created a sense of professionalism that doctors and other scientists in society had at the time. In a similar timeframe, contractors were generally singu- lar individuals or small-scale companies that man- aged small projects, working on everything from the larger general contracting and managing of sub- trades to the actual laying of bricks and mortar.

In 1 , as architecture was emerging as a profession, contractors began to take on larger projects man- aging all aspects of building construction. During this time, the architect's control and supervision of construction and advisory role to the client was called into question. Speculative office buildings and other development projects gave contractors much more power than architects over the final outcome of building projects.

As advances in building materi- als and methods increased and trades became ever more specialized, the architect eventually became less significant in the building industry, being seen as less of a resource to the client when compared with the builder. Architects' contractual control over means and methods of construction has continued to wane since. This legal disinterest in building con- struction separates the architectural design process from prefabrication principles, disconnecting deci- sions of design from decisions of production, caus- ing buildings to be overbudget, often not meeting the client's basic needs.

It was not until the end of the Civil War in the mid-1 s, with great advances in transportation of trains and ships, that manufacturing and ser- vice systems of buildings emerged. This was the Industrial Revolution, a time of changes in technical systems and belief systems, as a desire for "better, faster, cheaper" became an engendered societal value. During this time, U. For example, Cyrus McCormick, a producer of harvesting machinery, was paid and respected comparable to Le Baron Jenney, a French-educated architect who later became the founder of the Chicago School.

This marriage of shop culture and academic learning made a unique combination in the United States that fueled its developments in technology innovation. The developments of manu- facturing methods and science in civil construction projects such as railways paved the way for the de- velopments of steel tower construction. The meth- ods of assembly line manufacturing and fabrication gave way to new theories and approaches to pre- fabrication technology in architectural production.

While the White City that was built on the outskirts of Chicago adorned all of the traditions of the Beaux Arts, downtown was full of a new architecture, steel-framed stone and glass- clad structures that spoke of the new age of indus- trialism. The s were a time of great advances in manufactured and prefabricated components in buildings. Cast iron and subsequently steel struc- tures and curtain wall formations became part of the architectural vocabulary. This technology was based on standardization. Mass-produced parts were de- veloped as systems for buildings to be constructed.

Ornament became less and less important in favor of utility. However, this was not only a matter of eco- nomics, rather it was coupled with a desire to express the industrial nature of building production. Brick and stone were abandoned in favor of parts produced in factories near and far.

He brought neo- renaissance to America in , organized his stu- dio according to Parisian examples, and was one of i Figure 2. The basement and ground floor were constructed in 1 and were designed by John Root. The remaining floors by Burnham's office were completed in 1 This building is an all-steel frame that deviated from classical conventions and employed large expanses of glass, making it the first skyscraper.

Although Hunt's influence on American architecture was concerned with neo-traditional ten- ants, society seemed to be interested in a different direction, looking at the possibilities of industrial tech- nology to revamp the production of building. While half of architecture was holding onto an ideal of tradi- tionalism, the Chicago School was a different story. Prefabrication, how- ever, as an aesthetic gained its largest ground during the period of the modern revolution, beginning with the works of Behrens and his followers Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier; and later with the American, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Architectural his- tory is one of modernist dictums, a search for new and innovative approaches to design and production, which is inextricably linked to prefabrication. The skyscraper technology was a result of post- Civil War developments in standardization, technical perfection, and a systematic kit-of-parts technology.

His inventions and innovations were taken up by Mies van der Rohe and are the modern build- ing methods used today in cities of steel and glass. Wright refused to be educated by or to join the Beaux Arts movement. Sullivan, his mentor, condemned the White City exhibit in Chicago in 1 , believing that it was both nostalgic and regressive. Sullivan developed his own aesthetic based on a joining of ornament and utility; the very approach Wright mastered and that eventually became representative of American archi- tecture—a bringing together of both innovation and tradition.

The Chicago School was in two concurrent worlds, one a studio culture of arts tradition and the other a desire for technological innovation. Some might point to modernism of the early and mid-twentieth century as a balance of both classicism of architectural theory in composition and industrial utility in standardization. However, even in Peter Behrens trained himself as an architect, seeing architecture as the profession to offer social change.

Behrens was appointed industrial designer for the German Electric Company in , and designed lamps, appliances, as well as various factory build- ings. Behrens designed the factory like the machinery that was housed within it— its aesthetic was a direct re- Figure 2. Although Behrens was influential in moving architecture into the realm of utility as de- sign, arguably the most significant achievement that can be attributed to Behrens is his mentoring of three future key players in the advancement of modern architecture and prefabrication, namely Germans Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, and Swiss- Frenchman Charles- Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, other- wise known as Le Corbusier.

Using the industrial aesthetic of Behrens, his mentor, Gropius created an architecture that expressed ab- solute function. In , he established the Bauhaus. Initially, the school was meant to be a marriage of all the design arts with a broad pedagogy. However, as additional teachers were brought on, Gropius and Adolf Meyer in 1 designed a new building for the school, and industrial production began to take cen- ter stage in the school's mission.

Gropius empha- sized that the new curriculum would adhere to the following: Before a container, a chair or a house can function prop- erly its nature must first be studied, for it must perfectly serve its purpose; in other words, it must fulfill its func- tion practically, must be cheap, durable and 'beautiful'. Gropius left Germany in and arrived in the United States in Due to his infamy from the Bauhaus, and participation in the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, he was offered a job as the director of the architecture program at Harvard University.

His interest in prefabrication was obvious from the days at the Bauhaus, harnessing the technology of offsite fabrication to reduce the cost of housing. In , in collaboration with Behren's office, he proposed a mass-produced shelter for the German Electric Company. In the early s, Gropius developed a copper-clad panel system be- fore the idea was crushed, due to the war in Europe.

Finally, in another collaboration, Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann produced perhaps his most well-known contribution to prefab architecture thinking; the mass- produced "Packaged House," designed for the U. Gropius was an architect, who thought much like an engineer. Wachsmann was a self-taught architect, trained as a carpenter who maintained an undying interest in prefabrication throughout his life. His career was one marked by ob- session with technology, an embrace of mechanized production, a master of detail and connection, and a lover of systems logic.

In , the team designed a panel ized system using a patented four-way connec- tor developed by Wachsmann. All the components of the houses were produced in a factory and would be assembled onsite. They teamed with the General Panel Corporation to produce the house. It was not until that the factory production line was set up and prepared to manufacture houses. Gropius and Wachsmann were seen as architectural heros, try- ing to provide housing for the masses by using fac- tory production technology.

They were designers, but also acted as engineers, industrial designers, and manufacturers. Granted, they were not the only group producing factory homes; in fact, nearly , homes were produced by these means during and after the war.

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But Gropius was a father of modernism, a Dean at one of the most presti- gious schools of architecture, and had great influ- ence in the architecture culture. Their influence on the understanding of the role of architecture in soci- ety was causing a stir among practicing architects of the day. The team's message was that architects could take a project from conception to production, perhaps in the fashion of Brunelleschi, the master builder of centuries earlier.

Complete creative au- thorship and cost effectiveness seemed a possibil- ity, at least on paper. The message Gropius and Wachsmann sent is that if they could succeed with prefabrication in the least of the architectural typol- ogies—housing—then maybe architecture could have more of an influence on the lives of Americans everyday. From Behrens it's obvious that Mies learned an attention to detail and craft. His thirst for precision and quality in de- sign and construction seemed unquenchable. Mies designed to use the factory; many of the parts were standardized; however, in the assembly process, the components were customized.

The requirement for hand assembly in order to give the appearance of simplicity and refinement made any cost savings from the factory process negligible. Mies is quoted as having said, "I see in industrialization the central problem of building in our time. If we succeed in carrying out this industrial- ization, the social economic, technical and also artistic problems will be readily solved. Mies's greatest gifts to architectural his- tory and the future were his passion for the steel and glass tower. Mies mastered the aesthetic of the slender steel structure.

This became a mark of not only a refinement of the Chicago School, but cre- ated an entirely new typology for modern America across the world. Architects used this system of glass, steel, and aluminum during Mies's life and to- day in most skyscrapers that line the skyline of the world's major cities. In short, the rectangular cage as refined by Mies, however limiting it may appear to those interested in more sculptural expression, is sure to govern the shapes of most of our buildings for a great many years to come.

He also in- fluenced an entire generation of architects enamored with creating such artifices. The aesthetic sensibilities of Mies's pavilions in Barcelona and the Farnsworth House in Illinois are, in many respects, the embodi- ment of the minimalism that has found resurgence in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century resi- dential architecture.

Today many prefab houses mar- keted by architects and others are modern in their implementation of simple materials, clean lines, and high level of transparency. Consciously or otherwise, Mies's influence on the understanding and expres- sion of architecture, especially in prefabrication, will have an impact long into the future. It was from these experiences that Le Corbusier gained an appreciation for new materi- als and methods of architectural production. This personal manifesto argues that the beauty of modern architecture is discov- ered in its utility.

He applauded the perfection of the automobile, airplanes, and ships that were, he felt, examples of beauty and function. He considered these technological feats to be the "Greek Temples" of the modern era, and once the ideals of modern- ism were identified by society, architecture would eventually follow.

His statement "the house is a ma- chine for living" was to be taken literally, because for Le Corbusier, it was either "architecture or revolu- tion. As part of this effort to create a machine for living, Le Corbusier designed and built a prototype called the Citrohan House. The word "Citrohan" was used as a pun, referring to the French automobile at the time, Citroen.

It is unclear that Le Corbusier ever intended for his houses to be built in a factory, or prefabricated, Figure 2. This house was inspired by the manufactur- ing methods employed in early standardized automobile production. He believed that the ar- chitect could set up a system of construction that was based on rationalization through standardiza- tion.

The Citrohan House linked the beginnings of Le Corbusier's five points of architecture including the domino or concrete frame with exterior and in- terior infill walls to allow openings to occur where needed for view and light. Factory-made windows and doors as well as prefabricated brisole covered the facades of his buildings. The houses were de- signed on rigid grids, but not necessarily in standard material dimensions. Le Corbusier's conceptual and practical linkages of design to production were somewhat lacking. Although similar designs were built, Le Corbusier never realized these mass-pro- duced and prefabricated ideals at the scale and magnitude discussed in his writings.

Although none of Le Corbusier's buildings were built using prefabricated methods, his ideas about using the manufacturing industry were widely known by architects of the era. Le Corbusier saw beauty in the standardization of everyday objects. He viewed the purist object, as his architecture manifest, as the embodiment of utility and refinement.

These ideals have provided much of the basis for con- temporary low-cost, mass housing experiments in prefab architecture. Arguably the most influential architect for modernism in the twentieth century, Le Corbusier's influence on the role of prefabrica- tion and mass production in housing is far reach- ing. Prefabricated architecture today continues to suffer from the infatuation with the small, modern purist box.

Just as Le Corbusier's plans did not grow legs, so many of the prefab experiments in architecture today may meet basic needs, but do 2.

Prefab Architecture: A Guide to Modular Design and Construction

This can be seen in the pithy of hous- ing projects Le Corbusier completed that are now overtaken and manipulated beyond recognition by the inhabitants. In many cases the house blocks have failed and been torn down. He was trained by Sullivan to embrace the new but reference the traditional. Wright has become the most celebrated American architect because of his contributions to advances in spatial understanding and material prowess.

In 1 , Wright spoke about what he called the "as- sembled house. The modules conceptually were a kit-of-parts and could be added to and taken from. Wright knew of the advances in prefabricated kitchens and baths hav- ing read and seen Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion and the Pierce Foundation's service core. He spoke of insulated metal panel infill walls and customiza- tion options for clients.

However, he was advanced in his thinking of how prefabricated buildings could extend to become living organisms. It is recorded that many other experiments in steel and wood by Wright were tried during the s and s but all failed to gain commercial success. His methods never varied much from the standards of onsite construction and his demand for quality in hand-crafted detail made his houses expensive and inaccessible for the larger popula- tion. The greatest success by Wright in realizing afford- ability was in the Usonian homes of the late s and early s.

The Jacobs Home in Madison, Wisconsin, is an example. This house did not use any of the prefabrication methods Wright initially spoke of in , but it aimed at affordability and was designed based on a logic of rational construc- tion. The core also offered the house lateral stability, be- ing constructed from reinforced masonry. Infill walls made of plywood and planking were used for the exterior enclosure. The house was small, but highly detailed.

A regular grid and standardized materials had great potential for prefabrication. However, at the end of the day, Wright was unable to achieve the level of handcraft he desired through prefabri- cation and to negotiate his desires for aesthetics with what he understood was affordable produc- tion. Wright never wanted his houses to be "mass produced" in the true sense; his architecture was client- and site-driven first, and technology-driven second.

Fuller and Prouve's contributions are just as significant, if not more so, than the masters already discussed. In addition, their works were in some ways more suc- cessful, being accepted and widely known in nonar- chitectural circles. This success can be attributed to the technical excellence of the designers and the final product outputs. The real innovation in the evolution of the Fuller proposals was in weight. The Wichita House was only 6, lbs and when shipped could fit onto a single truck.

Fuller claimed that it could be erected in a single day.

Although the Wichita House was successful in that it provided factories with postwar work, Fuller pulled the plug on the production claiming that it was not ready for large runs. The company was sold shortly thereafter. His rise to favor among architects has much to do with his ability to rationalize complex geometry com- mon in structural algorithmic geodesic, tensegrity, and finally his stealthy mass-produced housing de- signs. In 1 , Fuller patented the Dymaxion house, which contained, among other things, an airplane- looking mast and cable structural system. Later in 1 , he designed a prefabricated bathroom unit for the house and in 1 he produced a deployable unit for the army.

By the time came around, Fuller was well known for his innovative designs in prefab- ricated mass-produced housing, which gave way to the making of the Wichita House. With the war ending in the mid-1 s, the airplane industry was having difficulty. Fuller was approached to convert airplane factories into housing production facilities.

This fulfilled the need to keep employees working during the postwar employment slump. The Wichita House was a technical marvel, fabricated as an airplane in aluminum, fastened with rivets. Fuller even used principles of airplane design, encouraging airflow around and through the house. All the services Jean Prouve was also not an architect, but practiced designing and fabricating furniture. In , Prouve designed a small mass-produced shelter and built a prototype as a vacation house for a client.

Although he never spelled out his design philosophy, it is clear that he believed in taking advantage of the most advanced methods of manufacturing and fabrica- tion available to create new dynamic buildings. All that is extraneous seldom conforms to requirements and leads to loss of time. The constructor will have comment to make on the spot. The designer must also be able to discover his mis- takes quickly and recognize them in advance; there must therefore be a constant dialogue between the designer and the constructor who must work as a team.

These de- signs were lightweight, easily erected prefabricated 2. This model was built in Wichita, giving it the name of the Wichita House. From the beginning, Prouve's designs used a cold- formed steel frame and wood roof and floor infill panels. In addition, in , Prouve prefabricated 25 experimental houses that were erected in a sub- urb near Paris. Known as the Meudon Houses, they still exist today, but have been remodeled beyond recognition. He was able to achieve the most space for the lightest volume possible. The aesthetics of his architecture and fur- niture followed the pattern of fabrication of mold- ing, forming, bending, bolting, and welding— the manipulations of manufacture.

The number of pre- fab projects was also much higher than any of his architectural predecessors. Nobody quite knows why, but Prouve was ousted from his own shop and ironically spent the remainder of his design career consulting without a direct connection to fabrica- tion. However, many of the principles of design and production in architecture today can be traced to Prouve's design-build factory in the early twentieth century.

The projects were meant to be affordable single-family homes, well de- signed, and easily constructed. Over 20 years, 36 homes were built, but most designers never collabo- rated with fabricators and most were unique site-built pieces of architecture, relished and venerated even today. Many of the homes were prefab- ricated components of steel frames and infill panels. The embodiment of prefabrication in the Case Study series can be most explicitly seen in the Charles and Ray Eames House.

Like Prouve, the Eameses saw architecture and furniture much the same. Interested in architecture and influential in modern design of the mid-century, they envisioned their home to be built entirely from off-the-shelf compo- nents. Every element of the house was to be or- dered and supplied from an industrial manufacturer. The steel frame was also made of standardized parts. Charles Eames said that the primary objec- tive for the house was to create the cheapest space possible, with the highest level of industrialization. The house was not repeated, but represented maxi- mizing the available industry at the time.

The house could theoretically be duplicated if an instruction list and drawings were handed over. This systemized design and building process was not "affordable" nor was it particularly efficient. The Eameses even- tually went on to abandon architecture in favor of their forte, industrial design, but their principles of prefabrication followed them into those arenas for the rest of their careers. In the s, Archigram consisting of Peter Cook, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, Dennis Crompton, Michael Webb, and David Greene, among others, was essentially a paper architec- ture firm, creating manifestos of the future through propaganda and marketing imagery.

Archigram's creations were highly industrialized wonders con- sisting of "walking cities," "instant cities," and "plug- 2. Other architects did develop the group's ideas into full design proposals and construction but most experiments were sin- gular enterprises, expensive and highly customized. Among these experiments in prefabrication include a house designed by Rodgers in , called the Zip-up House, built from superinsulated aluminum sandwich panel walls with rounded corners and glazed ends.

It was a tubular design in which mod- ules could be added to make entire subdivisions. In , Hopkins and his wife, Paty, built a home simi- lar to the Eameses', constructed from standardized off-the-shelf steel components and even sporting primary colors found in the Eameses' work. Richard Horden, protege of Foster, in designed the Yacht House in which ship technology was em- ployed in the construction of a system consisting of light frame and panel infill.

The high-tech movement and prefabrication was an era of architectural ideas. As far as recorded history of these trials, no fruit- ful collaborations with industrial manufacturers and fabricators were made and the systems were so customized that they were not affordable beyond a single prototype.

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The modules were too heavy to be easily installed or relocated, had too many variations, and required specific tools and forms for the pours. In addition to offsite difficulties, onsite work required large cranes and intensive labor to attach the modules together. This plug-and-play concept did not save any money and, in fact, was far overbudget. Safdie left his dream of prefabrication in mass housing, calling his experiment a failure, and at that time claimed that prefabrication in architecture was impossible.

Rudolph realized a modu- lar housing project in a development called Oriental Masonic Gardens in New Haven, Connecticut in 1 The technology was certainly not innovative, but the project used the mobile home typology in a multifamily development that was a reinterpretation of vernacular building. Architects of the era had signed off on mobile housing as not worthy of inspection, and here Rudolph was interested in grappling with a low- cost, high-design solution.

The project suffered from great monotony with the barrel roofs of the mobile home, and dimensions repeated in mass, creating more of a ghetto than a vibrant neighborhood fabric. At the World Expo in , Fuller built a large geode- sic that was a three-quarter sphere, 61 meters high.

As with previous experiment, Fuller's ideas of the geodesic never held with the mainstream. At the age of 24, Moshie Safdie, at the same World Expo, de- signed his first built project. One hundred fifty-eight houses were constructed from modular units. There were 1 8 types of modules in reinforced precast concrete manufactured offsite. The modules were The s also brought the Japanese Metabolists.

Like Safdie and Rudoloph, these projects used modular systems but differed in that the modules plugged into a structural and service core. The most famous of projects is the late 60's Nakagin Capsule Tower by Kurokawa. Kurokawa believed that the modules could be extracted as easily as they were plugged when tenants moved or module interiors needed to be updated.

At age 24, Safdie developed a complex of 1 58 dwellings from precast modular units. The capsules were completely fabricated offsite with modern conveniences. Ironically, the building is now out- dated, has never been changed or extracted from the core, and is in disrepair. The investment in the steel structural and service core was so expensive that the initial cost of the project was much more than a building of its size in traditional onsite con- struction. Should this concept of interchangeable modules become more widely accepted, the ability to remove elements is where lifecycle cost savings may be gained.

Prefabrication architecture in the late twentieth century, outside of small single-family houses and affordable multifamily housing, included projects on a much larger scale, custom, and for the public. This adaptation of mobile housing units organizes the modules in juxtaposition to one another to create a sense of community. Kahn, an American architect living, work- ing, and teaching in Philadelphia during the s, s, and s, was a modernist, but wanted architecture to return to its roots in monumental- ization, having much more of an impact on public sensorial perception of the built environment.

His aesthetic was not that of industry, but of monumen- tality, solidity, and craft. Kahn also taught at Penn. Students and faculty revered him and his influence on materials in architecture is still felt today. Kahn's interest in prefabrication was not in the technology per se, but in revealing a material or a system and its method of construction for aesthetic and design ethics.

Kahn's view on architecture can be summed up in his question "what does a brick want to be? In , Kahn contacted August Komendant, a German engineer, to help him design a precast, prestressed, and post-ten- sioned concrete structure for the Richards Medical Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. Until that time precast, pretressed concrete had only been used for civil engineering projects involving long-span applications such as bridges and high- ways and in special construction.

The adaptation of prestressed concrete for Kahn's architecture, let alone any building, was a major technology trans- fer for the construction industry. With Komendant, Kahn was able to design and build an intricate sys- tem of precast columns, and vierendeel girders, and beams that expressed the logic of the structure and embodied the overall parti. The prestressed units were combined through post-tensioning. This process made the members much more slender and elegant than site-cast counterparts.

This is one of the first uses of prestressed concrete in building construction. In addition, the erection went remarkably well. Formally recommended by the RIBA In an area where ever-changing technology Based on tried and tested methods, and using a simple step-by Building energy-efficient, ecologically benign and sustainable buildings is complex since it comprises of a set of interdependent factors RIBA Bookshops Unrivalled range of the best architecture, design and construction books from around the world. My Account Register Sign in.

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