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The world of prefab and modular homes. |
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| olkruf.com |
I wrote about 
Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Rüf's System3 last week. It will be included in The Museum of Modern Art's Home Delivery exhibition.
The two designers have been working in the prefab arena since 1996. Past models include:
• System 01 and System 02 based on "elements"
• Su-Si, Fred, Houses A&B based on "units"
The System3 home merges the idea of "units" with that of "elements":
Due to the separation into serving units and "naked elements", the building process is optimized.
The serving unit is a completely prefabricated box including all installations. All different trades, such as electrician, plumber, etc. do their work at the service unit factory and do not have to do any on-site work....
The solid elements such as wall, floor, and ceiling are made of solid slabs of wood. The producer uses CNC-technology to cut out all openings.
...the window producer prefabricates all windows.
...the skin producer prefabricates the building's skin that includes thermal insulation, waterproofing and vapor barrier.
To me, it seems logical: keep the production of the technical pieces, the "serving units", in the factory where quality control can be tighter; let on-site work be limited to assembly and nothing more. This approach would save both time and money, limiting the trades and expertise needed at the home site; it reminds me of KieranTimberlake's Loblolly House, which we covered last June:
The assembly process begins with off-site fabricated floor and ceiling panels, termed 'smart cartridges.' They distribute radiant heating, hot and cold water, waste water, ventilation, and electricity through the house. Fully integrated bathroom and mechanical room modules are lifted into position. Exterior wall panels containing structure, insulation, windows, interior finishes and the exterior wood rain screen complete the cladding.(KieranTimberlake's Cellophane House will also appear in the MoMA show.)
Such a mixed-method approach compares to the two major types of prefabrication that we cover on Prefabcosm: SIPs (used by companies like CleverHomes and Jensys Buildings) and complete modules (like those from OMD and weeHouse). Using just SIPs leaves the majority of the skilled work for the site, e.g. installation of utilities. Complete modules are both expensive and difficult to get to the home site. Merging the two methods allows for greater flexibility, less cost, higher quality, and shortened construction time.
With 10+ years working on prefab, Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Rüf are worth watching. While they have yet to translate their experiments into a mass-market product, their work lends much understanding to how the home-construction industry might best take advantage of prefabrication.
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| kierantimberlake.com |
Last week KieranTimberlake, designers of the Loblolly House, was awarded the Firm of the Year award by the American Institute of Architects:
KieranTimberlake ... is admired for its sustainable and research-based approach to design that has helped reinvent the nature of componentized construction....KieranTimberlake’s projects include...many buildings featuring prefabricated components. This approach was also embodied by the Loblolly House, a 2006 residence for Kieran on the shores of Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Kieran and Timberlake used building information modeling software that modeled the house and each of its parts through the supply chain, into their assemblage as larger modular components, and onto the building site. This method was inspired by the pair’s tour of a Boeing aircraft plant a few years earlier; their book, Refabricating Architecture, about the revelations they had while studying the aircraft, shipbuilding, and automobile industries, is now regarded as a classic....
Congrats!
Here's an Amazon link to the book.
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| © peter aaron |
Steve Kieran's Loblolly House takes flat-pak prefab to a whole new level. Kieran's firm KieranTimberlake created a series of panels and structure that integrate all of the home's mechanical systems:
The assembly process begins with off-site fabricated floor and ceiling panels, termed 'smart cartridges.' They distribute radiant heating, hot and cold water, waste water, ventilation, and electricity through the house. Fully integrated bathroom and mechanical room modules are lifted into position. Exterior wall panels containing structure, insulation, windows, interior finishes and the exterior wood rain screen complete the cladding."
Hive Modular, Marmol Radziner, and Alchemy Architects, integrate utilities into multi-room modules that are shipped to the site near-complete. But the companies delivering flat-packed products, like the LV Series homes from Rocio Romero, require on-site work to incorporate utilities and finishes. The SIPs or stud-framed panels they ship generally incorporate little more than structure and insulation.
For the Loblolly House, this complete prefabrication was necessary to avoid large amounts of work on the sensitive site. The process even works in reverse:
"Just as the components may be assembled at the site swiftly with a wrench, so may they be disassembled swiftly, and most importantly, whole....It is a vision in which our architecture, even as it is disassembled at some unknown moment, can be relocated and reassembled in new ways from reclaimed parts."
Complementing the designs of Ray Kappe and David Hertz, LivingHomes plans to sell homes based on the system used in the Loblolly House. Also worth noting: Bosch produces the structural frame used for the Loblolly House and the TK iT House.
(Hat tip: Philly.com)
Earlier coverage: Wired article on Plug and Play Construction (January); Architectural Record (April).
