• Kieran, Stephen, and James Timberlake. Refabricating Architecture: How Manufacturing Methodologies Are Poised to Transform Building Construction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print.
  • The authors present a case for why mass-customization and modular construction, based on automotive manufacturing, are ripe for the architectural community to adopt.

Argument

The “advances in the design and fabrication of automobiles, airplanes, and ships” have decreased manufacturing times, waste, and cost, while “quality has increased exponentially.”(Kieran and Timberlake, xi)
In contrast, architecture has become even more “wasteful, disposable, splintered, and specialized.”(xi)

“Mass customization is a hybrid” between mass production and customization. “It proposes new processes to build using automated production, but with the ability to differentiate each artifact from those that re fabricated before and after.”(xii-xiii)

“With the information control tools we now have we are able to visualize and manage off-site fabrication of mass customized architecture.”(xii)
We now have the technology to effectively implement these strategies.

The Process Engineer and the Aesthetics of Architecture

Architecture can be art or a commodity.(3)
Commodity: “an artifact of use to be bought and sold in accordance with prevailing principles of economic exchange.”(3)

Commodity was once the tollgate to art, the test of optimum fitness. Does it pass “all tests of a minimum expedtiture of resources to effect maximum gain”?(3)
“Craft itself was the web of knowledge about putting things together that one negotiated on the way to economy.”(3)

“Making by hand was the only way we had of fabricating artifacts for most of our history. The designer was often one and the same with the maker.”(5)
Here, the robot is the maker, but the designer must also design the process by which the artifact is made.

Machine-craft was a “dream of modernist thought. The goal was to make some architecture, especially housing, into a commodity for consumption by the masses.”(5)

Corb “praised grain silos because their pure form had been shaped by economic rules of production. Engineers, unlike architects, are not guided by preconception about appearance. Instead they possess a single-minded focus on purpose and economy.”(5-7)
I propose a combining of the engineer and architect, into one which is concerned with appearance, purpose, and economy. In the right context, Roboforming can meet the requirements of all three.

“Commodity today is generally seen as anti-art. It is possible, however, to see commodity instead as the crucible of art.”(7)
The art is in the designing of the process of making. This process is often beautiful, elegant, and amazing. Just watch “How It’s Made”.

“Current architecture excludes the architect from participation in the ‘means and methods” of making.'”(7)
If architects was to regain their relevance, I think we have to start thinking about how are designs are made, down the components and up to the final assembly.

Quality * Scope = Cost * Time
“The way to attain a certain combination of higher quality and greater scope is to spend some combination of more time and more money.”(9)
Ideally we could get greater quality and scope for less cost and time. Of course, the inverse usually holds.

Quality * Scope > Cost * Time
“Cars ships, and planes must even move through space, while buildings, relatively static artifacts, are rooted in place. Ships are larger than most buildings and generally dynamic.”(11)
“There are lessons that can be examined and transferred from our sister industries to architecture about processes and materials developed over the past decade that have overturned the ancient equilibrium between expenditure of resources and acquisition of benefits.”(11)
“The answer lies first in the emergence of the process engineer, the designer of methods.”(11)
The “answer” to architecture’s contemporary problems can be found through the utilization of “process engineers” who can design new efficient methods of making.

“The single most devastating consequence of modernism has been the embrace of a process that segregates designers from makers.”(13)
A strong statement, but one which I hope to help prove.

Cars

Linear Addition vs Integrated Integrated Modules
Diamler/Chrysler “divides the car to be produced in constituent chunks, or modules. The car today only becomes whole at the end of the manufacturing process, in those minutes of final assembly. Each chunk is composed of many parts that are preassembled off the main assembly line”(17)
I’m thinking about my final output to be some modular assembly that is preassembled in chunks.

“Individual parts and modules are barcoded to enable instant tracking and to ensure that each part is installed in the proper module or vehicle.”(19)
Barcodes
I may need a similar system to this, much like how Mike and Jordan created QR codes to identify each piece.

“Each module comes to the main plant complete and ready to be attached quickly to the vehicle. The various modules that form a car are designed and produced in parallel. The time and total cost of labor required to install modules at the point of final assembly are dramatically reduced.”(21)
Architecture could be preassembled offsite in such chunks and the time required to actually construct the building and rent the equipment would be drastically shorter.

In contrast to Tesla, who seems to do most of the manufacturing in one factory.

“We must overcome an industrywide aversion to research and experimentation”(23)

Role Reminders in the New World

Buildings vs Architecture

“Ironically, by narrowing its realm of significant interest to appearance only, architecture sacrificed control of its one remaining stronghold: appearance.”(29)

“Materials, the stuff we build with, give physical substance to this shape and to the idea that animates it”(31)

“The architect has allowed the means and methods of building to move outside the sphere of architecture. The splintering of architecture into segregated specialties has been disastrous.”(31)

“A central tactic of Boeing in this initiative is the use of new materials that allow the formation of one part from what, in the past, would have been many”(37)

Enabling Systems as a Regulatory Structure

“We need more information to enhance the speed and comprehensiveness of our conceptions. We need more information to locate all the pieces that make up the components of our buildings throughout the process of design, fabrication, and assembly. We need more information to know immediately when a component has been properly installed.”(51)
Tools, software, apps are available to aid in this. Maybe such a tool would be needed for my final assembly.

“construction in progress serves as the mock-up”(55)
parts of new buildings should researched, prototyped, and mocked-up to allow for a sufficient understanding and wrinkling out of potential issues.

“Framing is entirely gravity based. The frame must be present before anything else can be placed. It is a precondition.”(57)
The word “precondition” reminds me of its use in Computer Science, where a precondition is a type of ‘contract’ that an input must satisfy for the program to ‘ensure’ (a postcondition) that the function works as intended.

Quilting is used as analogy as a system that “can be fabricated in any order”(57)

“The irony of modular assembly is that it places a premium on a complete understanding of the whole as a prerequisite to strategies for fragmentation.”(65)
In essence, the whole must be thoroughly understood for it to be modularized. Simulation is a necessary tool for this.

Shipbuilding

Traditionally, the laying of the keel “marks the act of conception from which the rest of the ship evolves. The sequence of acts in the plays of shipbuilding and architecture have remained the same: foundation, frame, skin, systems, finish, equipment.”(71)

Modern shipbuilding utilizes ‘grand blocks’
Grand Blocks: “a completed 150 to 1,000 ton segment of a ship that includes all of the systems, structure, machinery, compartments, and finishes in a given segment of a ship.”(73)

Grand blocks mean the “construction process is no longer linear”, built from the bottom up. This allows for simultaneous production and shorter construction times.
Grand blocks are also built indoors, where “there are no weather stoppages and temperatures are relatively comfortable. Tools and equipment are nearby. Work space is less crowded. The quality of construction improves.”
Since grand blocks can be built faster, “the cost of labor declines.”(75)

Grand blocks are in turn built from smaller ‘miniblocks'(77)

Modular ‘smart elements’ that may have a shorter service life can be swapped out easily.(77)

Aggregating “many parts into fewer modules before the point of final assembly” achieves “higher quality, better features, less time to fabricate, and lower cost: more art and craft, not less.”(79-81)

“The more one attempts to undertake at the point of final assembly, the more difficult it is to control quality. Fewer joints in the final installation give rise to more precise tolerances”(87)
argument for preassembly

“when responsibility for the car is fragmented into modules, there are more entities assuming primary responsibility for this quality”(89)

“it is more difficult and takes more time to research and test redesigned parts than it does to redesign the process.”(97)
rather than change the part, change how the part is made to be more efficient. i.e. a facade panel created by conventional means.

“complex problem is made into a series of smaller, less complex ones”(97)

“The key to creating chunks or modules is that they must be able to exist as completed entities that can support themselves without any armature until the point of final assembly.”(98)
When do you know when your module is the appropriate size? When is the Russian doll at its outer most limit? How many sub-modules should make up a module?

Build Document: a specification sheet describing the particular product to be built,(101)
Pick-Time: the time required to get the part to the module(101)
Cluster-Sequencing: “ensures that parts arrive at the line in the correct order of assembly, so that no selection by the installer is necessary.”(101)

Final Assembly Joints: “provide the means of connection, systems interface, and closure between the modules and systems interface, and closure between the modules and systems that comprise a complex artifact.”(101)
Types

• Connection Joints: “fasten one module to another physically. The means by which [modules are] joined to the overall armature”(101)
• Systems Connections: “allow systems to be fabricated in modules or chunks, independent of the frame, then joined to other systems in other modules at the final assembly plant”(101)
• Closure Joints: “provide the visual finish of the module as its surfaces are closed to other modules”(101)

Visual relation between parts:
flush, subflush, or projecting(101)

“joints ensure quality control through build in registers that render it impossible for parts to be misaligned”(101)
a smart concept that I should apply to my assembly process.

Mass-produced housing based on automotive manufacturing is not a new concept.

“Le Corbusier’s mass-produced housing modeled on American automotive production, numerous factory-produced houses of the WWII eram and the industrialized building program of Operation Breakthrough in the Nixon era”(105)
Why did all these fail to catch on?
“Each attempt to transform architecture into a commodity had political, programmatic, procedural, and stylistic agendas that were narrowly defined.”(105)
By tying these projects to political agendas, it limited their life. Instead, they need to be products of “the market, not the government, is the only reliable long-term agent of change”(105) that care about the long term bottom line.
“architectural production does not thrive on rapid change”(105)
“By equating a process of building with a single type of building-housing-the result has again been disastrous”(107)
“The potential of the off-site process is greatest when the breadth of its applicability is broadest”(107)
“Mass production is a way to make a building that produces less for less”(107)
compared to More for Less of mass-customization, and specifically the more for less that you get from Roboforming. By taking a flat sheet in one dimension, you can create something more than that that can occupy an additional dimension of space.
“the spirit of living in mass-production houses did not [come to pass]. Individual circumstances of cultural heritage, personal preference, and particulars of site, while not consistent, are always present and will always work against any impulse toward a common, repetitive appearance and substance for all production”(109)

Why is the world ready now?

“repetitive appearance and substance are no longer a prerequisite for off-site fabrication. By decoupling appearance from substance and emphasizing the substance of new methods of fabrication we can exploit the multiplicity of form they give rise to”(109)
“Mass customization is a rapidly replacing mass production”(111)
“Mass Customization is about cultural production as apposed to the industrial output of mass production. In other words, rather than decide among options produced by industry, the customer determines what the options will be by participating in the flow of the design process from the very start.”(111)
“it is no longer acceptable to report year in and year out that architecture costs more, takes longer to build, and yields lower quantity.”(111)
“we have within out reach methods of mass fabrication that yield custom results.”(111)
“Not only can we now change the construction paradigm from mass production to mass customization, but now we must.”(115)
“Trial and error in the field is used throughout the conventional building process. The building is both prototype and completed architecture.”(115)
“In off-site production, the components must fit, since they arrive at the site whole and, in most cases, cannot readily be modified”(115-117)
“We can now solid-model components and simulate how they will join all adjacent elements.”(117)

Associations of Material and Form

Brick is easiest to stack. (Reminds me of Louis Kahns remark that “And it’s important, you see, that you honor the material that you use.” and that a brick wants to be in an arch)
Steel is easiest to weld.
Sheet Metal is easiest to deform.

New materials and methods have enabled meteoric changes in architectural design
“The introduction of steel and the elevator allowed the tall building to develop”(119)
“the balloon frame-a new method of assembly, not a new material-transformed residential architecture in the United States.”(119)

Labor

“Labor killed in field construction is becoming an increasingly rare commodity throughout the developed world.”(123)
Reasons:

• working conditions
• safety concerns
• weather conditions

These problems can be avoided by prefabricating inside

• greater comfort
• less strain
  • bring task to worker
  • fixed place to work with full array of tools
• lower risk of chronic injuries
  • from repetitive motions
  • from working in awkward spaces
• improved safety
  • reduces aerial work
  • use ladders
  • bringing task to worker

Why didn’t off-site fabrication take off in the 20th C?

“building was still a simple affair”(127)
“mostly structure and shelter with few systems”(127)
“Systems constituted only 5% of economic expenditure”(127)
“the advantages afforded by off-site fabrication did not pertain”(127)

Why is architecture ready now?

“The amount of money spent on these systems as a percentage of total cost has increased more than fivefold in the past 100 years-from 5% to 27%”(127)
“we have only now developed an architecture that is truly a machine to live and work in”(129)
Yet “we still build as though our buildings were all bricks and mortar and no systems”(129)
“systems have become the unwitting, unseen structure of our architecture”(129)
“the building is nothing more than a prototype, a flawed yet permanent trial”(129)

Dell Computers

“In this century we desire choice, expression, individuality. and the ability to change our minds at the last minute”(133)

“Why are we constantly forced to make design decisions on the basis of costs that result in less choice, less customization, more standardization, and less quality?”(135)

“we have found that mass customization offers real change for architecture and construction”(135)