Some of the world\'s most famous architects have tried to design houses using mass production techniques.
Now, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York explores the history of prefabricated houses.
The exhibition was held at a time when computer design was changing the way prefabricated houses were built.
A prefabricated neighbor used to be a landfill on the reedy coast in southern Brooklyn, with the sea breeze gently blowing through the air and the sound of electric tools breaking the morning silence.
Workers are installing side panels on the front of several rows of sparkling new town houses, the first phase of Nehemiah Spring Creek\'s affordable housing development.
Spring Creek looks like any construction project and is built in the traditional way.
But the houses in town are in these houses.
The paved streets were not actually built on site.
They were transported in by truck and arrived at the scene almost on the move --
Michael Carolo, project manager at Monadnock Construction, said it is in good condition.
\"The appearance has to be done but the interior is only 100% complete including the lamps, tile floors --
It was almost done when they came here, \"says Carolo.
The town house is prefabricated and built in a huge warehouse at the Brooklyn Navy shipyard.
Then they were taken to an apartment-
Vincent linello, a project architect at Alexander Golin Architects, said sleeper trucks at night would not interfere too much with traffic in New York City.
Finally, the cranes hang them on the foundation that has been built.
From fashion rejection to StyleSpring Creek is part of the current renaissance of prefabricated houses being undertaken by architects, designers and historians.
In fact, prefabrication has become downright trendy.
\"It has disappeared from the terrible double identity --
\"On the highway, people think it\'s a pretty stylish thing,\" said Sam Growe, editor-in-chief of Dwell magazine, who has been advocating for prefabrication and selling a series of prefabrication housing plans.
Barry bergor, director of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, said the boom in computer design tools has driven this revival.
The museum is now showing an exhibition about prefabrication.
Many architects, especially young ones. . .
\"I \'ve just recently been in a full training session and they \'ve seen design as something in a computer,\" bergor said . \".
Computer design opens up new possibilities for prefabricated bodies, enabling architects to customize houses suitable for the buyer\'s taste without sacrificing the speed and efficiency of the prefabricated dream.
The first prefabricated house, the first one on the record, was Manning\'s portable cottage.
It was built by London carpenter H. in the 1830 s.
Manning\'s son is immigrating to Australia. H.
Manning wants his son to have a comfortable place to stay on the new land, but has no idea what materials and supplies his son will find there.
So he built a house that could be stored in the hull and then unloaded and assembled after his son came down.
It works very well and Manning has shipped dozens of cabins there.
There are still a few people standing today.
In the United States, prefabrication can be said to have started with balloons, Bergdoll said.
The framework construction method pioneered by Chicago builder Augustine Taylor.
Hammer together. by-
Four times every other time and connect them to the crosspieces.
This is the same building method that is widely used in the United States today.
Walls built in this way can be built in remote locations and then transported to construction sites and soon converted into houses, which is why Bergdoll considers this a form of prefabrication.
The most successful prefabricated houses to date are the kit houses introduced by Sears, Roebuck and Co. in 1908.
The house was ordered in a catalogue;
It arrives in the form of debris and usually takes months to build.
But it costs 2 out of 3 lower than the traditional one. built house.
About 100,000 vehicles were eventually sold.
Kit house should look like a normal home as much as possible.
But in the years after World War I, prefabricated bodies began to take off in some more gorgeous directions.
Architects and designers such as Walter Gropius, Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright believe that prefabrication is a way to bring intelligent design to the public.
They believe that the industrial revolution has proven that you can make cars, clothing and furniture at a cheaper and more efficient level on the assembly line.
Can\'t it be possible to build cheap, attractive houses for the masses using the technology of mass production?
For example, Fuller thinks a factory
According to a book attached to the museum exhibition, going home can change the way people live around the world.
Since 1927, Fuller\'s famous Dymaxion House looks and feels like a product of the machine era.
It can be easily assembled into pieces with low
Aluminum Alloy dome roof suspended on stainless steel pillars.
It also has a ventilation system that allows the House to cool naturally and began to consider green design innovations decades ago.
During World War II, Marcel Brewer designed Plas-2-
Point House, because it was built with plywood coated with liquid plastic and anchored on two base blocks, there is no need for expensive foundation work.
Because the house can be built cheaply and quickly, Brewer hopes Washington will see it as a solution to post-war housing needs.
But like many of the most innovative prefabrication designs, whether it\'s Dymaxion House or Plas-2-
Built at Point House.
A great start
Increased costs often make it difficult to achieve prefabrication design, bergdor said.
\"In order to build two more factories, the developer does not need to buy the factoryand-a-
Half-floor colonnade in an outtown location-
Turn open land into instant developments that look like [a house]
Very reassuring.
It\'s very similar to what happened in the 1940 s, \"bergor said.
\"But if someone wants to launch a prefabricated housing system, even with the possibility of customization, they have a huge upfront investment in machines and factories, etc.
So there are all kinds of odds for people who want to do this.
\"The prefabricated houses that are built are sometimes unable to meet with the public.
After World War II, inventor Carl Strandlund received a $40 million federal grant and founded Lustron at a former military aircraft factory in Ohio.
Strandlund envisioned a house that was cheaper than Levittown house, but the building he produced was made of porcelain --
In the eyes of many people, burger stands like White Castles.
\"For a lot of people, in a house that looks so strange, it\'s hard to accept this pure embrace of new materials and new technologies,\" said Peter kristenson.
Work with Bergdoll to create the book \"Home Delivery\" and work as a curatorial assistant in the architecture and design department of the Museum of Modern Art.
These houses are 30 to 50% more expensive than Strandlund estimates.
1950, Lustron declared bankruptcy.
Over the years, the architects have pushed the prefabricated parts into some surprising new directions, designing future pods and modernist boxes on stilts that can be done as long as the owners wish
Seeing them is confused by their pure invention.
In some countries, particularly Finland and Japan, which account for 20% of the housing market, Prefab performed well.
But in the United States, prefabricated homes that have been sold are often the cheapest and most standardized, such as mobile homes.
Innovative design for the public?
The current exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art wants to change the appearance of the prefabricated body and show how much hope it has.
Bergdoll pointed out that computers have ushered in the era of \"mass customization\", for example, Nike produces a large number of shoes, while also allowing buyers to personalize shoes with personal features such as team logo and color.
\"For prefabricated houses, you can do the same thing in exactly the same way,\" he said . \".
\"So we can send computer files directly from the architect\'s desktop to the factory\'s
laser cutting machine or other types of machines that actually cut the parts that have just been designed.
This can be done by computer programs built in various variables.
Therefore, the same procedure for designing a separate family home can have any number of parameters or variables that the architect calls it.
\"An example is the\" instant House \"designed by Larry Sass, an assistant professor at MIT \".
The house is one of five prefabricated structures built for the exhibition in the open space next door to the museum.
Buyers can specify what kind of house they want.
Sass \'computers specify what kind of material they need.
With a rented laser.
Cutter, cut the part and then number it for easy assembly.
Then you have four friends.
They never built a house before-
The five of you guys with five rubber mallets can put everything together in five days, \"bogdore said.
\"So if you think about it --
As a way of thinking, what does it actually mean
I think this is the ultimate shift in technology.
The high technology of the MIT computer lab can be delivered to a place where there is no skill, a home that you like in any style.
\"Sass wants \'instant home\' and New Orleans-
The shotgun bullet House, also built next to the museum, can be used to replace the house destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
But bogdore says the same way any style of house can be built.
Bergdoll says a method like this allows buyers to personalize their homes, which is a great help to make it easier for them to be accepted by the public.
In the United States, it is generally believed that houses are an expression of personal taste, and buyers have long been linking prefabrication with normalization.
The new method allows customers to customize the house according to their specifications.
Architects and clients have enough flexibility to adapt to individual preferences.
