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By Sara Hart
Living Lab
The success of any research depends on how close it comes
to reality—testing at full scale in real time. For its
research house, the House_n group has designed a single-family
house to be built near the MIT campus. House_n will be a multidisciplinary
“living laboratory,” inhabited by volunteers whose
activities will be monitored by the researchers. This is not
reality TV, but the scientific endeavor to answer questions
such as: Can the proper integration of technology and architectural
design motivate life-extending behavioral changes? Can natural
resources be conserved by better monitoring?
From a building-science perspective, the research house will
test a new component-based building system, or Chassis and
Infill, as the researchers have named it. This is a determined
effort to produce a method of construction that will result
in a more flexible house, reversing the ratio of field labor
to materials. As the name implies, Chassis and Infill borrows
from the automotive industry’s method of rapidly installed
integrated parts. The Living Lab will be an integrated assembly.
Under its provisions, the chassis will be composed of protrusion
glass-fiber composite beams and columns that will provide
structure, insulation, sensors arrays, lighting, signal and
power-cable raceways, and ductwork. The infill components
will include integrated wall/floor assemblies, specialty millwork,
display systems, and networked appliances and devices. The
theory goes that the infill components can be replaced or
upgraded without disruption to the chassis. Of course, integration
will require that industry standards be developed so that
connections of different brands of materials can be easily
interchangeable.
Ultimately, Chassis and Infill represents “mass customization,”
the latest buzz phrase in academia and commercial building.
The MIT investigators have developed their own ERP system,
in which Larson identifies three elements necessary to mass
customization.
The first is front-end software called a “preference
engine”—a computational system that mimics the architect’s
initial client interview, which sets the program and aesthetic
values and guides the conceptual stage of the design process.
Whereas this Web-based system would not replace the processes
used in a tiny percentage of architect-designed residential
commissions, it would allow companies currently developing
new residential technologies and building techniques to gather
information about consumer needs.
Secondly, a “design engine” incorporates the shape
grammar of the designer or architect. Shape grammar is a set
of rules used to create coherent spaces. But this database
would also encode other considerations, from universal design
standards to energy conservation strategies.
The third and probably most essential engine is a production
system to fabricate components for easy assembly on-site.
Computerized Numerically Controlled (CNC) machines, already
in use in large millwork and metal plants, allow for custom
parts to be produced as fast as identical ones. If this technology
can make it to the residential-construction market, Larson
sees new materials, such as polymers, composites, and special-purpose
metals coming into residential use.
Meanwhile, there is another version of Chassis and Infill
housing that appears to have been created with the baby boomer
in mind. Finnish architect Jarmo Suominen, a visiting researcher
at MIT, has created VirAps (Virtual Apartment System), which
may make customization of multifamily housing easy for builders.
The system is a database-driven, Web-based application (using
the AutoDesk MapGuide server, Oracle, and Inews by Noitatieto),
which allows consumers to participate in the design of their
homes. In other words, they plan the chassis infill. The VirAps
system is divided into two sections: business-to-business
and business-to-consumer. Its database gathers information
from architects, materials manufacturers, developers, and
others, and stores it in the business-to-business section,
which can be retrieved by consumers, who can search for areas
and buildings and then design their apartments. The consumers
are not completely on their own: Guided by an extensive Design/Help
tool, an integrated cost manager calculates the implication
of their choices. The completed plan is then sent back to
the developer, and the apartment is built according to the
specifications given. Several apartments have been planned
in Helsinki that will use VirAps.
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