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By Sara Hart

Size matters

Prefabrication and modular construction are well suited to the residential scale, but things get complicated as scale increases. In their latest book, Refabricating Architecture: How Manufacturing Methodologies Are Poised to Transform Building Construction (McGraw-Hill, November 2003), Philadelphia architects Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake share their experiences applying the principles of component building to commercial projects and the challenges this brings. Mass customization is already the standard in industrial design, as evidenced by Dell computers, Nike shoes, and Swatch watches. Product choice secures an increased market share for a brand. Kieran and Timberlake have observed that by breaking products into small parts, companies can assemble these parts to meet consumer demand. They do this through supply-chain management, controlled with newly designed manufacturing software.

 

Images: Courtesy Trattie Davies (upper left); Chris Cayten (lower left); Erin Carraher (right) Option Studio, Yale University, Fall 2003 Students explored the various means and methods of off-site construction. Their worked drew heavily on weeks of research into existing and theoretical methods of prefabrication. Their goal was to design a flexible system for building off-site, not to construct a single object, as in the traditional studio. Emphasis was placed on the creation of proposals that were realistic and informed. At the end of the semester, each student delivered a book documenting the system and how it would work through a supply chain, production, delivery, assembly, and costs per unit.

Commissioned by Yale University to add a dormitory to an existing complex of buildings, their firm, KieranTimberlake Associates (KTA), was immediately confronted with daunting logistical problems. The site was nearly inaccessible because it was located within a quadrangle of existing buildings. To make matters worse, what little space existed was already taken as a staging area for another renovation project. It quickly became clear that this project was the perfect candidate for off-site fabrication, if the building components could be customized to fit the site. Time was a factor, as well. If the dorm units were manufactured elsewhere, then they could be shipped to the site and craned into place over spring break, thus minimizing disruption of classes.