Leave it to Bjarke Ingels the BIG thinker guy, to put his efforts towards formalizing yet another segment of his creative talent by structuring a company associated within, or at least with, BIG, that he says will revolutionize the way we design and build homes. The future of housing is certain, we need more of them, thus continuously finding means and methods of building custom or speculative homes of better quality that more people can afford is a critical goal. The idea of modularized prefabricated standardized home construction has been around for the past one hundred and fifty years. Too many attempts at modular homes brought very mundane and low grade finished products to market have not yielded any real impacts on changing housing mass customization. Turns out most companies that mass produce modular homes do so with very low quality at an affordable price, or increasing the pricing for high end quality that then begs the question of viability against traditionally built homes. At least with factory controlled component manufacturing a certain level of quality can yield better results, but that’s not to say that even in traditional stick frame site construction quality control isn’t built in, most good general contractors continuously manage quality as the project progresses, the opportune cost savings though should come in the framework of repeatability and mass production. James Parkes wrote a really nice article in Dezeen.com about Ingel’s new venture, Nabr. A quick review of this website reveals that in this context, housing is not limited to single family suburban sprawl, the images are of multi story housing projects, so modularization in this context is inclusive of multiple levels of housing types.
A short presentation I put together for a class in the history of glass and glazing as a primer to modern developments of glass used in architecture, Glass & Skins, A Brief History of Glass.
Historic Preservation typically considers the impact of historic works that reflect a time when certain trends and ideas dominated the world of design and thus worth saving. But what happens when historic preservation takes into consideration modern design, projects that were built in the early to mid twentieth century? I wrote this article at the behest of ArcCA Journal, and can be read by going to this link, on Preserving Modernism.
In late 1999 early 2000, I was moved by a work of architecture tucked away just behind a grove of overgrown brush behind a vacant parking lot just east of highway 101 in Novato, CA. The building and its grounds was designed as a bowling alley for William J. Nave, a prominant business man and civic leader, and opened in 1960. The building was designed by an architect by the name of Gordon Phillips, who at one time was an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright. The building was designed in a Wrightian manner which was a befitting style as it was located just ten miles north of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marin County Civic Center. At the time we were living in Sausalito, and had an opportunity to learn how hard it is to save buildings, even if they have unique or historic significance. I was unable to save this work of architecture, but through a series of articles for the Marin Independent Journal and Docomomo, at least I was able to give voice to a faded memory.
Great article on the mass timber movement here in the United States. “Timber Grows Up“. So refreshing to see our resources being put to good use. Management of forestry is key, and important factor in contributing to the growth of this specialized sector of our profession. Architects tend to shy away from anything too risky, but since banks are willing to loan on this technology, wood being readily available and more companies such as StructurCraft and Seagate expand into the US market, it’s expected to see more construction in mass timber.
