The Global Prefab House

WeberHaus 'Option' house, developed from the ‘smallhouse.ch’ concept by the Swiss architects Bauart AG, is a prefabricated house manufactured in wood.

The appearence is minimalist and the house philosophy is, according to the architects, for a minimum cost and maximum design quality. Outside blocky, inside of "surprising generosity." The modular house grows with the needs of its residents. Only one thing remains the same - the unconventional mixture of panoramic windows and horizontal wood siding. The small sized, yet sophisticated design and construction, is though of to be a standalone building or to complement existing buildings and facilities.

The basic version modules are of 4.13 by 10.11 metres, with four generous windows, located on each face, provide the box with the necessary natural light. These are associated with four spatial zones, characterizing its appearance, contributing for its overall consistent and reduced, functional and object-like look.

Functionally, the basic version of the two-story box-like house offers living and dining room, hallway and complete kitchen, a fully equipped bath, a gallery and, separated by a sliding wall, two rooms for sleeping or working.

In addition to the basic box, ground plan variants like an L- or U-shape with an inner atrium are possible. Other options of this system include the grouping of volumes. An option for pitched roof may also be used.

The construction is of wood frame, with final assembly of a panel type (3D) construction. The construction system is developed by the builder, 'Weberhaus', and allows virtually any finishing type.

The compactness of the house may certainly be regarded as an indicator of the willingness of people to actually live in a small, compact house like this even when it is not dictated by an urban context. Its expansion possibilities keep together with a sense of compactness in space and possibilities of finishings and roof types make it adjusted to the contemporary family patterns and a contemporary lifestyle.

Project Information
Name: Option
Address: Thun [pilot project]
Context: Suburban
Use: House, Office or Mixed
Type of Building: Single, Semi-detached or Terrace
Number of Storeys: 2-storey
External dimensions: 4.13 x 10.11 m
Floor area: 67.64 m2
Ground occupancy: 41.75 m2
Roof: Flat or Pitched
Architecture: Bauart AG
Builder: Weberhaus Year: 2008

Image: JP House in Cuenca, Spain, by MYCC Office Architecture

Following an earlier post on prefab house companies in Portugal, here we provide a selection prefab house companies in Spain.

As before, there are two main types of companies here selected, which reflect our criteria of choice: are either construction companies which develop their own construction systems and/or reflect a strong focus on architectural design issues; or are architectural offices which have developed their own prefab designs.

Ábaton
Abs
American LH
Caminas
Canexel
Casas de Madera y Mas
Casa Modular
Casas Natura
Cofitor
Eco Build (Spain)
Eko-Etxea
House Prototype in Alicante by DMP Arquitectura (via CTT Madera)
Madercon
Modularq
Modus Vivendi
MYCC
Nordicasa
Vilas Anderson
Vitale Loft

Hope you find interesting architecture or prefab insights in these links. Hope you find some more and, of course, you're welcome to let us know about it. Thanks. Enjoy!

Image: in "The third industrial revolution", Apr 21st 2012, from The Economist print edition

Mass customization (MC) is an original concept derived from the business language that seeks to answer the need that the industry has in offering a wide range of products. The term was coined by B. J. Pine II [1], who refers that MC solves the dilemma of offering individualized products at the price of standardized ones by eliminating inefficiencies and waste by ordering the productive process.

Any MC methodology implies the use of processes based in lean production [2], a succedaneum of the Toyota Production System (TPS) [3]. It is a production philosophy which considers as waste the use of resources for any objective other than the creation of value to the end-customer, and therefore targeted for elimination. It settles on the continuous processes improvement and is centered in the preservation of value with less work, by means of more efficient and optimized processes, waste reduction, empirical methods for decision making other than uncritical acceptance of pre-established ideas.

Continuous improvement is a MC requirement, but it also demands quite different organizational structures, different values, management and systems roles, learning methods and especially ways of relating with the client. The product and its development are not commanding, but instead the client’s desires and demands.

Therefore is not just about being better and working better as a team with a common purpose, but also to accept the unpredictable nature of the client, considering him as an opportunity, not an obstacle. It is about getting the best possible method to relate every participant within the context and the circumstances of each case. In architecture this should not be news, as most of the times the architect answers directly to the client’s demands. But normally this is made case by case, without a systematization of the type required by a large productive structure.

Applications of the MC concept to several industries are becoming increasingly common, but in some cases not without some major bumps in the way. Examples of companies such as Amazon or eBay are widely known. Nike's sport shoes, which can be designed by the client in the company’s website is also a widely known example. In the auto industry, the Smart car was precursor with its online configurator, and is currently just one more example of the plenty in this type of approach. Check out the mass customization links provided in an earlier post.

[1] Pine II, B J. (1993). Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
[2] Womack, J P, & Jones, D T. (2003). Lean thinking : banish waste and create wealth in your corporation ([Rev. ed.] ed.). New York: Free Press ; London : Simon & Schuster.
[3] Ohno, T. (1988). Toyota production system : beyond large-scale production. Cambridge, Mass.: Productivity Press.

Image: Coolhaven House Prototype in iParque, Coimbra, Portugal.

Here are some links on interesting prefab house companies operating in Portugal.
On Casas Prefab blog there is some descriptions on general features of prefab and also a extended list of links which is not presented here. They also have links to companies in Spain, Brazil and Angola, some of which are not working. From those which were available we made a selection and added others of our knowledge.

There are two main types here, which reflect our criteria of choice: are either construction companies which develop their own construction systems and/or reflect a strong focus on architectural design issues; or are architectural offices which have developed their own prefab designs.

Capa
Coolhaven
Goodmood
Ibermódulo
3H eMOB
Kitur
Lacecal
MIMA
Modular
Modular System
Mudastone
Norma
Sitmodular
Steelkza
StandHouse
TÉKETO
Toscca
TreeHouse
Vigobloco


You are welcome to let us know some we do not know yet. Thanks. Enjoy!

Here are some links that may be useful to get you started if you are interested in researching in the field of mass customization and its possible applications to house production. Some of them are already quite old, yet their information still stands.


The ddb NOLA a blog published by digital design build studio at Clemson University, with a insight on house production. They present a seemingly basic, yet concise and informative comparison between mass production and mass customization concepts.

"A long march", an article published long ago, in 2001, in The Economist. It helps you get aware on some economic concepts from where mass-customization is originated.



The Mass-customization blog, where the author provides a varied landscape on the subject, presenting from all sorts of consumer products to specialized articles.

In Ponoko you may find some interesting links on mass customization with a special focus on the use of 3D printing technologies.


The Replicator blog provides a general landscape on consumer products and has a particular post on mass-customization based on twenty-year-old article by B. Josep Pine II, the economist precursor of mass-customization, which this blog's author updates with current, funnier, examples.

The "Mass Customization" web article, by David M. Anderson, with a sort of review with conceptual insight on mass-customization processes, presenting a useful generic bibliography on general aspects of mass-customization.

The mass custom home is a page with a interesting, simplified, conceptual scheme on the use of mass-customization principle applied to house production. The scholar author, Masa Noguchi, from the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow, provides a quite interesting bibliographic base that you may search on.

Finally the "Customised Industrialisation in the Residential Sector: Mass Customisation Modelling as a Tool for Benchmarking, Variation and Selection" a great book on the subject, a must buy if you have serious interest in this field. This book is the first to feature a production and marketing approach, combining open industrialisation and the use of Internet Technology, with the aim of generating cost-affective alternatives and improving consumer interaction. It is based on C. C. A. M. van den Thillart, the author, thesis developed in the TUDelft Architectural Faculty in the Netherlands.

According to the myth, Frank Lloyd Wright used to play with these as a child. In 1826 Friedrich Froebel makes its first wooden blocks for children’s education. Its education philosophy based on free self-expression, creativity, social participation, and motor expression, got renowned, as his wooden blocks, later called Froebel’s Gifts. According to the myth, the latter would influence central architectural references such as Frank Lloyd Wright. More recently it became a major influence, for instance, on the development of shape grammar theory when George Stiny [1] devised and analytical shape grammar based on these.

[1] Stiny, George. (1980). Kindergarten grammars: designing with Froebel's building gifts. Environment and Planning B, 7(4), 409-462. doi: 10.1068/b070409

This is the first of a six-part, three-hour, BBC TV series aired in 1997. Stewart Brand presented and co-wrote the series; it was directed by James Muncie, with music by Brian Eno.
As the author says "The series was based on my 1994 book, HOW BUILDINGS LEARN: What Happens After They’re Built. The book is still selling well and is used as a text in some college courses. Most of the 27 reviews on Amazon treat it as a book about system and software design, which tells me that architects are not as alert as computer people. But I knew that; that’s part of why I wrote the book."
Check out the other five movies. An amazing piece of information.

The Edge of the Possible clip - Additive Architecture from Film Art Media on Vimeo.

A excerpt of a movie showing the additive principle cherished by Jorn Utzon applied to the construction of the Sidney Opera House.