[HOUSING DEMONSTRATION PROJECT]
In PS 03 the students developed a system for prefabricated housing. At this point they were given the opportunity to test this system in an actual site with an actual program. Two sites with programs were provided, courtesy of the Perkins & Will’s office. The students, using their developed prefabricated housing system, had the opportunity to test it by applying it to a sample housing program.
[QUESTIONING THE SYSTEM}
Large firms like Katerra and Google are proposing prefab systems to solve housing problems of cost and lack of availability due to speed of construction as well as be more sustainably responsible. This has been seen before in architecture but the question that this studio engaged with is whether current technological innovation is the answer to the ills that have dogged prefabrication in architecture?
While students tested their system, the following questions were considered:
1. What makes your system successful as a housing system today? What are the advantages of the system? What needs to happen in the building industry in order for people to adopt your system?
2. How does your system engage with the technologies available to be able to customize prefabrication? How does it engage parametric in design? How easy is it to fabricate custom aspects of the project? Is the ease of customization taken advantage of in your system?
3. What technology would you use to fabricate your project? What type of machine and number of axis do you need? What kind of machine space?
[THE PROPOSAL]
The students’ final designs proposed a housing solution which responded to both the housing demands put forward in the Perkins & Will brief which represented the type of housing that was in demand at the sites given. The designs were designed with unit plans for the range of housing types that is called for. As well they were required to respond to the site conditions and location – urban and natural. In responding to the housing programs and the site, students tested the flexibility and adaptability of the prefab system they adopted.