Prefabricate Your Life

Prefabricate Your Life 
By: Brad Hoepfner 
        Today in architecture the notion of prefabricated or modular homes has become a common thought. The driving forces that are behind modular homes are convenience, affordability, and quick erection. Initially, modular units were mainly used and known for jails, barracks, and cheap motels so the most people did not want to live in this type of home. Now, small homes, hotels, and large apartment buildings are being erected using these methods and saving the owners a large sum of money. These options are starting to allow low income families an opportunity to live in these dwellings. These ideas are currently pushing my studio project but they also could affect my disaster relief housing and planning thesis next semester. So to start my search at looking into these types of homes I went to google to see what it could offer me, I was hoping to find a thesis or two to gather some sources or give me some general info, but instead I found a multitude of websites describing their modular homes for sale and how cheap and easy it is to buy into these homes.
        Continuing my search, I found a look onto prefab housing from a negative stand point. The guys at http://blog.buildllc.com gave a list of 10 major factors on why these homes are failing. Site selection has to be generally flat or else you will need to manipulate the land, the top prefab housing vendor is going out of business, and the fact that the new and innovative leaders in prefab housing are failing to solve the simple problems of the home, like keeping rain out and controlling air temperature are a few of the reasons prefab homes are not a viable source of housing. “Like any other mass-produced product, prefabs need to sell at a certain volume to pencil out financially. While we don’t know what that tipping point is, we’re guessing that there just aren’t enough consumers with a modern design philosophy to support the formula. Buckminster Fuller and Jean Prouve designed and built successful models decades ago that provided cost-effective, mass-produced, pre-fab housing. One of the main reasons that these models didn’t work is because they didn’t look like little bungalows with white picket fences. As a society, we may not be evolved enough yet for well designed pre-fabs (buildllc.com).” Hopefully we will be able to look back at these great minds and build off what we have learned to develop a successful prefab home that addresses and solves as many issues as possible.

Transit

Citizens for Modern Transit
By: Chris Harpstrite
       Since I began research on my thesis, Transit Oriented Development in the Metro St. Louis Area, I have often frequented a website hosted by an organization named Citizens for Modern Transit. This organization started more than two decades ago with a primary purpose of introducing MetroLink to the St. Louis metropolitan area. In 2011 CMT (Citizens for Modern Transit) changed its official mission to:
      “CMT leads advocacy efforts for an integrated, affordable, and convenient public transportation system with light rail expansion as the critical component that will drive economic growth to improve quality of life in the St. Louis region.”
       CMT is a big supporter of TOD in the St. Louis area, and are working to implement it. On their website, http://cmt-stl.org/, you can learn all about their mission, buy Metro Passes, learn about the Guaranteed Ride Home program, but the place I visit the most is their blog. They are consistently posting articles and comments about TOD, and not just TOD in St. Louis but throughout the United States.
       So far this has been a great learning tool for me. It has connected me with some of the people I am, or need to, speak with in the area, and has also helped narrow down some potential site locations. This week there was a blog posted about what tools are other cities using to bring TOD and joint development to their transportation systems? I am not going to spoil the whole article but here are some of the main points:

1. Marketing is going to be crucial to the success of any project.
2. TIF or Tax Increment Financing can help to bring investors in.
3. Coordination with roads.
4. Get the elected officials on board.
5. Zoning/Form Based Codes, these must be compatible to the goals of the projects.
6. Start with a Pilot Project, currently Denver has three pilot projects going to see what does and does not work.
7. Activate the streets.
8. Get transit agency employees on board, without their help it can kill a TOD project.
   
   There are many more interesting things to learn from CMT’s website. Check it out. Until next time…

Light Architecture

Light Architecture

By: Chris Pacanowski

            As I continue on research for my thesis I had just finished my first book for my literature review, the book is called Light Architecture, new edge city, by Gianni Ranaulo. This book was quite interesting, it had talked about how architecture in the past has been a method of communication, and architecture had told stories. When looking back at history and at the cathedrals, everything about them was a story. Cathedrals had used the mosaics on the ceiling as a way to tell Jesus’ stories and communicate them in a way that was pictorial rather than through text. This idea isn’t always carried out in our modern architecture.

            The book continues to go on and show examples of modern day buildings that are trying to integrate technology in a way to be able to use the building as a communication devise for the public. One of the major examples that is seen by millions of people a day is time square New York, the technology that is being used there is incredible. Other projects utilize multiple different techniques to be able to either project images or videos up on a wall or glass, or just large panels of LCD TV’s. This technology can be used not only as an advertisement method for businesses, as well as extra income for the building itself, but it can be used to communicate community happenings or news.

            After reading this book it has made me realize that looking back at my design I hadn’t communicated anything to the public other than the fact that there is a new building. I believe that in my thesis design I will attempt to use some of these methods of “Light Architecture” in some of my buildings, mainly the community center. The idea of being able to make a building’s façade communicate to people and serve a greater purpose rather than just being there, is an incredible idea and should be integrated into every building in some way.    

8 Tallet

8 Tallet—Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

By: Colleen O’Malley

The bowtie-shaped 61,000 sq m mixed-use building of three different types of residential housing and 10,000 sq m of retail and offices comprises Denmark’s largest private development ever undertaken. Rather than a traditional block, the 8 House stacks all ingredients of a lively urban neighborhood into horizontal layers of topologies connected by a continuous promenade and cycling path up to the 10th floor creating a three-dimensional urban neighborhood where suburban life merges with the energy of a city, where business and housing co-exist.

8 House is a three-dimensional neighborhood rather than an architectural object. An alley of 150 row houses stretches through the entire block and twists all the way from street level to the top and down again. Where social life, the spontaneous encounter and neighbor interaction traditionally is restricted to the ground level, the 8 House allows it to expand all the way to the top. 8 House is our second realized example of architectural alchemy – the idea that by mixing traditional ingredients, retail, row- houses and apartments in untraditional ways – you create added value if not gold. The mix allows the individual activities to find their way to the most ideal location within the common framework – the retail facing street, the offices towards northern light and the residences with sun and views to the open spaces. 8 House is a perimeter block that morphs into a knot, twisting and turning to maximize the life quality of its many inhabitants.

Surviving Architecture Without Land

Surviving Architecture Without Land:

A Futuristic Exploration of Urban Design on Water

By: Jonathan Smith

      The following is a compilation of the major problems and responses as to why this research and project is significant in solving a variety of environmental and living problems.

Land could become a sought after commodity in the near future, how does this project help to alleviate this issue?

      This thesis project will propose architectural solutions offshore that will help to alleviate the unavailability of land in the future. This could also be taken into consideration or water adjacent cities that need expansion in specific areas of their city. The planning and development of this offshore city could be applied to other smaller projects as well.

Global warming is an issue mentioned, but how does this project address that?

      Global warming cannot solve architecture; period. Instead, architecture can be part of a larger solution to the environmental problem. This project will help to create an environment that helps to not only encourage green building, but also green lifestyle choices. The urban fabric that the project will be composed of will be centered around the need for sustainability in order for success.

This idea is extremely conceptual, how viable is this project for a realistic future design?

       The idea explored in this thesis project is meant to add a planning precursor to what future architects and designers incorporate into their urban design solutions. There is a multitude of solutions to various problems in society, this is merely one instance that solves a variety of issues.

By creating offshore living you are in turn creating offshore living problems. A few of these include: the reliability that people have on soil based foods and living; the turbulence and natural disasters located in the oceans or offshore; and the magnitude of engineering involved in keeping a city afloat on water safely.

       The research and design will work to solve the above problems. Alternative modes of living and lifestyle choices will solve the major connection the inhabitants have with land.  The urban design involved with the project can only reinforce and support the lifestyle change involved in the success of such an idea. The natural disasters will be dealt with via mobility of the city or the defense of the city against damages. The engineering of this project will be coordinated with research other individuals have done for similar projects. These projects include things as simples as offshore drilling wells to large airports that are located on water.