Inside the prefab house
(from The Interior Architecture Reader, edited by Gregory Marinic, 2018 Routledge)
Chapter 15
Inside the prefab house
Deborah Schneiderman
The investigation into modern prefabrication has enjoyed much attention in the architecture community for over a century, but until very recently, the literature documenting its significance has contained a notable omission. The techniques and applications of prefabrication of the interior have been evident for thousands of years. Prefabrication in the built environment owes much of its advancement to concepts investigated in terms of interior architectural elements and components, and thus it deserves closer examination. The evolution of the prefab house decidedly includes the development of ideas and integration of prefabricated interior components. The notion of prefabrication, and particularly the prefabricated dwelling, receives continued attention by architects and designers for reasons of efficiency and affordability of construction coupled with a current shift toward, or return to, sustainable technologies, designs, and environments.
Historically, prefabricated interior elements and constructions have been integral to the development of the prefabricated house. Introduced in 1833 in England, the Manning Portable Colonial Cottage is the first documented prefabricated house. It was transported to Australia for the construction of new settlements. Houses like this considered the building
envelope – though the advent of interior prefabricated elements within the prefabricated house would soon follow. Innovations in the prefabricated interior of the prefab house ranged from individual elements to complete assemblages. In the early part of the twentieth century, the Sears, Roebuck and Company kit houses introduced an early prefab innovation: interior lining that was essentially an early form of gypsum, which reduced construction time of the kit-based house. Although an optional choice for the home buyer, this innovative material could replace internal partitions made of traditional lath and plaster. Even Frank Lloyd Wright turned to prefabrication; he installed a prefabricated frieze in his own home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois. An early example of a complete interior prefabricated assemblage is R. Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Bathroom (1936). The bathroom was designed in four basic sections, each of which was stamped out of sheet metal. Extremely efficient in its design, this bathroom included a tub/shower module and a lavatory/toilet module – all contained within five square feet of floor space and weighing only about as much as a conventional bathtub. This bathroom represents a forerunner that influentially fueled the subsequent specialty prefabrication market. It serves as a precursor to the pod bathrooms currently being designed and installed in buildings today.
There are many examples of innovative, singular prefabricated elements within interior environments. This investigation looks at three typologies where the interior environment is truly integrated in the conceptualization of the prefabricated house and the significance of that integration. These houses are uniquely representative of an interior architectonic that is integral to the design of the prefabricated structure as a whole. The Lustron House, a mass-produced prefab introduced by Carl Strundtland in 1946, integrates a conceptual link between the house’s structure, interior, and exterior as expressed through material and finish. The Furniture House series, an ongoing prefabrication investigation, elevates individual and commonplace interior element of storage furniture to multifunctional elements of structure, interior, and exterior. The Composite House, an unbuilt project house, conceptualizes assemblages as structural
elements, which are at once interior and exterior elements. These three houses share the notion that prefabrication was as critical to the interior as it was to the exterior.
Lustron House: a closed-system prefabricated home
The interior elements of the Lustron House were developed as a system of prefabricated modular units that not only act as dividing or space-making elements, but also function as programmed space, shelving, cabinetry, closets, and vanities. In an article about the Lustron House, Wolfe and Garfield note, “Twenty percent of the wall space was devoted to such built-in cabinets, dressers, and closets, manufactured as complete units and plugged into the house at the building site.” As such, this modularization of the prefabricated parts brings a furnishing element to the level of programmed prefabricated space. Though the panelized interior assemblages did not function as structural elements themselves, later unbuilt iterations of the project utilized the untapped strength of the steel panels as structural elements.
The Lustron House was certainly not the first example of a prefabricated steel home, but it was the first to embrace the materiality of prefabrication. In some of the early prefab homes around the time of the Great Depression (e.g., the Armco-Ferro House in Cleveland), the exterior consisted of prefabricated steel systems. However, the interiors were not prefabricated and called for traditional plaster walls that required standard on-site construction. The prefabricated Motohome (1933) was built with steel exterior panels and boasted a modern exterior façade. The interior of this house incorporated elements of prefabrication – a highly touted kitchen element and a novel built-in cigarette lighter. Interior surfaces demonstrated innovation, yet featured finishes reminiscent of familiar interior materials, such as plaster and hardwood. The interior of the Lustron House was a rather radical departure from its site-built counterpart. The interior wall
panels and built-in furniture were manufactured from the same porcelain-enameled steel panels that covered the exterior and roof, establishing a clear visual interior-to-exterior connection. The materials were experienced in their true form, and unlike the Motohome and other prefab houses of this era, there was no attempt to hide the metal used as the interior wall and cabinet finish. The homeowners, in many cases, embraced this unique metal finish, utilizing magnets throughout the interior.
The interior of the standard model consisted of eight prefabricated cabinets and closets in addition to the plain interior wall panels. All wall panels in the original design were non-structural and erected over a structural steel framing system. The Lustron House was packaged with several prefabricated space-making elements, including a bedroom vanity wall unit that eliminated the need to buy a clothes dresser, and a built-in china cabinet that formed the wall assemblage between the dinette and the kitchen (Figure 15.1). As such, the interior elements defined space and provided the living program.
The house also included mechanical innovations to make the lives of the homeowners easier, such as a built-in kitchen exhaust and an undercounter all-in-one dishwasher/clothes washer (although apparently neither functioned especially well). The interior and exterior of the house were designed and manufactured within a “closed system.” The elements and components of the structural system, including everything from windows to bathtubs, were designed specifically for the house. In what would ultimately amount to a serious limitation, structural elements meant for other homes could not be used for the Lustron House, nor could elements of the Lustron House be used in other homes. The Lustron factory even had a machine whose sole function was to produce a bathtub at a fraction of the cost of the traditional tub; unfortunately, the Lustron tub was designed on the dimension of 5 feet 1.5 inches as opposed to the standard 5-foot tub. In order for the manufacturing to be cost effective, they would have to produce twice as many tubs as the Lustron houses needed, which was impossible as
this idiosyncratic dimension did not meet the dimensions of the typical tub.
The design of the Lustron House proved to be manifestly innovative in its expression of interior prefabricated elements. Though it exhibited a visual connection between the design of the interior and the exterior, a true integration would have been in a structural connection between these prefabricated interior elements and the core construction of the house. This lack of appropriate engineering may have been one of the downfalls of the Lustron House. Highly redundant in nature, the separate framing and panel systems did not otherwise take advantage of the structural capabilities of the steel. The framing system, in fact, was determined by Koch to be unnecessary. In his 1950 redesign of the house, he developed an integrated panel that acted simultaneously a structure, and interior and exterior surface. The Lustron Company folded in 1950, and Koch’s ideas never actualized beyond the drawing board. Although the goal of true mass production was not achieved, the integration and significant placement of the prefabricated components informed the evolution of the prefabricated interior.
Furniture House: an interiorized system for custom house prefabrication
Shigeru Ban’s Furniture House relied on the prefabrication of what is typically considered an object of interior design: furniture. Furniture House elevated the status of furniture from an object added to a room to a space-defining and structural element. Furniture House 1 was completed in 1995 and five houses of this typology have been completed to date. Ban’s development of furniture as a means for structure formed a natural progression in his investigations into unique forms of structure. An earlier project premiered the repetition of recycled paper tubes. Ban’s exploration of alternative construction methods remains ongoing; he applied his learned
lessons to the use of prefabricated concrete piles for structure in the PC Pile House. After these houses, Ban continued with a succession of case-study houses that allowed him to further test alternative structures. In the design of Furniture House, Ban coupled his structural investigations with the tragedies of Japan’s earthquakes – where falling furniture caused many casualties. The idea for the first Furniture House was conceptualized when Ban designed the “Library of a Poet,” in which he utilized a paper tube truss construction coupled with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. From the design and construction of the library project, Ban realized the possibility that furniture could be designed to serve as the primary structure.
For the fabrication of the first Furniture House, Ban collaborated with a furniture manufacturer. The component elements were completely manufactured and finished, inside and out, off-site. In many instances, the furniture elements function simultaneously as interior, exterior, and structure, containing insulating materials and having both interior and exterior finishes as necessary. The construction of Furniture House reconceptualized the traditional hierarchy of building. In this design, the hierarchy is eliminated and “furniture and house are one.”
Fundamentally, the Furniture House is designed as a conceptual, realized system for the construction of a house. It follows a wood frame, two-by-two typology, but contains enhanced strength. The construction of the home is based on the module of the furniture elements. The dimensions of the units used in this house are 240 centimeters high, 90 meters wide, with a depth of 45 centimeters for bookcases and 70 centimeters for other units. Each unit weighs approximately 80 kilograms so that a single person can move it. Several types of furniture modules can be programmed into the houses. There are many benefits to this construction typology; reduced site construction time, reduced leftover materials that require removal from the site, and a reduced amount of labor to build the house. Off-site production was specifically chosen because building the structural furniture in a controlled environment permits a higher level of craft and efficiency.
Ban has proceeded to design and build several iterations of Furniture House. Notably, Furniture House 2 was designed as a prototype for
a two-story house. The structural furniture on the first floor carries the load of the second floor, and second floor furniture elements carry the roof load (Figure 15.2).
Figure 15.2 Furniture House 2 exploded axonometric depicting structural furniture elements: Shigeru Ban Architects
Composite House: a non-hierarchical unit-based building system
The Composite House, designed by Ferda Kolatan and Erich Schoenenberger of su11 architecture+design, comprises an inherently flexible prefabricated housing system. Given that its organization and the parts are integral and connected, this design ethos is equally employed in both the interior architecture of the house and the exterior. The house is a prototype, unbuilt concept that is truly a culmination of this investigation. Add-ons, the architects’ name for the prefabricated multi-programmed units, are “components designed in response to specific programmatic and atmospheric needs.” Add-ons carry the capacity to have walls, stairways, doors, or storage attached to them.
The minimization of the importance of the house’s shell is of particular interest in the Composite Housing project. The system is one that is inherently fluid and quite unlike the largely fixed systems of typical construction – or even most prefabs. The architects, in a sense, divorce themselves from the role of designing the building or shell and allow the resultant exterior to be derived based on chosen, mostly interior, program. A local contractor would build the house skeleton (as it is termed by the architects) from wood or steel. Each homeowner, through the selection and combination of their preferred add-ons, would then personally design the house. The interior and exterior architecture are combined into units by the homeowner to meet their particular programmatic needs. There is a dimensional system to enable design customization and configuration for kitchens and bathrooms through a modular unit: one unit for a toilet, two for a sink cabinet, three for a shower, and four for a bathtub. The elements are intended for manufacture with an epoxy finish, one that would wear equally well and meet the needs of both the interior and exterior environment, balancing them hierarchically. The designers further connect the interior architecture with that of the exterior through the composite system which emphasizes the importance of interior habitation in the design of the add-ons. “Surface and texture are integral to the design,
acknowledging the emotional connection people have with materials.”34 The house celebrates everyday elements that are functionally critical to the interior of the home like stairs, cabinets, and storage spaces. Rather than a predetermined take on how individuals will live within the house, the add-ons encourage the homeowner to consider the livability possibilities of the interior of the home and select and arrange the units accordingly.
The add-ons are designed to be interchangeable, providing the ability to reconfigure elements over time as necessary and/or desired. The architects consider the units as a habitable puzzle consisting of several functions, including object, furniture, and space (Figure 15.3).35 Color choices, typically considered a decorative finish, are integral to this project, applied largely as coding devices that define the planes and use of the elements.
This system has been reconceived several times. In addition, the architects have designed a second system called Composite Architecture, which combines furniture and architecture systems into inter-programmed space comprised of sofa and bed units, table and storage units, and other components. These elements are purely interior prefabricated assemblages and exist without connection to an architecture. The elements do not need to be used within a specific structure and could be plugged into existing space to create true interior prefabrication. The system, like the Composite House, is customizable; the homeowner selects and previews the functionality, materials, and colors through an online interface.
Upon close investigation, each of the houses secures a place of prominence for interior elements within the prefabricated home. All three houses exhibit a strong connection between interior and exterior and represent an evolution of the integration of prefabricated interior components within the prefabricated house. All three houses consider the notion of the prefabricated assemblage by means of programmed interior elements and space-making devices. The projects are uniquely
interconnected through unified interior-exterior materials, while interior elements are elevated for programmatic necessity rather than decoration. In the latter two projects, the Furniture Houses and Composite Houses, interior elements have a further architectonic role as they are functionally the structure in addition to programmed interior space.
Though the Lustron House did not actually elevate the interior built-ins or assemblages to the level of structure, the connection of interior, exterior, and structure was implied through materiality and the space-making nature of the built-in units. The Koch redesign of the structure did begin to explore the structural nature of the panels, which could be considered a precursor to a structural interior assemblage. The Furniture House, in particular, questions the traditional hierarchy of design elements, elevating furniture to be the structural element without which the house would not exist. The Composite House, a prototype concept, is truly a culmination of this investigation. Each contain composite elements of interior, furniture, structure, and exterior. The traditional design hierarchies have been eliminated, and the resultant form exists as an equalization of all elements.
An overarching result of the use of prefabricated elements is of particular interest in today’s receptive climate toward sustainability. For example, building off-site has demonstrated reduced material waste and labor costs, while the fabrication of modular, transportable, or interchangeable elements allows for adaptability and reuse, increasing the life of all the elements. Further investigations into prefabrication of such interior elements by interior architects in a purposefully sustainable manner will continue to advance the significant territory of prefabricated interior architecture.
Notes
- Deborah Schneiderman, Inside Prefab: The Ready-Made Interior (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), pp. 8–11.
- Colin Davies, The Prefabricated Home (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), pp. 47–48.
3 Katherine H. Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl, Houses by Mail: A Guide to Houses From Sears, Roebuck and Company (Washington, DC: Preservation Press, 1986), pp. 29–30. 4 Alden Hatch, Buckminster Fuller: At Home in the Universe (New York: Crown Publishers, 1974), pp. 146–147. 5 Davies, The Prefabricated Home, pp. 25–26. 6 Douglas Knerr, Suburban Steel: The Magnificent Failure of the Lustron Corporation, 1945–1951 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004), pp. 78–79. 7 Thomas T. Fetters, The Lustron Home: The History of a Postwar Prefabricated Housing Experiment (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2002), pp. 18–30. 8 Matilda McQuaid, Shigeru Ban (London: Phaidon, 2003), pp. 166–169. 9 Jill Herbers, Prefab Modern (New York: Harper Design International, 2004), pp. 130–131. 10 Barry Bergdoll, Peter Christensen, Ron Broadhurst, and Museum of Modern Art, Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008), pp. 102–104. 11 Tom Wolfe and Garfield Leonard, “‘A New Standard for Living’: The Lustron House, 1946–1950”, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 3 (1989): 51–61. 12 H. Ward Jandl, John A. Burns, and Michael Auer, Yesterday’s Houses of Tomorrow: Innovative American Homes 1850 to 1950 (Washington, DC: Preservation Press, 1991), pp. 197–199. 13 Fetters, The Lustron Home, p. 8. 14 Jandl, Burns, and Auer, Yesterday’s Houses of Tomorrow, pp. 141–145. 15 Fetters, The Lustron Home, pp. 12–14. 16 Jim Zarolli, “Prefab: From Utilitarian Home to Design Icon”, NPR Morning Edition, 2008, www.npr.org. 17 Wolfe and Leonard, “‘A New Standard for Living’”, pp. 56–57. 18 Carl Koch and Andy Lewis, At Home With Tomorrow (New York: Rinehart, 1958), pp. 115–117. 19 Jandl, Burns, and Auer, Yesterday’s Houses of Tomorrow, p. 194. 20 Wolfe and Leonard, “‘A New Standard for Living’”, p. 56. 21 Jandl, Burns, and Auer, Yesterday’s Houses of Tomorrow, p. 196. 22 Koch and Lewis, At Home With Tomorrow, pp. 116–118. 23 Jandl, Burns, and Auer, Yesterday’s Houses of Tomorrow, p. 125. 24 McQuaid, Shigeru Ban, pp. 167–168. 25 Dana Buntrock, “Shigeru Ban: Ethical Experimenter”, Architecture 85 (October 1996): 104–109. 26 Riichi Miyake, “Shigeru Ban as an Empiricist”, The Japan Architect 30 (Summer, 1998): 4–13. 27 McQuaid, Shigeru Ban, p. 167.
28 Miyake, “Shigeru Ban as an Empiricist”, p. 8. 29 Shigeru Ban, “Shigeru Ban: House of Furniture, Yamanakako-Mura, Yamanashi”, GA Houses 47 (1995): 56–59. 30 McQuaid, Shigeru Ban, p. 168. 31 Yasuhiro Teramatsu, “Furniture House #2”, Japan Architect 30 (1998): 54–55. 32 su11 Architects, “Composite House”, su11, 2008, www.su11.com/projects/composite-house/. 33 Ibid. 34 Andrew Blauvelt, Strangely Familiar: Design and Everyday Life, 1st ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 2003), p. 228. 35 Ian Luna, New York: Architecture of a City (New York: Rizzoli International Publications Inc., 2003), p. 237. 36 Koch and Lewis, At Home With Tomorrow, pp. 116–117. 37 Ban, “Shigeru Ban”, pp. 56–59. 38 Herbers, Prefab Modern, p. 130. 39 Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake, Refabricating Architecture: How Manufacturing Methodologies Are Poised to Transform Building Construction (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), p. 43.
