Timber tower : a flexible fabrication method for reconfigurable housing

Abstract

"Prefabricating Housing...again", this time it's going to be different. Fabrication machine functionality is bracketed by the physical configuration and componentry of the system. Traditionally, a machine designer engineers a system to deliver a specified range of operational metrics such as speed, stiffness, and accuracy. The end goal of this process being that these metrics satisfy a desired functionality. This work-flow generates specific machines for specific tasks. Task specific machines require thorough design, engineering and testing. Once this process is complete, these highly specialized machines most often do not lend themselves well to alternative or non specified use. Multi purpose tooling and component based machinery are areas of research that aim to provide flexibility in machine operation. While this approach has proven successful in slowing machine obsolescence, alterations to these machines are often difficult and still confined to specific tasks. So what happens when the desired task is not known and how can new fabrication methods be prototyped and explored by designers? This theme of inflexibility in machine engineering can naturally be extended to the architectural design of prefabriprecated housing. Housing projects, especially prefabricated housing projects, are highly specific solutions that do not lend themselves well to personalization or customization (unintended uses). As occupant requirements and tastes change over time, a singular solution becomes increasingly under serving. The root of this inflexibility can be traced to material configurations, methods and metrics of production, and the stages at which user input is integrated. How can a housing project promote personalization and in turn be enriched by the creative capital of it's occupants? This thesis proposes a prefabricated housing architecture that delivers configurational flexibility through a strategic union between industrial manufacturing and the burgeoning DIY culture of personal fabrication. The combination of mass produced standard components with the ability to locally customize, via personal digital fabrication tooling, provides a personal housing protocol with true flexibility. Half Mechanical Engineering, half Architecture this joint thesis proposes both a wooden housing tower and a series of novel fabrication machines that together catalyze variation in prefabricated housing without sacrificing the economic advantages of mass production.