‘Lite’ Housing Industry
decentralised and low-investment house manufacturers
There is a new wave for the industrialisation of houses. To-day (the late 2010s), ‘prefab’ is again a hot topic in construction fairs and political propaganda presented as The solution for the alleged housing deficit. The construction guild is arising once more the already expired question of ‘why can’t we make homes like cars?’, while architectural theorists resist by reminding them about the “failures” of the past.
And there is enough room for trash talk. But being objective, there are some new aspects that are making worth taking a pause and revisit the concept of industrialised housing once again.
These last years have been dominated by technological advances in communication. Complicated and precise algorithms are applied to software allowing us to easily generate constructible irrational shapes, which are instantly calculated (cost, structure and environment/energy-efficiency), modifiable and ready to be produced by machines directly connected to computers.
In addition, industrialised construction processes are demonstrating to achieve quality levels of airtightness and thermal performance that traditional methods miss; which are aspects that society is increasingly fancying. The achievement of these quality standards is the consequence of processes of continuous-improvement in manufacturing and not ‘promises’. Like back in the days when big names like Walter Gropius, Buckminster Fuller and Le Corbusier were flagging industrialised housing as ‘economic’, breaking the heart of their investors when the production started.
Therefore, the question would be, how to deal with prefabrication coherently with today’s context? Or at least be aware of the possible paths.
Of course, there is the direct possibility of “simply” updating the industry by equipping factories with new machinery and applying modern management systems aiming for long-term results based on economies of scale and market stability. But, these are risks that few braves embrace nowadays.
‘Industry Lite’ is an appearing alternative model that smartly subsume the advantages of industrialisation from a low-budget/scale position. This concept has been recently been coined by Mathew Atchison, who refers to it as the ability of companies to utilise emerging technologies that have the potential to redistribute industry in decentralised and distributed manners implied by these technologies.
In other words, companies that recognize the potential of innovative machinery or material and insert it in a construction supply chain without needing a million-dollar factory or conditioning the other agents in the supply chain to modify their methods.
For example, ‘Unto This Last’ is a furniture company that eliminates the need for product storage, fulfilment centres and transportation of materials by having an open-to-the-public workshop and showroom inside the city. They only produce on-demand (4 weeks delivery) and all their furniture is produced using a CNC (Computer Numerical Control) router. This does not limit their catalogue or delivery options; moreover, the customer can customise their selection in terms of size, material and delivery options.
Their main objective was to simplify the supply chain and reduce initial investment. It is true that they are restricted to the action of ‘cutting’ as if they were using any other saw, but they design under that limitatio. They are also limited to what and how much their only machine can produce; however, CNC technology allows them to obtain diverse outcomes from a single production unit. Thus, the solution to expand their production capacity would be to franchise; where multiple companies use the same system and produce independently and to their local context.
‘Unto This Last’ is not a housing company and they don’t have to deal with the complicated concept of housing, but is a clear example to understand the concept of ‘Lite Industry’. Moreover, their example is comparable to companies involved in the construction sector. For instance, ‘Facit Homes’ is a housing manufacturer that also uses a CNC router to simplify the house procurement avoiding the complications of having an off-site factory.
Facit Homes prefer to produce their own prefabricated elements because of its preciseness and waste reduction, but mainly because it solves many of the complications of construction managing. The founders have backgrounds in industrial design, which can give us a hint on why they prefer to focus on the design rather than in the procurement of a house.
Their construction system is a combination of traditional processes and prefabrication; foundations, coatings, windows and additional structural beams are subcontracted, while the structural shell is produced on-site with a CNC router. The router and all needed equipment are fixed on a shipping container that is taken to site. The router cuts plywood boards that are then assembled into box type cassettes that can be used for walls, floors or roofs.
The advantage of Facit Homes over their competence is the control over the production, which takes place behind a computer in the commodity of their design office. The designer itself can modify the production at the time; an attribute of on-site construction that heavy industry find hard to achieve, but keeping some of the advantages of prefabrication.
The main difference between the furniture and housing companies is that a CNC router is incapable of absorbing the full housing supply chain; therefore, ‘Facit Homes’ still rely on traditional processes for the full completion of a house. However, this slight shift is giving them advantages in manufacturing control, timing, flexibility and energy performance that their competitors can not achieve.
There are plenty of examples that follow the same principles. Larry Sass, an architectural designer of the MIT, has developed acclaimed prototypes, like the Instant House and New Orleans House. DUS Architects are using a gigantic 3D printer (another type of CNC) for the 3D Printed Canal House project. But probably the project exemplify best the notion of decentralisation is the Wikihouse — an open-source construction system where people can freely download a pattern drawing and cut it wherever they can access to a CNC router.
These last examples, which without-a-doubt look spectacular, have sadly not been adopted by the construction industry neither by entrepreneurs. They look more innovative of what they really are, because they are simply using new technology; but without understanding how does that affect the whole construction process. And at the end of the day, people finish hammering things together.
Therefore, Lite Industry is NOT dependant on CNC machinery or these kind of technologies. It is more reliant on fast communication systems that allow design decisions/modifications to be known by all the entities involved in the supply chain. It is more important to coordinate assembling than utilising specific machinery.
Let’s explain this last point a little deeper with an example. Carbon Dynamic is a housing company that utilises CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) to construct modular buildings. They have a warehouse space where they assemble the dwellings using parts that come from different providers. Some of these parts can be substituted or ignored (finishing claddings or photovoltaics), but the structural shell is usually composed by single material — CLT. They use it because it is a solid material that can have diverse openings without losing its structural capacities, which adapts to any bespoke project.
They can choose the material specification from different providers and buy the CLT boards pre-cut to fit each project. Therefore, they don’t have to make any more cuttings on-factory and simply dedicate to join pieces. They also have to coordinate that the other housing elements fit, like windows, doors and mechanical systems.
Echo Living is another small company that utilises timber boards (mainly plywood) as their base construction component; but, different to Carbon Dynamic they prefer to have a stock of boards that they can use whenever needed. Their investment was basically in the warehouse space and in low-tech tools, like saws and nail guns.
They prefer to work similar to a carpenter workshop to have more control over the work-in-progress and into the details. As Sam Booth explain, ‘we work like if we were doing models to architects’. This approach allows them to create ‘pods’ where furniture and installations are an integral part of the building (including kitchen and bathroom appliances).
Both companies prefer to buy the material than investing in heavy machinery because they know their production is variable and lower than the capacity of a CLT vacuum or press while keeps them open to adopt new materials.
One of the main issues when investing in heavy industry, especially for startup companies, is the investment per se. Companies have to enrol on loans to set-up a factory and pay them as it works. Therefore, when someone invests in a CLT press they would like to pay it back as soon as possible, trying to sell as much CLT boards as the machine can produce. But, you do not need that amount of CLT to build houses. Then, it could happen that the loan payments surpass the company’s profit, or the company opt to turn into a product manufacturer rather than a housebuilder.
In conclusion, Lite Industry is one of the paths for those who are interested in applying industrialised principles to the construction of houses. It is a requires less investment and is easier to set up than a heavy industrial approach; and it is an alternative to traditional construction. It has clear limitations in terms of scale, reason why it might not be so popular among politicians, but the ‘mass production’ could be easily achieved through franchising or duplicating the system.
