THE HOUSE AS A PRODUCT Andreas Vogler Research in Architectural Engineering Series ISSN 1873-6033 (print) ISSN 1879-8225 (online) Volume 11 Previously published in this series: Volume 10. U. Knaack and T. Klein (Eds.), The Future Envelope 3 – Facades - The Making Of Volume 9. U. Knaack and T. Klein (Eds.), The Future Envelope 2 – Architecture-Climate-Skin Volume 8. U. Knaack and T. Klein (Eds.), The Future Envelope 1 – A Multidisciplinary Approach Volume 7. M. Eekhout, F. Verheijen and R. Visser (Eds.), Cardboard in Architecture Volume 6. M. Veltkamp, Free Form Structural Design – Schemes, Systems & Prototypes of Structures for Irregular Shaped Buildings Volume 5. L. Bragança, C. Wetzel, V. Buhagiar and L.G.W. Verhoef (Eds.), COST C16 Improving the Quality of Existing Urban Building Envelopes – Facades and Roof Volume 4. R. di Giulio, Z. Bozinovski and L.G.W. Verhoef (Eds.), COST C16 Improving the Quality of Existing Urban Building Envelopes – Structures Volume 3. E. Melgaard, G. Hadjimichael, M. Almeida and L.G.W. Verhoef (Eds.), COST C16 Improving the Quality of Existing Urban Building Envelopes – Needs Volume 2. M.T. Andeweg, S. Brunoro and L.G.W. Verhoef (Eds.), COST C16 Improving the Quality of Existing Urban Building Envelopes – State of the Art Volume 1. M. Crisinel, M. Eekhout, M. Haldimann and R. Visser (Eds.), EU COST C13 Glass and Interactive Building Envelopes – Final Report THE HOUSE AS A PRODUCT Andreas Vogler External researcher 2007-2009 Department of Building Technology, Faculty of Architecture TU Delft Mick Eekhout, editor Full professor 199ţ-2015 Chair of Product Development, Faculty of Architecture TU Delft THE HOUSE AS A PRODUCT © 2015 Andreas Vogler and IOS Press AUTHOR Andreas Vogler EDITOR Mick Eekhout LAYOUT Manuela Schilberg, Saphira Jon, Octatube, Delft ESIGN Sirene Ontwerpers, Rotterdam This book is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN 978-1-61499-547-0 (print) ISBN 978-1-61499-548-7 (online) DOI 10.3233/978-1-61499-548-7-i PUBLISHER AND DISTRIBUTOR IOS Press BV Nieuwe Hemweg 6B 1013 BG Amsterdam The Netherlands fax: +31-20-687-0019 e-mail: [email protected] PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS PREFACE Mick Eekhout (© Nadine Maas) Industrialized housing is a phenomenon that has been alive in the building industry since the industrial revolution; the casting of iron components enabled Victorian iron casters to prefabricate entire buildings and to export them to all British colonies. It got a second boost by Modernist architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann. A third boost happened in the United States when US soldiers came back from the Second World War in 1945; In the later decades of the last century, composite prototypes were built. Timber frame houses have become extremely popular in low-density areas worldwide. For densely populated areas housing is now fi rmly attached to reinforced concrete. The contracting industries have developed effi cient building methods for the concrete structures on which separate systems of claddings are fi xed to form a house. Since Dutch architect John Habraken in his seminal book Supports, an Alternative to Mass Housing divided concrete ‘support’ and lightweight ‘infi ll’, structure and cladding now form two main and diff erent building parts. In the recent decades a third element has become increasingly important and independent from the pure infi ll, the services. However, in the coming decades we - designers, builders and scientists - must keep the world a sound environment within sight, prevent the exhaustion of materials and be for the minimization of embedded energy and energy usage. In the coming age, low ecological footprints, as renewed values will have an infl uence on the building technology of the future. This will lead to a reformation of the building vocabulary. Sustainable materials will have to be chosen and developed to function in building elements and components. In the Concept House research group in my Chair of Product Development at TU Delft, in which Andreas Vogler participated for a few years, the focus was on industrialized, customized, energy-positive, low carbon footprint buildings, specifi cally multi-story apartment housing. In the last 8 years studies were made, of which can be found in this book, and designs were developed for the Concept House Urban Villas of 4 stories, which indeed has a low footprint. It has been realized as a plug & play in an industrial mode and is customized and energy positive. In 2012 the fi rst Concept House DELFT Prototype of 7,5 x 15,0 m² was realized in Rotterdam in the Concept House Village. In the years up to 2016 the Concept House DELFT Prototype will be employed as a living laboratory to study cases such as occasional dwelling, comparable dwelling, experimentation, testing and evaluation. The next phase would see further development garnered from the evaluation data, and then make possible improvements on a single prototype within an urban villa and consecutively in a small series of 16 apartments. Then, came the realization of the Concept House Urban Villa. In the mean time regular publications and dissemination ensures the contribution from the academic side. In publishing and collaborating with the building industry, the hope is that academia will stimulate industry. To work and research effi ciently, the fi rst few years of the research group between 2005- 2008 were spent on historical and existing prototypes. In the research group Sannie Verweij did historical research as well as the Munich, based architect, Andreas Vogler. Apart from the futuristic designs in his offi ce, ‘Andreas Vogler Studio’, Andreas has spent some time on the history of industrialized housing and its diffi culties in an else highly industrialized world. During his studies the need for a wide overview of historical examples of industrialized housing became apparent as he recognized the need to not make the same mistakes made by others before him . The many examples in this book show that there are diff erent reasons why industrialized housing did not mature in the same level or degree of industrialization as the automobile or aeroplane industry. Many of those reasons of failure are based in marketing and fi nancing, not so much in technology. Smaller serial eff ects also play a role. The amount of repetition is nothing compared to the automobile industry. The housing industry is, for the larger part, still to be compared with the turn of the century automobile ateliers in which cars were assembled by hand and in very many diff erent types. Only in the Netherlands some 5.000 contractors are working in producing houses. And most of them are built on the base of handicraft. Before making the jump from the Concept House DELFT Prototype as a single apartment towards the serial Concept House Urban Villa, it is good to look back and see whether all necessary steps have been taken to determine that we have not made the same mistakes as our historical colleagues did. That is the reason why this book has its value. The windshield is larger than the rear view mirror, but you need both when moving towards the future. Prof.dr.Mick Eekhout, Chair of Product Development at TU Delft 1991 - 2015 CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION IX 01 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDUSTRIAL HOUSE 1 02 THE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCT 77 03 THE MARKET: POTENTIALS AND RESISTANCES 139 04 CONCLUSION 179 05 POSTSCRIPTUM 183 06 EPILOGUE 185 VIII THE HOUSE AS A PRODUCT INTRODUCTION Driving through a typical single-family house neighborhood in the beginning of the 21st century, one will notice how similar the houses look. One might think single-family houses are a bastion of individual expression, but based on this stereotypical neighborhood, they are not. One might think, they look so similar because they are factory-made. But, upon closer inspection, they are actually built-on-site. They are individually contracted houses, expensive, time-consuming weather dependent. However, they are made on a similar design preset. So what is wrong with the industrialization of the housing sector? Cars, computers, nearly all products have become cheaper, better working, better looking and better performing through the process of industrialization. In contrast, houses – and even factory-made houses – have not. The factory-made house has a nearly 200-year-old history. However, site-built construction never has been so successful as today. The house- building sector produces the highest value worldwide and represents the biggest market, but house builders are poorly organized with limited political infl uence. Small construction companies with less than 20 employees and a minimal capital investment build 85 percent of the houses worldwide. The prefab house industry produces whole houses in factories, yet, with the exception of Japan, automation and industrialization is very low compared to other industries. Most of the prefab housing industry was established in the 1950s and 1960s, but not very much in the way they are produced has changed since then. Prefab housing industries are often associated with mass production. However, especially in Europe, there are many companies who work profi tably producing less than 100 houses per year. The mass production of houses has always been an argument that it will bring prices down, but prefab house prices instead follow the market only a little bit under an ‘architect’s designed house’. Architects have been the main promoters of industrialized building. However, they lost interest in collaborating with the industry and in turn, the industry lost interest in the collaboration with architects.