Prefabricated Case Study - Burst*008 House

Burst*008 is a house designed by architects Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier and was a commissioned project for MoMA's Exhibition : Fabricating the Modern Dwelling.

The model for BURST*008 is unlike other prefab homes because it does not come to the site as an almost completed unit. It is also unique in its formulation of the design of the home. The architects created the BURST homes with the use of computer modeling. A house is computer-drafted based on a set of formulas, client specific needs, and site conditions. The computer program spits out a house design and explodes it into individual pieces. Then, these 1,000+, non-identical, pieces are laser cut from SIP's or plywood, in such a way to minimize wasted material, and then flat-packed and shipped to the site. Upon arrival, pieces are unloaded, and like an accordion, stretched apart to form the skeleton of the house. The exterior of the house and interior pieces are built in accordingly.

Patterns # 2

The task was to pick one pattern, define the production rule and generate 5 different. I wanted to start from a very simple one and by changing the rules see where it could go. So I picked a painting of Jeff Depner which is a homogeneous pattern and after defining the rule I started to change it by removing partcles, altering their geometry, moving the nodes , layering it and at the end mixing the rules. The most interesting result was the one that the nodes were changed. Now I need to define accurately the rule behind it, how is moving and show the change from the original.


Jeff Depner's Painting : Reconfigured Grid Painting

generator rule

reduction rule - alter geometry

shifting nodes - layering - suggestions

mixing

Patterns

We had to collect five different patterns between homogeneity and heterogeneity and describe with a simpe diagram the rules that generate them. Most of the patterns I found were from nature and all fractals.


vortex streets - periodic pattern


froth - bubbles


patterns of sand and water

Construction Week - Community Permaculture Shelter for “Friends of Tottenham Marshes

We were asked to design and build an adaptable shelter for a permaculture community located in Tottenham Marshes. Permaculture represents a method of designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems. It is precisely this type of approach, wich is based on the ethics of Earthcare, Peoplecare and Fairshare, that imitates the relationships found in natural ecologies. In fact, these systems interact thanks to synergetic relationships.

Permaculture = permanent + agriculture

The site was at the back of the community’s room, which was a very sloppy, oddly shaped space with a lot of vegetation. The clients asked for a shelter where they could do their meetings and have a sitting area. Steps had to be created because there was no access to that previously mentioned space. More importantly an adaptable canopy had to be built in order to collect water. Since there was no budget, all materials had to be found on site or had to be invented by ourselves. For instance, plastic bags had to be used to create the canopy. Finally, it was not possible to remove much soil because the roots of the trees would have been damaged.

Due to all these restrictions, the best idea was to have a tensile structure that would not require heavy structure and would adapt easily to the awkward site. A decking had to be made with scaffold boards found on site. Under these boards, there were railway slippers that worked as foundations for the columns. In the end, as previously stated, the canopy had to be made to collect the water. In fact, 400 plastic bags had to be ironed together on tarpaulin with an integrated funnel.


site before


site after


canopy made of plastic bags