A critical review into the state of the prefabrication industry through an in depth analysis of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Oxley Woods development. Is Oxley Woods a blueprint for future prefabricated developments?
Matthew Edward Peter Baldwin Kent School of Architecture University of Kent February 2015 Tutor - Professor Don Gray
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Word Count - 8041
Front Cover – Oxley Woods Image, 2008, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
Abstract: The purpose of this investigation is to uncover the reasons that the UK has failed to incorporate prefabrication technology into the construction industry. This was explored through the case study of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Oxley Woods scheme in Milton Keynes. To analyse what has gone wrong and what needs to be done to make prefabrication a viable method of house construction, I have explored the theoretical and physical attempts made by influential architects and practitioners such as Le Corbusier, Jean ProuvĂŠ and Archigram. Part of this research is based upon a site visit to Oxley Woods which I have recorded to demonstrate the complexities of the current application of this technology. The study aims to provide answers as to why mass-production has so far failed and propose solutions to how visions of those such as Archigram, Ian Abley and James Woudhuysen can be realised. The conclusions of my work set out parameters and issues that must be addressed for mass-production to succeed within the UK construction industry.
Acknowledgement: I would first and foremost like to thank Professor Don Gray for his guidance throughout the course of my research. Also a thank you to the kind residents of Oxley Woods to which I spoke and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners for supplying me information on their current massproduction projects. I reserve special mention for Peter Brett and Chloe Winterhalter who spent numerous hours proof reading my dissertation.
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Contents
4 Introduction 6 Origins of Prefabrication 8 The Built: Le Corbusier 10 Jean ProuvĂŠ 11 The Unbuilt: Archigram 13 Richard Rogers 15 Oxley Woods 17 Oxley Woods Visit 21 Prefabrication and the car Industry 23 Future of Prefabrication 26 Conclusion 28 Bibliography
Word Count - 8041
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Figure 1: Second World War prefab, 1950
‘We were sold prestige, quality, designer homes, but now they’re rotting’1
Introduction It has been argued that prefabrication is a term that conjures up the image of sub-standard, uninspiring architecture (figure 1). However many Architects, politicians and theorists believe that it is an answer to the UK ‘housing crisis’. Le Corbusier - one of the most influential architects of the 20th century put forward the idea of the ‘house machine’2 and even stipulated some of the social, political and technological factors that need to be changed for this vision to be achieved; but still prefabrication remains anonymous in the UK construction industry. Our European counterparts in Germany and Scandinavia seem to have embraced this ideology much more than we have in the UK. So why is the UK seemingly overlooking this quite obvious solution to the UK’s housing problems? Well the truth is that prefabrication has struggled to assert itself within the construction sector due to developers using it as a low cost alternative to conventional construction methods. Hence you get ‘cheap’ results, tarnishing the name of what should be a revolutionary building method. 1 2
Personal quote, resident interview Le Corbusier, 1927, p7
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The misuse of prefabrication however, has not stopped architects and politicians backing it’s introduction into the construction industry, with one of the most high profile developments in the past decade being the Oxley Woods project by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. The development was originally celebrated by developers, architects and construction professionals, with the RIBA Manser medal judges describing it as ‘radical and innovative’ but also ‘something which should have happened sixty years ago’3. Despite these original plaudits the damning headlines have come thick and fast since its completion in 2008; ‘Water is leaking into £60,000 homes at award-winning estate in Milton Keynes’4 and ‘Labour’s £60,000 homes 'are rotting'’5. So Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Taylor Wimpey have both received equal amounts of praise and criticism for this supposedly game changing development, but no one has analysed whether the Oxley Woods model is a blueprint for progressing the involvement of prefabrication in the construction sector. I am going to investigate the Oxley Woods project through exploring its strengths and weaknesses to examine whether it is a suitable model to base future prefabrication endeavours upon. To do this I shall analyse the design execution by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Wood Newton respectively, using material from my own site visit, local and national news articles and publications from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. Along with this in depth analysis I will highlight some of the most important players in the history of prefabrication, including utopian visions by Archigram, Ian Abley and James Woudhuysen. This approach will allow me to gather evidence from a multitude of sources which will support the fact that Oxley Woods should be used as a model for future prefabricated housing developments. However first we must understand some of the key turning points and leading figures in the realm of prefabrication for us to appreciate the context in which Oxley Woods was conceived.
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RIBA 2008 MK News, 2014 5 Fifield, 2014 4
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Figure 2 – AIROH house section, 1940,s
Origins of Prefabrication
The most commonly associated houses, with the term prefabrication are the post-World War temporary houses which were erected after both the First and Second World War; the most well documented being Winston Churchill’s, ‘temporary housing programme’. The aim was to house returning war veterans and re-house anyone who had lost their homes in the atrocities of the Second World War. In total eleven different variations of prefabricated houses were designed, the most successful being the AIROH, (Figure 2). The reason this was the most successful was because it was a fully prefabricated product made in sections, in total AIROH had five different factories across the UK. The factories used to produce these buildings were former aeroplane manufacturers which had subsequently stopped production after the war efforts. One of the main benefits of using these factories was that people were still employed after the war finished, whilst also using machinery and infrastructure that was already in place. These factories were able to produce AIROH’s at a rate of one every twelve minutes6.
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Davies, 2005, p61
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In total AIROH produced 54,500 houses which is staggering considering the total amount of prefab houses produced was 156,6237: this makes AIROH the most successful venture into prefabrication in history. However it was by no means the first manifestation of this technology; in fact prefabrication can be traced back to the sixteenth Century with the Bayleaf Farmhouse, Chiddingstone. Bayleaf Farmhouse is a timber framed Tudor house, which is a kit of wooden parts that would have been carved off site then delivered and erected on site quite easily. The really intriguing thing about this house is that in 1968 it was dismantled and then subsequently re-erected as part of the Weald and Downland Museum8. This building was never intended to be dismantled and reconstructed, it was just a by-product of the nature of its construction. The first intentional use of a wooden frame which could be easily transported and erected was devised by the British and used for their colonisation efforts. Prefabrication was a pivotal tool which allowed the British to easily and quickly erect entire camps and complexes from kits which they had transported with them. The earliest recorded examples of this system are the Manning colonial cottages (Figure 3); manufactured in England and sent to colonise Cape Anne in 1624– now Massachusetts9. The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth century provided a new platform upon which massproduction thrived due to new materials, new technologies and new ways of thinking about manufacturing. This is summed up best by Siegfried Giedion in his book Mechanisation takes Command, 1948 which documents a vast array of new inventions but also the new ways of
Figure 3 – Drawings of the type of Manning portable colonial cottage deployed at Cape Anne, 1624 7
Davies, 2005, p63 Weald and Downland, 2013 9 Herbert,1978, p11-12 8
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manufacturing these products and the increasing reliance upon machinery. However, one of the most relevant inventions of the industrial revolution was cast iron and the manufacturing of it, cast iron by its very nature lends itself to prefabrication as it is cast in the factory in sections, which can easily be transported. This technology allowed Joseph Paxton to design one of the most iconic buildings of the nineteenth century, the Crystal Palace which was erected in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The role of prefabrication in the construction of Crystal Palace was predominantly in the cast iron frame, which was cast in Birmingham and then transported for erection in Hyde Park. Most of the other work except for the glazing units was carried out on site using new innovations such as steam powered saws. The saws were used to cut the timber glazing bars which held the glazing panels in place. This shows that even though Crystal Palace is celebrated as a triumph of prefabrication it still required on site craftsmanship to construct it10. From studying the history of prefabrication, it is clear that the most successful application of mass production was the temporary housing programme, which people believed was just a short term solution to a crisis. The difficulty of taking something which is viewed as a short term ‘quick fix’ and turning it into a method which can rival the upstanding British tradition of ‘bricks and mortar’ is an almighty task, however some architects have been brave enough to put their reputations on the line to try and break ground on the application of this technology.
The Built: Le Corbusier So far I have mainly given examples of what Colin Davies in his book The Prefabricated Home, 2005 would argue is non-architecture. In this case he describes architecture as a ‘field in which people compete for cultural and social capital’11. This means that what is architecture or not architecture is subjective dependent upon the person, effectively what is considered architecture is decided by the elite or the most powerful people within the field. Therefore the AIROH houses are not considered architecture because they were not designed by anybody of note, whereas Jean Prouvé’s designs are widely celebrated amongst the architectural community and considered architecture even though Prouvé himself was not an architect by trade. This is a very important factor as buildings which are celebrated by the architecture community may actually be useless as a model to move forward with in reality, especially as AIROH is still the most successful application of mass production methods to volume house building in history.
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V&A, 2015 Davies, 2005, p7
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The early modernist movement put prefabrication at the centre of their efforts for reform, they saw it as the epitome of what they believed architecture should be. They rejected the elitism and historicism of the nineteenth century and wanted to bring architecture to the masses, whilst embracing industrialisation. The best way to do that was to mass produce houses which would be affordable for all. One of the most high profile advocates of prefabrication and key players in the modernist movement was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret or better known as Le Corbusier; in his book Vers une architecture, 1923 he proposed the ‘house-machine’, which was the idea of a mass produced house. Le Corbusier however knew that although the idea of mass producing houses was logical it was not a popular idea with society, as he wrote ‘We must create the mass-production spirit. The spirit of constructing mass-production houses. The spirit of living in mass-production houses. The spirit of conceiving mass-production houses.’ 12 The physical manifestation of this ideology was the Maison Citrohan (Figure 4), a mass-produced housing scheme which he redesigned five times between 1920 and 1927. The name Citrohan quite clearly suggests a link to the car manufacturer Citroën; this is not surprising as this was a move towards an architecture which could be built on assembly lines in massive volumes exactly like the car industry was already doing. Even though Le Corbusier was a celebrated and highly influential architect he only managed to have forty of his prefabricated developments built for a workers community in Pessac, Bordeaux (Figure 5). For all of Corbusier’s endeavours to push the issue of mass production ultimately he failed in his own work to realise his vision of the house machine. This vision may yet be realised as Corbusier’s endeavours have inspired a whole new generation of architects and engineers to pursue mass production as an answer to the worlds housing problems.
Figure 4 – Le Corbusier drawing of Maison Citrohan 1922 12
Figure 5 – Maison Citrohan, Pessac, 1925
Corbusier, 1927, p6
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Figure 6 – Jean Prouve 6x6 Demountable house, 1947
Jean Prouvé Around the same time the relatively unknown Jean Prouvé was also designing prefabricated buildings, but for a very different use and in a very different way to Le Corbusier. Prouvé was by trade an engineer who had an eye for beautiful detailing; this can be seen in many of his works and is encapsulated in the book of his works The Poetics of the Technical Object, 2004, which is full of working drawings and sketches of his numerous designs from furniture to buildings. This obsession with detail led Prouvé to come up with a system in 1944 for what he called Maisons à Portiques13; originally conceived for war victims in France, the idea was that these buildings could be transported to areas and colonies of France that needed emergency housing. As I explained earlier this idea of assembly and disassembly of buildings was not new as it was already present in Tudor timber frame buildings and colonial settlement buildings. What Jean Prouvé did was to refine this idea and create a beautifully designed and articulated piece of architecture; In fact it was considered such a beautiful piece of design that one of the only surviving buildings has figured as an art installation in the Patrick Seguin Gallery in Miami (Figure 6). We can also draw parallels with the AIROH as they were designed at the same time for the same purpose but Prouvé’s houses are considered great pieces or architecture even art, whereas the AIROH is seen as unpleasant and cheap. So what makes this difference? The fact is that Prouvé’s houses were extremely well-conceived pieces of design from an engineer who had worked closely with some of the leading architects of the time. In addition to this very few of these were ever built so no one thoroughly tested them, there were no damming reports, no catastrophes that were publicised and so remain on their pedestal as a brilliant piece of architecture. This system formed the foundation of many more projects such as Prouvé’s Standard houses and Maison Tropicales. These buildings inspired many architects of the modern era, one of those being Richard Rogers whose practice went on to design the housing development in question Oxley Woods. 13
Peters, 2006, p35
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Figure 7 - Archigrams Peter Cook – Plug-in city
The Unbuilt: Archigram Prouvé and Le Corbusier actively pursued methods and means of achieving the prefabricated house for a better society. Along with this, there were theorists and speculators that proposed utopian ideas about what architecture should be; the most famous and celebrated of these were Archigram. Archigram were an Avant garde group of architects who in the 1960’s challenged preconceptions of architecture and produced visions of what the future could be, they did this through their high impact and unique visual style. Archigram as a group never actually built any of their projects but they provided stimulus for the debate of the time, as to how society moves forward. Their most recognisable project, the Plug-in city was a notional idea of modules which could plug into a larger mega structure to create this new utopian view of city living (Figure 7). In this respect, Archigram did not concern just architecture and buildings; they were proposing ways of living and environments that would be sustainable in every sense of the word through the use of architecture. The format of the Plug-in city through its use of modules explored the technology of prefabrication and although it never directly references its method of construction it definitely hints at mass-production and offsite fabrication. The living pod is another project by Archigram’s David Greene which encapsulates the idea of a mass produced object for living in, to me this project resembles that of the human heart a vital organ which without we would cease to exist, so to me this suggests that Greene was hinting that this sort of proposal was necessary to the future of the human race. This was not only conceived as a single object though, there were several proposals to have this as part of a stackable system. The main themes that Archigram pick up on are vital as they are what prefabrication is aiming for; these ideas are, increased technological sophistication, sustainable systems and environments, ability for change
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of use and for it to be accessible to all14. Even though none of Archigram’s visions materialised into built projects you can see the shadow cast by their thinking on a whole generation of architects. Archigram’s ideas have been encapsulated in buildings such as the Pompidou Centre, Paris, 1972 by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano. A lesser known architectural movement were the Metabolist’s in Japan, who also operated in the 1960’s, the same time as Archigram were operating in the UK. Their aim was very similar to Archigram’s, as they saw cities as living and evolving organisms and so the architecture within that city needed to have the ability to adapt and change depending upon the needs of the occupant. The stimulus which fuelled the Metabolist’s ideologies were the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of 1945, which wiped out the entire cities. This led to a huge housing crisis which needed to be addressed post war, leading the Metabolist’s to focus on housing that could accommodate large populations; manifesting itself in plug-in megastructures and prefabricated modular capsules. A vast majority of their work was conceptual and never documented or built. However, unlike Archigram the Metabolist’s did manage to have a very small amount of their work built, the most well-known project being the Nagakin Capsule tower, 1972 by Kisho Kurokawa15 (Figure 8 & 9).
Figure 8 – Nagakin Capsule Tower, 1972, Tokyo
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Figure 9 – Close up of Nagakin Tower Capsules, 1972, Tokyo
Crompton, 1998 Sara, 2012
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The entire building is based on a system of pods which plug-in to a permanent megastructure, which are the circulation towers. Each pod is attached to the megastructure by just four bolts in theory giving the tower the ability to change with complete ease whenever it is needed, this creates a highly flexible building which in theory should have evolved with the times. Sadly this has not been the case and the tower is now in a state of disrepair and threatens to be demolished. A tragedy considering this is the finest example of the huge potential of prefabricated structures; the ability to be easily changed, a concept which some call mass-customisation. Both Jean Prouvé and Archigram were of great inspiration to Richard Rogers who is well known for his structurally expressive buildings and the incorporation of technology in his work both themes which were present in Prouvés and Archigrams work. Rogers has managed to find a way to take these ideas and manipulate them into incredibly successful built projects, something his predecessors could not do. Pretty much all of Rogers projects involve prefabrication in some way, however for the pupose of this study I am only interested in his prefabricated housing projects which are the Zip-up House, Rogers House and Oxley Woods.
Richard Rogers
Figure 10- Hand sketch of Zip-up house, 1967, Richard Rogers
Figure 11 – Rogers House, 1969, Wimbledon
Zip-up House was one of Richard Rogers first projects designed in collaboration with his wife at the time Su Rogers (Figure 10). The idea was to use off the shelf components to build a house which could be completely manufactured off site, which we already know is not a new concept. What Rogers did, was to use unconventional materials which were originally used for completely different
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purposes; the most important being the exterior shell which was made of neoprene panels originally used for refrigerated trucks. This alternative use of technology is called technology transfer. One of the main benefits of the technology used meant that this building would be easily adaptable meaning that it could stand the test of time. Unfortunately this project was never realised as it narrowly failed to win the competition that it was entered for. This project was not designed in vain, as Rogers parents asked him to design their house soon after which essentially turned out to be a more permanent and larger version of his Zip-up House. The Rogers House situated in Wimbledon uses the same panelling system that was proposed for the Zip-up House along with a myriad of other off the shelf components (Figure 11). Both the Zipup House and Rogers House are only brief forays into the world of mass produced housing: one off pieces of design which although brilliant will not on their own solve the shortage of housing in the UK. Rogers did try to use prefabrication as a method to address wide scale housing problems in a design for an Industrialised Housing system in Korea, 1991. Working with the engineer Peter Rice they devised a system of prefabricated modular units made from light weight panelling systems and recyclable materials, essentially these were a series of shipping containers that could be assembled in a number of different configurations. For the Korean scheme due to the scarcity of land in urban areas and lack of housing, a high density high rise typology was proposed. Comparisons can be seen between this proposal and the Nagakin capsule tower the key difference being that consumers would get to customise their ‘pod’ before it was constructed in the factory and delivered to site. Unfortunately this scheme was never built, if it had then we may have a clearer picture as to whether this approach to housing is a successful one or not 16. In fact many pioneering massproduced housing schemes have failed to be realised. This is where Oxley Woods comes in as one of very few mass-production housing schemes to be constructed since the Second World War.
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Rogers, 1997, p84
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Oxley Woods In 2005 the then deputy prime Minister John Prescott launched what he called the ‘Design for Manufacture Competition’, this was an invitation for developers and Architects to submit proposals for prototype mass produced housing estates, in an attempt to open the construction industries eyes to the possibilities of prefabrication. This competition arose from the report ‘Rethinking Construction’ produced by Sir John Egan in 1998; the purpose of this report was to evaluate the failings of the construction industry and propose ways in which it can improve. The report highlighted that the industry needed to reduce construction time, reduce waste and reduce number of accidents17. These are all things that off-site fabrication by its very nature improves, so why are we not utilising this? Well that is what this competition set out to change. In total 173 applicants registered an interest with 53 formally tendering, there was then a three stage tendering process from which six house building consortiums were chosen to turn their design proposals into realised projects on one of the ten chosen sites across the UK18. One of the chosen proposals was Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and George Wimpey’s (now Taylor Wimpey) Oxley Woods project, which is based in Milton Keynes. At the start of the design process Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners analysed the different components that make up a family home, this then resulted in the manifestation of a core which would remain a constant regardless of the house type or configuration, then living spaces were arranged in various ways around it. This led to over thirty different variations of the Oxley Woods houses providing a multitude of different options from two to four storey houses with anything from one to five bedrooms. The range of options meant that each variation had a different appearance which would create variety in the street scene19. This attention to detail at the conceptual and planning arrangement stage of design means that these houses are extremely flexible to their clients changing needs. The other benefit is that these houses were designed as generic elements, not designed for specific site and are therefore can be used as a template for any location in the UK. Oxley Woods has won a plethora of awards since its completion in 2008, amongst these was the RIBA Manser medal with the judges saying that ‘It is a radical innovative and an outstanding step away from the mud and mess of the domestic building industry’ but also ‘something that should have happened sixty years ago’20. This just goes to highlight that even though the Oxley Woods
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Egan, 1998, p17 McGivern, 2007, p3 19 Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2014, P16 20 RIBA, 2008 18
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project is great in many ways it is something that has been achievable for many years there has just been a reluctance from developers, contractors, politicians, architects and the public to fully embrace prefabrication as a new way of house building. As this was a rather ambitious project using materials and technologies that were untested Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners erected a full sized prototype in 2006 which gave them the opportunity to test and make appropriate alterations, hopefully meaning that the on-site construction of the final article would run smoothly. However this has not been the case along with its string of awards has come an equally long list of damming headlines regarding water ingress and damp within the properties. As an admirer of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners work and a sceptic of tabloid newspapers, I decided that I would visit the Oxley Woods development myself to form my own opinion of the development.
Figure 12 – Aerial View of Oxley Woods, 2008, RSHP Website
Figure 13 – Street view of Oxley Woods, 2008, RSHP Website
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Figure 14 – Remedial works at Oxley Woods, 2014, Own Photograph
Oxley Woods Visit Prior to my visit my research brought up many points of interest with the main one being that this development was never completed; the original plan was for 148 dwellings, but only 122 were ever built. Taylor Wimpey said the reason that the project was never completed is that the houses were ‘not selling as well as anticipated’21. This would suggest to me that this scheme was not very well received by the public, but was this really the case or was the scheme stopped due to the problems they were encountering with the construction? This was just one of the themes that I wanted to explore when I set out on my visit to Oxley Woods. The other pressing issues were, what attracted the residents, what are the positives and negatives of the scheme and finally should Oxley Woods be used by house builders as a blueprint for future housing estates? Before I visited I tried to contact Taylor Wimpey and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to see if there was the possibility of gaining inside information on the development or any chance of meeting one of the contractors on site, because if the reports were true I was hoping someone would be able to explain the development to me in terms of its design and aims, but also inform me on the complications that have arisen throughout the design and build process. Unfortunately I got no response from any of the parties involved and so decided to make the visit myself and try to ascertain some of the answers to these questions. When I arrived the reality did not live up to professionally taken glossy images that both companies presented in their publications; instead of an immaculate, pristine vibrant housing estate as advertised (Figure 12 & 13), I was instead greeted by what is effectively a building site with half of the houses surrounded by scaffolding (Figure 14). Immediately this confirmed to me that the information contained in the reports was in some way true and in fact probably much worse than was reported.
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Rogers, 2012
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Figure 15 – Water damage of Oxley Woods house, 2014, GHPC My first port of call was to try and talk to someone in the site office which was annoyingly shut, however I managed to attain some information as to what remedial works are being carried out, from one of the builders. According to the builder they are carrying out replacements to the external Trespa cladding system and most of the windows; when I pressed to ask about the possibility of the buildings rotting he declined to answer. To me this was at least enough to confirm some of the reports that had been published and that also there was an attempt by Taylor Wimpey to hide this estate wide renovation project. My conclusions are reinforced by a report in the Architect’s Journal22 which highlighted the issues on the site and even included images (Figure 15). The images show the water damage sustained behind the Trespa cladding, which has then caused the wooden structure to rot. This evidence substantiates the headlines and claims of residents saying that this housing is not of the standard that Taylor Wimpey led them to believe when purchasing their properties. This brings into question whether this projects ambitions of building as economically as possible hindered the final product; after all this is a brand new cutting edge product, therefore it is not going to be cheap in the short term. You only have to look at the technology or car manufacturing sector to realise that no new product can be successful without huge funding at the research and development stage, for example Apple ahead of their launch of the Iphone 6 spent $4.6 billion23 on research and development, with their lowest spec model costing £53924. Of course there are many differences between the house building industry and technology, but the point still remains that you cannot expect a high quality well-conceived product without the necessary research and funding.
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Mark, 2014 Gokey, 2014 24 Apple, 2014 23
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Figure 16- Views of construction work and the damaged Trespa panels, 2014, Own Photograph As you venture into the estate you realise why these remedial works were having to be carried out with the white and cream Trespa panels stained by mould and mildew build up which rather tarnishes the look of the houses (figure 16); although I must admit I was not particularly impressed with the overall look of the cladding anyway, in my opinion it looked sub-standard. Which in response you may say well these were the ‘£60k houses’25 well in fact many of the first residents paid between £300,000 and £400,000 quite a lot more than the £60,000 houses tagline. So my first impressions were extremely underwhelming, especially as I had psyched myself up to be inspired and convinced that this was the way forward for the construction industry. This did not deter me from investigating further; I went to talk to some of the residents, as they are the ones are living in these houses and so they are the only ones that can truly judge whether this scheme is a success or not. The comments and feedback I received from the residents about what their houses and their housing complex is like to live in was extremely positive, some residents describing the neighbourhood as ‘a joy to live in’26 and the ‘future of housing’27. Needless to say this took me by surprise considering the mayhem of the construction site that surrounded them; their willingness to answer my questions however stopped when I pressed for answers about what is actually going on with all the building work. Despite this one resident was kind enough to direct me to the Oxley Woods community blog28, which documents most of the problems they have had with their houses and the subsequent disagreements with Taylor Wimpey from 2008.
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Fifield, 2014 Own quote, collected from resident interview 27 Own quote, collected from resident interview 28 Oxley Woods Living, 2014 26
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The resident’s blog again confirms what I observed on site and what has been published, the residents have had water leaks and problems with their cladding ever since they moved into their homes in 2008. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Taylor Wimpey have not responded in any way to rectify the situation, with the residents not really sure who is to blame for the matter. In this case the sole responsibility lies with Taylor Wimpey and their contractor Wood Newton, as they are responsible for the detailed design of the project and therefore any failings with the end product. In light of these facts I again contacted Taylor Wimpey this time directly contacting the Technical director of the South Midlands division. After many attempts by phone, email and post I finally got a response from Mr Colin Radford saying that unfortunately due to litigation and legal technicalities he is in fact unable to discuss the Oxley Woods project with me. So my attentions turned from what alterations are being done and whether the altered Oxley Woods could be a model for the future; to exploring where prefabrication has moved to and whether developers are still considering it as a tool to move forward with in the construction industry. Despite my initial reactions to the state of the development if you can look past the scaffolding and stained cladding, the Oxley Woods development is an extremely pleasant environment to be in with large open communal spaces and shared surfaces that allow for the prioritisation of pedestrians. Along with this, the house interiors are pleasant, open plan living arrangements and large windows give the houses a sense of space and lightness which you would not expect from what are in terms of floor area not very large houses. So I can understand why the residents are full of praise for their properties and why this development has won so many awards and gained so much media attention despite its slight downfalls in respect to craftsmanship. Overall the Oxley Woods project must be considered a success due to the fact that the people who inhabit it are extremely happy and are very fond of their houses. Indicating to me, that Oxley Woods is a sensible model for architects and developers to increase the involvement of prefabrication in the UK construction industry.
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Figure 17 – Ford Fiesta production line
Figure 18 – Space4 housing factory
Prefabrication and the Car Industry Over the past century many comparisons have been made between prefabrication and the auto mobile industry, Le Corbusier as I eluded to earlier even named his prefabricated design after a car manufacturer, Maison Citrohan. So what lessons could we learn from the car industry? Firstly the car industry has seen unprecedented growth since Henry Ford and his production of the Model T Ford, which was the first car to be produced on a production line. The introduction of standardised parts and the production line led to Henry Ford being able to monopolise the market in just ten years. The primary benefits of this new manufacturing process are shortened production times, increased precision and in turn reduced costs of production. The car industry used this as a springboard on which to develop and progress further, now the possibilities are endless ranging from basic mass-produced models to high-end customizable models, dependent upon the price that the consumer is willing to pay. The most important lesson that the construction industry can learn from the auto-mobile industry is the amount of initial investment needed at the research and development stage of design. For example in 1970 Ford invested $830 million into the development of the Fiesta model29 (Figure 17). This articulates the importance that car manufacturers put on research and development even 45 years ago. In 2010 Ford announced that it is now investing over ÂŁ1.5billion on the development of a new eco engine30, showing that the amount of money spent on development has spiralled in just four decades proving that the research and development framework is one that works. So the auto-mobile industry has grown and developed year upon year, whilst the construction industry which is directly relatable to the car industry has stagnated and is still using methods which are centuries old.
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Betz, 2003, p255 Ford, 2014
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‘Houses should be like cars – it’s services that are the problem’31 is a quote from James Dyson in Ian Abley and James Wouhuysen’s, Homes 2016. Dyson argues that there is no feasible reason why houses should not be built in a factory like cars, much like the company Space4 are doing in Birmingham (Figure 18). He then delves further into mass-production and identifies the problem when it comes to services as they require manual installation on site. He argues that if the house building industry could install services in complete wiring looms much like the aerospace industry, then a house would be much more functional and reliable. Dyson’s ideas point to the volumetric method of prefabrication, where three-dimensional units of room size or larger are fully fitted with internal finishes, plumbing and electrics. They are then transported to site where they are positioned and arranged on prepared foundations to form whole buildings32. One company, Adaptahaus have exploited this application of prefabrication, but instead of using the volumetric approach they use a closed panel system. This means their products come as a package of a steel structural frame and complete panel inserts which are fully serviced with electrics and plumbing. All that needs to be done on site is bolt the panels to the frame and connect the services and you have a fully functioning building. It is even more absurd that we continue to implement traditional construction methods when you see headlines such as ‘Brick shortages as homebuilding grows at fastest rate since 2003’33 in the Guardian. It seems ridiculous that as demand for housebuilding grows that we insist on building them with construction materials which require specialist skills to assemble, are notoriously messy and are in short supply; so much so that we have to import bricks from Europe. The notion of using materials that are in short supply is rendered even more outrageous, when we also have to import the labourers who have the specialist skills to build using traditional methods of construction. With headlines in the Guardian reporting ‘Portuguese bricklayers paid £1,000 a week due to shortage of UK workers’34. To put this into perspective we are importing workers and paying them twice the standard rate to construct our houses. In this case there is most certainly an argument that massproduction is cheaper than traditional construction; as in mass-production you can control every part of the build process in the factory to a fixed timescale, using machines that can be operated by relatively unskilled workers.
31
Abley, Woudhuysen, 2004, p9 Brett, 2010, p484 33 Allen, Katie, 2014 34 Guardian Press, 2014 32
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Relative success of Self-build One of the few recent success stories within the prefabrication industry is the emergence of the selfbuild sector. Companies such as Huf-Haus in Germany allow customers to specify how they want their house right down to the final finishes of floors, this is then all manufactured on-site and shipped off to the houses destination. People use this way of building as it allows the client to feel as if they have complete control over the design of their house, in reality all they are doing is choosing options from a defined catalogue of parts and hence there are actually limited options but it allows the client the feeling of control. If this perception of allowing the client control could be transferred into volume house building, then perhaps prefabrication could be a success. After all we allow our cars to be mass produced and then we can select from a catalogue of add on extras and alterations I see no reason why this model cannot be applied to the housing industry.
Figure 19 – Y:Cube proposal
Figure 20 – Newham housing proposal
The Future of Prefabrication ‘As months go by, the 2016 Will Alsop Toyota Mark4 two-storey model takes market share from the 2015 Zaha Hadid Asda Bungalow’35 The quote above is what Ian Abley and James Woudhuysen prophesised about the prefabrication industry back in 2004. This may sound slightly farfetched but when broken down it is only based upon the business model of car manufacturers. Although we can see from the study of Oxley Woods that the UK construction industry has come nowhere near this vision. So where is the future of 35
Abley, Woudhuysen, 2004, p8
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prefabrication or is there even a future at all? It would seem that Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners have not given up on the idea of prefabrication as they are currently working on multiple projects which come under the ‘Homeshell’ banner, the same as Oxley Woods. In fact these developments and proposals are new versions and different variations upon the model that they built at Oxley Woods; suggesting that Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners believe Oxley Woods was a success in terms of its design and concept. The projects in question are the Y:cube (Figure 19), designed for the YMCA London South West and a 40 unit housing scheme for Newham Council (Figure 20). The Y:Cube is a 36 dwelling scheme which aims to help people who are struggling to get their foot on the ladder in the housing market. Prefabrication has been chosen as its method of construction due to the fact that it is quicker and most importantly for the client – less expensive than traditional methods of construction. But should we really be using prefabrication with the sole aim of it being more economical? The other project is a housing scheme in Newham for 40 council houses with their intentions being to rent them out at 80% of the market price36 again it is clear that their main priority is cost reduction. My fear is that by marketing prefabrication as a cheap alternative to traditional construction we are limiting its potential and at the same time alienating mortgage lenders and the public making it a less attractive proposition. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners are not the only architecture firm to venture into prefabricated construction; Allford Hall Monaghan Morris completed their modular Raines Court development in 2003, before Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners even entered the Design for manufacture competition and subsequently designed Oxley Woods. Overall this project was a success yet it did not receive the same sort of publicity or recognition as Oxley Woods. The most impressive fact from this development is that it was ‘built in just 50 weeks, a saving of about 40 per cent on traditional sitebased construction’37. Rather staggering figures that reinforce the fact that the main benefit of prefabrication is the time it saves in construction. Being able to build twice the volume of prefabricated houses compared to traditional construction methods must be an extremely important factor in promoting this technology. These projects although great are still too small to make an impact upon the shape of the UK’s housing supply, there needs to be real investment and projects rolled out on a large scale to test, develop and show that this really could be a feasible solution. Only then will the UK construction industry see a real change in how people view prefabrication, and possibly start to see some of the utopian visions of Archigram, Abley and Woudhuysen become reality. 36 37
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2014 Architects Journal, 2003
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Figure 21 – Erection of Chinese tower
Figure 22 – Broadgroup factory
. The Chinese have made more progress than anybody towards these visions with a company called Broadgroup heavily investing in this technology and the result is staggering they have managed to construct a 30 story hotel in just two-weeks (Figure 21 & 22). With each floor being craned up in sections with flat packs of all the internal fittings already loaded - If other companies can invest in this sort of pioneering engineering then maybe there is a very real prospect that one day we will see the ‘Zaha Hadid Asda bungalow’38. In Homes 2016 it is proposed that if prefabrication were to dominate the housing market – small scale projects then the architect’s time will not be taken up by client and contractor disputes. This is only possible if there was a reform of the planning system, a shift from our current planning system to that of a Type Approval approach. ‘But as a result, each Type they have approved would have an annual £18m-worth of design time spent on it: the kind of money that, at the same level of research-to-sales, ratio is only available on one-off architectural budgets that have a hefty budget of £225m’39 This would drastically improve the quality of our housing stock with more design hours and expertise being spent on each project, with each type of approved housing being reviewed and improved on a regular basis. This sort of revolution and investment would in theory mean better quality housing for the masses, whilst streamlining the planning process and dramatically cutting design and production time. In turn moving the house manufacturing industry closer to the standards that have already been achieved by the car manufacturing industry.
38 39
Abley, Woudhuysen, 2004, p8 Abley, Woudhuysen, 2004, p15
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‘We must create the mass-production spirit. The spirit of constructing mass production houses. The spirit of living in mass-production houses. The spirit of conceiving mass production houses’40
Conclusion The fundamental downfall that the prefabrication method has faced is the fact that architects, developers, contractors and the general public see it as a low cost alternative building method; something which isn’t worth investing their money in because it is not permanent. Churchill’s temporary housing program proves that prefabrication is anything but temporary with some houses that still stand today, 50 years after they were meant to be uninhabitable. I believe that Oxley Woods provides a prime example of what prefabrication can achieve, great designs of high quality with great sustainable credentials. Indicating that Oxley Woods should be used as a blueprint or platform upon which we expand our knowledge and application of prefabrication. Residents of Oxley Woods have confirmed that prefabricated estates are just as pleasant if not more pleasant to live in that their traditional counterparts, hence spreading this message to the wider public should be of utmost importance. On the other hand it shows the failings that the construction sector has forced upon prefabrication, prioritising low cost units over efficiency of construction has translated into defects of the final product. The other issue is the restriction of planning laws which deter people from this method of construction. Ian Abley and James Woudhuysen propose interesting and sensible ideas that would open up the market for the prefabricated house to succeed, with their Type approval approach. I believe must be investigated and tested to allow architects and designers the freedom to explore the possibilities of mass-production. Yet they seem to have neglected something that Le Corbusier recognised nearly a century ago, that society needs to view this technology in a different light for it to prosper. After all you cannot sell something without a client. I propose that for society to view prefabrication in a new light there must be pilot projects which are executed to the highest standard and followed through until the end, we must show the general public the opportunities that massproduction gives the homeowner. Such as being involved in the design process, having the ability to adapt and change their investment in the future to suit their ever changing needs. To change
40
Le Corbusier, 1927, p6
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societies view requires educating the public and dispelling the connotations of post-World War prefabrication efforts. What needs to happen is for Architects, developers and everyone involved in the delivery of construction to rethink what the advantages of prefabrication are; for example the main benefits of off-site fabrication are decreased construction times and the ability to customise. If these two factors are put at the forefront of thinking within the design field and architects are challenged to use prefabricated methods in new and innovative ways then we can break the shackles of the negative pre conceptions of the term prefabrication. This would require commitment from leading architects, developers, contractors and schools of architecture, teaching people the true potential of this so far failing method of construction. Administering and governing this process will be essential, all parties involved in construction must come together and move forward as one. The Government must provide the political framework and public backing, the RIBA must educate architects about mass-production methods and house builders and developers must be willing to invest and roll out large prefabrication schemes. With this change of emphasis prefabrication will thrive; the public will see it as an exciting opportunity which in some cases they can feel they have complete authorship of their design, whilst on the other hand, production lines will be producing high quality housing for volume builders. The knock on effect of this will be that the house building industry will start to meet their yearly targets of house production due to decreased construction times, in turn relieving the impact of the housing crisis and making houses less expensive and readily available to the general public. Prefabrication as many before me have said holds an answer to one of the world’s problems; the problem of providing housing for our rapidly increasing population. The best method to address this problem is through mass-production of housing, within this there can be a multitude of different options from inexpensive base models to highly customised expensive ones. The fact remains that this method of construction provides the opportunity to relieve the pressure on current housing stocks and so it is up to society to provide the framework within which it can succeed and for the construction industry to apply itself to the pursuit of realising its potential.
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Bibliography Books Betz, Frederick, 2003. Managing Technological Innovation. Wiley Press Brett, Peter, 2010. Carpentry and Joinery - Book One. Nelson Thornes Crompton, Dennis, 1998. Concerning Archigram, EG Bond Davies, Colin, 2005. The Prefabricated Home, Cromwell Press Giedion, Siegfried, 1948. Mechanization Takes Command, Oxford University Press Herbert, Gilbert, 1978. Pioneers of Prefabrication: The British Contribution to the Nineteenth Century, John Hopkins University Press Le Corbusier, 1927. Towards a New Architecture, John Rodker Peters, Nils, 2006. PROUVÉ, Taschen Prouvé, Jean, 2005. The Poetics of the Technical Object, Vitra design Rogers, Richard, 1997. Cities for a small planet, Faber and Faber ROGERS STIRK HARBOUR + PARTNERS, 2014. Homeshell Woudhuysen,James; Abley, Ian, 2004. HOMES 2016, Blueprint Woudhuysen,James; Abley, Ian, 2004. Why is Construction so backward?,Wiley-Academy
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Articles Allen, Katie, 2014. Brick shortages as homebuilding grows at fastest rate since 2003. The Guardian, 4th August 2014 Fifield, Nicola, 2014. Labours £60,000 homes are rotting. The Telegraph, 17th May 2014 Mark, Laura, 2014. Oxley Woods problems ‘absolute rubbish’ says Prescott. Architects Journal, 16th May 2014 Guardian Press Association, 2014. Portuguese bricklayers paid £1,000 a week due to shortage of UK workers. The Guardian, 9th December 2014 Rogers, David, 2012. Planners reject Oxley Woods replacement. Building Design, 1st March 2012
Reports Egan, John, 1998. Rethinking Construction, Crown Copyright McGivern, Paul, 2007. Design for Manufacture: Lessons learnt 2, Homes and communities agency
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Online Sources Apple, 2014. IPhone 6 Available at - http://store.apple.com/uk/iphone Accessed – 3rd December 2014 Ford, 2014. Ford Bridgend earns multi-million pound investment Available at http://www.ford.co.uk/FordFleet/NewsAndReviews/FordForBusiness/2013/May/Multi-MillionPound-Investment Accessed – 3rd December 2014 Gokey, Malarie, 2014. Apple spends big ahead of IPhone 6 launch Available at - http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-spends-big-ahead-of-iphone-6-launch/ Accessed - 3rd December 2014 Mullet, Paul, 2014. Oxley Woods Living. Available at - http://oxleywoodsliving.co.uk/blog Accessed – 12th November Sara, 2012. City Movement: Metabolists Available at - https://citymovement.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/metabolists/ Accessed – 2nd February 2015 RIBA, 2008. Oxley Woods wins the Manser medal Available at - http://www.architecture.com/RIBA/Contactus/NewsAndPress/NewsArchive20022012/AwardsNews/Press/2008/OxleyWoodsWinsTheManserMedal.aspx Accessed – 29th November 2014 V&A, 2015. The Crystal Palace Available at - http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-crystal-palace/ Accessed – 8th February 2015 Weald and Downland Museum, 2013. Bayleaf Farmhouse from Chiddingstone: Weldon House Available at -http://www.wealddown.co.uk/explore/buildings/further-reading/general-informationbayleaf-wealden-house/?building=251 Accessed - 29th November 2014
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Images Front Cover - Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2008. (Online) Available -http://www.Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.com/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,25,1361,1465&showImages=detail&imageID=2935 Figure 1 - Maisey, Irene, 1950. (Online) Available - http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205018287 Figure 2 – Stanley history, n.d. (Online) Available - http://www.stanleyhistoryonline.com/Ferry-Lane-Prefabs.html Figure 3 – Arraya, Juan, n.d. (Online) Available- http://www.mimbrea.com/hablando-de-construccion-modular-primera-parte/ Figure 4 - Le Corbusier Foundation, 2/7, 1922. (Online) Available http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sysId=13&IrisObjectId=5950&sysLan guage=fr-fr&itemPos=96&itemSort=frfr_sort_string1%20&itemCount=215&sysParentName=&sysParentId=65 Figure 5 - Terna, Diego, n.d. (Online) Available - http://presstletter.com/public/Image/terna/DT_Pessac3_Diego%20Terna.jpg Figure 6 - Seguin, Patrick, 2008. (Online) Available - http://www.patrickseguin.com/en/designers/architect-jean-Prouvé/available-housesjean-Prouvé/6x6-demountable-house-1944/ Figure 7 - Archigram Archives, 2013. (Online) Available -http://www.archdaily.com/399329/ad-classics-the-plug-in-city-peter-cook-archigram/ Figure 8 - Kurokawa, Kisho, 1975. (Online) Available - https://citymovement.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/metabolists/ Figure 9 - Osashi, Tomio. Kisho Kurokawa Architect & Associates, 1975. (Online) Available - http://www.mascontext.com/category/issues/4-living-winter-09/ Figure 10 - Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. 2012. (Online) Available - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p01cnblg
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Figure 11 - Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, n.d. (Online) Available - http://www.Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.com/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,23,458&showImages=detail&imageID=334 Figure 12 - Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2008. (Online) Available – http://www.rshp.com/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,25,1361,1465&showImages=detail&imageID=2945 Figure 13 - Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2008. (Online) Available - http://www.rshp.com/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,25,1361,1465&showImages=detail&imageID=2940 Figure 14 - Architects Journal, GHPC, 2014. (Online) Available - http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/oxley-woods-problems-absolute-rubbish-saysprescott/8662745.article Figure 15 - Personal Photograph, November 2014 Figure 16 - Personal Photograph, November 2014 Figure 17 - Ford, n.d. (Online Available -http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ErSZmor1qok/maxresdefault.jpg Figure 18 - Space4, n.d. (Online) Available http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/assets/news_articles/2014/11/1415086651_space4factory3.jpg Figure 19 – Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2014. (Publication) Available – Homeshell Brochure, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, p3 Figure 20 – Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2014. (Publication) Available – Homeshell Brochure, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, p48 Figure 21 – Inhabitat, 2013. (Online) Available - http://inhabitat.com/200-chinese-workers-erect-a-30-storey-prefabricated-hotel-in-just15-days-video/ Figure 22 – Wired, 2013. (Online) Available - http://www.wired.com/2012/09/broad-sustainable-building-instant-skyscraper/all/
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