OPEN SOURCE BUILDING

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Exploring the applications of an open source building system in architectural practice

PIETER DOCKX

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OPEN SOURCE BUILDING

Universiteit hasselt Faculteit architectuur en kunst academiejaar 2017-2015 Seminarie Mens en Cultuur Pieter Dockx promotor: Jan Vanrie

Abstract

This thesis studies the application of an open source building system within our Flemish way of building houses. With the growing influence of the internet in all kinds of professional sectors, architecture is bound to become one of them. Sharing information through an open source platform like wikipedia has become normal in our eyes. But could such an open source sharing platform work for architecture? Through case studies of the twentieth and twentyfirst century, I studied Open source design platforms and how they could be used in today’s architecture practice. After the literary research, I used a research-by-design methodology to studied the possible applications of such a building system. During the masterclass “Sustainable Neighbourhoods� at the university of Hasselt, I applied the system on a neighbourhood in Genk. The masterclass showed the limits of using this system, concerning density and material usage, and showed us the role of the architect int this kind of system. The conclusion of this thesis is that an open source building system gives people the freedom to design and build their own homes, but it should be done under supervision of an architect, who will serve as a consultant during the construction of a neighbourhood.

Research question

How can an open source building system be integrated with the way we build houses in Flanders?

Open source software and sharing information through creative commons licences are a hot toppic with tech companies and developers today. With this research question we aim to find out how an open source structure can find its way in architecture, anwsering several smaller questions allong the way, like ‘what is a building system?’ where we look at cases from the past to find examples of building systems of the 1950’s and 60’s, ‘what is an open source building system?’ where we research existing open source platforms and how they can be used to design and build a house. To summerise, we are going to find out if we can develop a tool or design language to make architectural design available to everyone.

Index

PREFACE................................................................... 8 INTRODUCTION...................................................... 10

1 BUILDING SYSTEMS IN THE 20TH CENTURY.......... 12 1.1 Maison a portique - Jean Prouvé.................. 12 1.2 Segal system - Walter Segal......................... 13 1.3 What is a building system?............................ 17 2 OPEN SOURCE DESIGN PLATFORMS..................... 18 2.1 Wikihouse...................................................... 19 2.1.1 Distribution and production of the

wikihouse............................................... 19

2.1.2 The assembly of the wikihouse............. 20

2.2 Openstructures.net........................................ 21 2.2.1 The theory behind openstructures.net... 22 2.2.2 The OS-Grid.......................................... 22

2.3 What makes an open source building

system?......................................................... 24

2.4 Case study: Autarkytecture........................... 24 3 THEORISING BASIC DESIGN PRINCIPLES.............. 27 3.1 General guidelines for organising indoor

space............................................................. 27

3.2 Guidelines for designing room interiors......... 30 3.2.1 Entrance hall......................................... 31 3.2.2 Kitchen.................................................. 31 3.2.3 Common living area.............................. 32 3.2.4 Parent’s bedroom.................................. 33

3.2.5 Childrens bedroom................................ 33 3.2.6 Bathrooms............................................. 34 3.2.7 Storage space....................................... 34 3.2.8 corridors and staircases........................ 35

3.3 Summary....................................................... 37

4 TRANSLATING IDEAS INTO PRACTICE.................... 39 4.1 Using the OS-grid to design interior spaces.. 40 4.1.1 applying the OS-ruler to design

components........................................... 41

4.1.2 Using these components to design the

floorplan of a house............................... 44

4.2 From design to construction, using OS-

architecture.................................................... 47

4.2.1 Designing the component...................... 48 4.2.2 applying the construction method to

build a house......................................... 50

4.3 Summary....................................................... 53 5 AN OPEN SOURCE BUILD NEIGHBOURHOOD......... 54 5.1 The importance of flexibility on the scale

of the neighbourhood.................................... 55

5.2 Social impact of an open source building

system........................................................... 57

5.3 Can an open source building system be

integrated into our Flemish way of building?.59

A REFLECTION ON ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE....... 60

6 REFLECTION WITHIN THE MASTER STUDIO...64

SOURCES................................................................ 80 LIST OF FIGURES................................................... 82

Preface

The first time I heared about open source architecture whas in 2013. In my second year as an architecture student I got the opportunity to work together with a select group of students to design the entrance pavilion of the exhibition ‘Atelier a Habiter’ of cultural center Z33 in Hasselt. The theme of the exhibition whas for architects an designers to rethink the concept of a dwelling, anwsering to new social, demographic and economic challenges. Together with Z33, we designed a small pavilion using one f the earlier versions of the Wikihouse construction system. Working on this design excercise sparked a real interest with me, leading to more research on the subject. Two years later in 2015, I started researching the application of Wikihouse structures to provide quick, comfortable housing for imigrants during the imigration crisis of 2015. One year later in 2016 I redesigned the Wikihouse system, designing a flexible research station to research the application of phytoremediation in purifying the soil in Genk.

Next to interesting construction details and new possibilities of production through open source software applications, I found that designing and building a Wikihouse is just incredibly fun to do. You dont need any prior building experience to do it, you can do it together with friends and just have a great time building your house. Using the Wikihouse system for the first time in 2013 just reminded me of the time I was 10 years old and started to build my first Mecano set with my brother. This exitement is something we miss in current day construction, and I think an open source building system might help to get this kind of childish fun back into architecture and construction.

Open source architecture has been inspiring me for four years now and therefor it became the topic of my thesis research. In this research I will find out i fan open source design platform

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can be used to build a house in Flanders.

I would like to thank my promotor Jan Vanrie for his guidance and support during the past year and for allowing me the freedom to experiment in this research and to find my own passion for architecture. And I want to thank Aarnoud de Rycker for providing me the layout of my thesis.

introduction

‘The farmer marked his site in the grass where he would build his new house, so they could start digging to put in the foundations. Than the stonemason can come. If the ground in the area holds clay, than the local brick-yard would deliver the bricks on the site. If not, he will use the stones he finds on the bank of the river. While the stonemason lays brick after brick, a carpenter sets up shop right next to him. The sound of the carpenters axe sounds happily acros the construction site. He is making the roof. What kind of roof? Ugly or beautiful? He doesn’t know. It’s just a roof.

In the meantime, another carpenter starts to take the measures in order to make the doors and windows. Also the other craftsmen come and take their measurements and return tot heir workshop to start working. At the end of it all, the farmer prepares a large tub of lime and starts to paint the house in a bright white color. He cleans out his paintbrush, since he will nee dit again next spring.

All he wanted was to build a house for him, his family and his cattle, and he succeded. Just like his neighbours did before him. Just like every animal would do when he is led by it’s instincts. Is it a beautiful house? Yes, just as beautiful as a rose or thisle growing in the yard.’

(Adolf Loos, 1910) This text of Adolf Loos, named ‘architecture’, describes a picture of a Swiss scenery down by a lake in the mountains. He talks about the beauty of the landscape, as it where created by God himself. Everything in this picture is perfectly in balance with each other, even the houses the farmers build around the lake. All the houses are build by their residents themselves, without the design of an architect, but with the expertise of the

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craftsmen in the village. Each house is build just like the one of its neighbours, using techniques they learned from their ancestors over the years and modified to fit their own needs.

We start our research with this quote because it stresses the importance of building a house by oneself. For ages, people have been building their own houses from the example of their neighbours, and not according to the design of an architect.

For some reason, this all changed during the years. Hiring an architect to design your house went from being reserved for the upper class of society to a mandatory task for everyone who wants to build a house larger than fourthy square meters.

The reason for this is our building proces has just become to complicated to be done by oneself and therefor whe need building experts, like an architect. An open source building system could give an anwser tot his problem, empowering the people to design and build their own homes again.

The research in this thesis is performed in two parts, one through case studies and literature research, and one part through research by design. In the first part, we take a look at some building systems of the twentieth century to anwser the question of what a building system is or should be. Then we take a look at the current open source design platforms which are most active in Belgium and how they can be used to create an open source building system. The last part of this literary research is about producing a simple design theory on how to design a single family house.

After the literary study, we apply the things we learned into the common design practice of a single and two story house.

Through research by design, we test if the open source principals can be applied to architecture on the scale of a house, and on the scale of a neighbourhood through a masterclass on sustainable neighbourhoods I attended at the university of Hasselt. 

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Building systems in the 20th century

To cap of our research, we are going to determine what a building system is. To do this, whe compare two cases from the 20th century with each other.

The first notion of a building system begins to apear in the period after the second world war (Peters, 2007). Europe whas in the middle of rebuilding their mayor cities, wich where destroyed during the war. This led to a first mayor housing crisis in France.

France whas in desperate need of housing after 1945. The minister of rebuilding & urban planning, Eugène Claudius-Petit, took his interest upon a French architect who designed a steelframed housing system during the war, Arch. Jean Prouvé.

1.1. Maison a portique - Jean Prouvé In the period between 1935 and 1947, Jean Prouvé designed a house called ‘Maison à portiques’, wich roughly translates to ‘steel-framed house’. The house was of simple design, and the entire structure was suported by a single crossbeam in the middle of the house. Because of it’s light, steel structure, the house whas designed with an open floor plan or ‘plan libre’ Like Le Corbusier would put it. This made the house very flexible in use and simle to produce. The Frames of the house are repeated every 1 meter and had a span with of 8 meters. The steel parts for the frames where custom-made peaces of folded steel plates, produced in Prouvé’s own factory in Maxéville.

Fig. 1, images of portique construction.

When Eugène Claudius-Petit first approached Prouvé in 1949, he was commisioned by the government to design and produce 25 of his ‘Maison à portiques’ for a test project in Maxéville, close to his factory.

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The requirements of the house where to fit one household comfortably, be fast to construct and, most importantly, to be cheaper than standard, brick houses.

The latter appeared to be a problem when the houses came to production. They exceded their maximum cost because of the high production values of the steel frames. This led to the cancelation of the housing project in Maxéville. 10 of the commisioned houses ended up in a park in Meudon, the other 15 where scatered across France.

The houses however where of good quality, and the people who bought a house in the 1950’s, still live in them today. Although the architectural opinions vary for this project, there are still those who beleave the houses to be of exelent architectural quality. The only problem nowadays is renovating the house.

Since the parts for the steel frames where all custom-made in Prouvé’s factory, It has become very hard to find replacement parts when you want to renovate your home.

Fig. 2, Picture during construction in Meudon.

1.2. Segal System - Walter Segal Around the 1960’s, almost everybody lost interest in this kind of ‘system building’ to produce housing at a high rate. But still, they where left with a bit of a housing crisis. Our next example comes from a German-born architect called Walter Segal.

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Walter Segal studied architecture in Amsterdam and later in Berlin. When he graduated, he became interested in the design of ancient Egyptian furniture. In 1934, he moved to Egypt to become an egyptologist at the German school of Archeology in Cairo, and later on in 1935, he moved to England to work at the British museum’s Egyptology departement.

At this point in his career, he found a new interest in architecture and in 1936, he started teaching at the Architecture Association in London.

In 1966, Walter Segal developes a small, timber-framed house in the backyard of an old mansion, to house him and his family during the renovations of his home. He Build this small structure with only 800 pounds, using standard materials from his local lumberyard.

His clients are starting to notice the simplicity of the house, later called the ‘house in the garden’, and they started requesting a house just like it.

This was when Segal started designing his own building system, based on the common-sence principle, called ‘the Segal Method’.

In a study of John McKean, a professor of architecture at the university of Brighton, he wrights about the ‘Segal method’, and it’s application on a small street in Lewisham, South London, in 1970. In his essay ‘A discource on Method: The Segal System’, he discribes Segal’s self-build method as “Not just “commonsense”, but Segal’s intuitive concern for personal freedom and responsibility inform a system wich produces an architecture totally under control, quick. And pleasant to erect (being dry and with a shell up in a few days), economic in material and labour: enjoyable to design, build and pay for.” (McKean,1987) The system is based on the American, timber-framed constructions wich he calls ‘American balloon framing’, wich was a building method that was easily understandable. Segal strived to design a system that was simple and logical. It was designed to be understood by non-skilled working-class people, with no earlier experience in construction.

Building systems in the 20th century

Fig. 3, Segal, Elevations of plot 9 of Walters Way.

Fig. 4, Richardson, areal sketch of Walters Way.

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The dimensioning of the frames, and spacing between the different frames was based on the size of the wooden panels, wich where available at the local hardware store. In contrast to the steel frames of the ‘maisons à portique’ of Jean Prouvé, Segal uses only ‘of-the-shelf’ materials, meaning you could basicaly buy the materials for your house at the local lumberyard.

By using the dimensions of a standard wooden board, he could save some valueble construction time because none of the wooden boards needed to be cut to size before mounting them.

Also the list of materials needed whas made in order of use, meaning that you just needed to check of the list of materials as you whent allong building your house, hereby organising the delivery on the construction site and maxemising your work efficiency.

In Lewisham, a sub-urban village in South London, They where having trouble assigning social housing. There was quite a long waiting list of people in need of a house. Therefor, the city council commisioned Segal to build these houses in a small street in Lewisham. Instead of building these houses, and later on assigning them to people, Segal saw the oppertunity to divide the plots of land on the street amongst those people and give them the opportunity to build their own house, using his earlier designed building method. This kind of participation was never heard of in England, but it resulted in quite an interesting street.

There are architects who say this housing system fails to embed itself in the city because it doesn’t create social spaces, but others say it creates the opportunity to create a community through a shared activity.

The people Living on ‘Walter’s Way’, wich is the name of the street in Lewisham, are often speaking very highly of their experience building their own homes. In his essay, John McKean interviewed a couple of schoolteachers who live on ‘Walters Way’. In the interview, the couple talks about their wins and their losses, wich they expirienced whilst building their

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house. There losses where primarily the loss of sleep. They were both working full-time jobs and in the evenings, they build their house. For a period of 3 months, they worked every evening, except for sundays, to complete the job. At the end, things could get a bit depressing when work wasnt going as fast as they hoped, or when a problem turned up wich they couldn’t solve imediately, they said.

But in regard of the long hours they spend working, they gained more than they lost. It whas a matter of personal growth, and the satisfacion they got when they finnished building their own homes was worth the trouble. They say they will forever remember the experience and that they where left with a home of their own design. And to top it all of, they where left with a very small morgage to pay of their house.

Fig. 5, picture during construction

Perhaps this is the most valueble lesson to learn from the ‘Segal method’. As McKean wrote; “Architects are utterly unequipped to help people who want to build with their own hands. Architects will have to be trained to be enablers. This is not taught, but such skills are dearly needed. The course of architectural education must be completely changed.” (McKean, 1987).

With the introduction of powered hand tools in the 1960’s, construction has become a simpler task. An inhabitant of ‘Walters Way’ once told in an interview for the short documentary ‘Walter’s Way: the anarchist housing estate’ of the Architecture Foundation, that Walter Segal once told him that “every man is able to build his own house, as long as you can cut a straight line and drill a straight hole.”

With the introduction of powertools, Walter Segal enabled a handfull of people to build their own homes. If we try to learn from his example, we should be able to use the tools we have at our disposal in our modern era, and try to adapt his design into a new system to build even quicker and with more ease.

In 1970, Segal did a study to show that all required documents you need to construct a house, can be prepared by a well programmed computer. In his calculations, the computer should

Building systems in the 20th century

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be able to produce these documents within two days.

Almost 50 years later, we possess the technology to actualy make this thought into a reality. With an open platform, we can try to inspire people from all over the world to build their own homes, like Walter Segal did in Lewisham.

Fig. 6, Broome, scetch of Walters Way.

1.3. What is a building system?

After studying these two cases, how do we difine a building system? The system of Jean Prouvé didn’t quite fit the bill. The house was designed to be flexible in use, quick and easy to construct, but the steel frame also made it hard to change. After the house was constructed, there was little room for redesigning the exterior by yourself, unles you where able to produce and weld steel frames of your own. The ‘maison a portique’ leans more towards a prefabricated house with a simple construction plan, then it is a building system.

The system of Walter Segal on the other hand is a clear method of construction, wich can be taught to every man and woman who is able to hold a hammer. By using only locally available materials from the lumberyard and hardware store around the corner, Segal ensures the modular character of the house and makes it possible for its inhabitants to refurbish their house whenever they want.

With this in mind, we can say a building system is not a finnished house or building, like the ‘maison a portique’, but it is a method of constructing wich allows you to design a house with a unique program, by using the same building method, like the two tiny streets in Lewisham.

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open source design platforms

After learning from the 20th century building systems, we can shift our focus to the 21st century. In the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, a remarkable mentality shift occured. In 1991, a student at the departement of computer sience at the university of Helsinki, Linus Torvalds, started to develop some peaces of software to make his daily tasks a bit easier. Without realising it at first, he developed a peace of software that was the start of an operating system.

After developing it during his free time, he posted it in an online forum to get comments and feedback. Due to the reactions and the enthousiasm of the forum, Torvalds oploaded the ‘kernel’ (which is the peace of software that runs the computer) onto the universities server to be used and adapted for free. In 1992, the software gained popularity and whas made public under the name of ‘Linux’. Linux changed the way we developed software and is becoming increasingly popular because of its free use and its flexibility.

And thus, open source developement was born. (Open Source Architecture, 2015) Nowadays, a lot of companies use this open source developement strategy under a Creative Commons licence. A creative commons licence is a way to share all of your creative idea’s, outside the ‘all rights reserved’ copywright law. It is a way to ensure your idea’s will be used for noncommercial use only and that it will keep its ‘open’ character, since the person who uses your idea for himself is legaly obligated to re-share it.

A lot of these open source produced products are from the area of software developement, but how does this principle find its way into architecture? This chapter talks about two open source platforms for architects and designers, who both where

Open source design platforms

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developed to share ideas on how to make sustainable architecture by using either shared design guidelines or open source production techniques.

2.1. Wikihouse The first on our list is Wikihouse. An open source program developed to produce affordable housing in a west European urban environment.

The wikihouse foundation was founded in 2011 by Alistair Parvin and Nick Ierodiaconou, both are currently working at Architecture 00 in London. It was developed as an online platform for architects, engeneers and designers from all sorts of diciplines as a method of developing a new building system.

They developed the system as an anwser to the current housing crisis they have in London and the UK. Their goal is to develop sustainable housing at low cost.

2.1.1. Distribution and production of the wikihouse Wikihouse is best described as “the online Wikipedia of stuff�.

(Parvin 2011) The Wikihouse project is an online library, where you can find all kinds of finnished bouldings and housing typologies. The library allows you to download a series of building plans and sketches, allongside a 3D model of the finnished project. The 3D model can be opened and addapted using SketchUp, A 3D modeling software wich is free and easy to use. But the innovation of the Wikihouse project is not in the design of the building itself, but in its rather unconventional construction method. The construction typology wich they used for the Wikihouse is a timber frame construction, wich initself is not a brand new idea, but they developed a method of producing these timber frames, using a CNC-mill, to make them light and easy to handle. The CNC-mill cuts small parts out of standard wooden sheets, and put toghether, these parts form the frame of the house.

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Fig. 1, Wikihouse.cc, CNC production of plywood parts (2011)

Fig. 2, Dockx , CNC cutting file (2013)

The cutting files for the CNC-mill are provided within the package which you downloaded from the online library. You can basicaly start producing the parts without having to instal any computer program, given that you are not changing the design. The method of construction allows people to produce the parts of their own house in a FabLab, which is a government opperated production lab, or with a CNC-mill in your friends garrage. This allows the production cost of the house to be cheaper, and thus the house itself becomes less expensive.

The package you downloaded also contains a detailed production and construction manual, wich explains you stepby-step how to build your own house, without the help of an architect or contractor.

This is a short summary of how this system works and how it is intended to be used. The developement of the projects inside the online library are designed, or should be designed, according to a few given rules of thumb and some simple design criteria like “be lazy like a fox”, with which they mean you don’t always have to start from a blank peace of paper when you design a house. It’s okay to use an existing plan of a house and addapt it to your own personal needs. When you design your house with the Wikihouse method, try to make it “mistake proof” by making sure you can’t assemble the frames the wrong way around, or when you do so, it doesn’t mather because the frame is symetrical. (Parvin 2011) Also, make sure that every part you design is dimensioned on a human scale, meaning that every part of the project can be lifted by just one person.

2.1.2. The assembly of the wikihouse As said, the parts which are cut out can be assembled through its wooden joints and form the frame structure of the house. The tight fitting of the wooden joints will ensure the frames stability, allong with a pin system to hold the frames in place. This assembling technique allows the parts to be smaller and thus lighter, to comply with the rule that every peace of the structure

Open source design platforms

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should be able to be lifted by just one person. Once both frames are up, they can be connected by using spacers, which are provided in the CNC package. The spaces in between the two frames can be filled with insulation to meet the insulation standards for modern buildings, and then finnished with standard size, wooden panels.

Wikihouse was designed with the average british citizen in mind.

It whas developed as a method of constructing, that would allow the average British citizen to build their own house, without the help of an architect of contractor, and design it to the scale of their own needs. Sadly, this noble goal whas not yet realised.

The system provides a set of standardised houses, wich can be best described as a “Tiny House”. They provide all the building pans in the form of 3D models and CAD-besed buildign plans, wich can be adapted using Autocad or SKetchUp. This means ofcourse that when you aren’t skilled in using these kind of programs, your options for addapting and redesigning this house to your own needs becomes a little hard. Resulting in a system wich is, not yet, user friendly for its focus group.

Fig. 3, Dockx, assembly drawings (2016)

2.2 openstructures.net openstructures.net is an open source design platform, designed to develop all kinds of materials, appliances and structures.

The platform is an initiative of ‘Intrastructures’, a research office that uses models and installations to generate a social and environmental impact or restoration.

The platform is a kind of online database of parts an components, designed by everyone according to a few detailed design guidelines. Each component provides a list of parts and joints, and tels you where you can find each part in their database. The focus of Openstructures today are still small scale applications, like lamps and chairs, and interior design, like sinks and cupboards. Their aim is to expand the design system to the point where you can design entire living units, but until this day, this is still a concept.

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This is a brief explanation of what Openstructures offers us.

The philisophy and motive of this project is actually much more interesting. The intention of Openstructures was to connect all kinds of makers with each other, in order to enhance their capabilities, fill each others flaws and exchange idea’s.

They distinguish two kinds of modular sytems, a closed modular system and an open modular system.

2.2.1. The theory behind openstructures.net

Fig. 4, Openstructures.net, closed modular system (2012)

The difference between an open and a closed modular system is its scheme of hierarchy. In fig.1, you see the sceme of a closed modular system. We see a clear hierarchy between the developer and the users. The interaction between both parties is a one-way street, where the developer offers a product, and the user takes this product, to use in his or her project.

At Openstructures, they try to redesign this clasical hierarchy scheme into a more open source method of thinking, as you can see in fig.2. This model tries to connect the different users with each other in order to generate coöperation between people with different expertises, in order to improve their own projects and inventions. This allows them to create bigger and more complex projects in a minimum amount of time. openstructures.net offers a platform for designers, engeneers, architects, carpenters, etc... to share idea’s and use each others idea’s to their own advantage.

To make sure all parts and components in the Openstructure’s database are coherent with each other, they are designed on the same, modular grid, provided by Openstructures, wich forms the backbone of the online platform.

Fig. 5, Openstructures.net, open modular system (2012)

2.2.2 The OS-grid: The os grid is the base of all parts designed within the Openstructures platform. The grid consists of squares of 4x4 cm. These squares are called ‘cels’. Each cell contains three different measuring tools: a smaller grid of 1x1cm squares to be

Open source design platforms

Fig. 6, Openstructures.net, cell of the OS-Grid (2012)

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used for the dimensoning of parts and connections, five dots on the intersecting points between two diagonals and the previous 1x1cm grid to be used as drillholes, this way ensuring that every hole of a certain part fits toghether perfectly with other parts, and the third tool is a circle with a fixed diameter to ensure every cilindrical object will fit toghether.

When you design a part or component within this open source platform, you must make sure that at least one of these three measuring tools was used. That way others can use your parts as well in their own components. The grid you use to dimension your parts should always be scaled up or scaled down by a factor of two. This allows the grid to maintain it’s diagonals and intersection points An example of this scaling is provided by Openstructures as the OS-ruler. The OS-ruler is a design tool, created from the OSgrid, specificaly for the design of furniture and interior design.

The ruler is a grid of 60x60cm, wich is a very popular size within interior design, and can be printed and used as an analogue design tool or you can use it as a digital design tool in 3D modeling software like SketchUp. This ruler is but one example of using the OS-grid. The smaller scale of interior design allows the developers to beta-test the OS-grid in small designs, but the grid can be addapted into different rulers and with different application in mind, like exterior design or even vehicle design

Fig. 7, Openstructures.net, axonometric drawing of a component (2012)

Next to the OS-grid, Openstructures uses some rules-of-thumb to ensure a good coÜperation between it’s users. The first rule is to use one of the three measurement tools within the OS-grid, as explained earlier. A second rule-of-thumb is you make sure your component can be disassembled at all times. Meaning you should use non permanent connectors like bolts, screws, joints, zipties, etc... Permanent connectors like glue, nails and tape are frowned uppon. This way, your component can be disassembeld and used in other projects at all time. And a third rule-of-thumb is to make sure you use recyclable materials, to optimise the life of your materials as a sort of cradle-to-cradle effect.

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2.3. What makes an open source building system?

Both systems are developed according to a specific set of rules. They are designed with a specific mindset of being accesible to the public. Only Wikihouse uses a standardised joint connection, wich they provide, that doesnt allow much creativity in the assembing of the parts. The simple set of rules and the OS-grid of openstructures gives you more freedom in assembling your parts and thus it creates more space for creativity. But regardles of their pros and cons, how would we describe an open source building system?

A building system in the twentieth century whas defined as a method of constructing, which could be done by one’s self, with the expertise and supervision of an architect or engeneer. The introduction of the internet and the open source network in the twenty-first century made it possible to reach a much wider audience, which makes it a lot harder for the architect to provide his assistance. To guide the open source system and keep the overal goals and strategies of the architect in tact, a set of rules and guidelines are provided with the system.

An open source building system is a method of constructing where the design of the unit follows a given set of rules. This way, the method of construction can be adapted to one’s needs, but does not change the overal goals and strategy behind the system. It is a strategy of constructing which follows a set of rules.

The open-acces character of an open source system allows it to be available to a broad spectrum of people and possible users.

2.4. Case study: Autarkytecture Autarkytecture is a conceptual project which was developed

by Thomas Lommée and Christiane Hoegner, and was commissioned by Z33 Hasselt, for their exhibition “Atelier a Habiter” in 2013. The Autarkytecture project is an exploration of the openstructures.net design principle’s aplication on an architectural level.

Open source design platforms

Fig. 8, Dockx, sketch of Autarkytecture model (2018)

Fig. 8, Dockx, sketch of modular building units (2018)

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The project’s key focus is on adaptability and flexibility of a building. Since a building will, most likely, outlive it’s original ocupant, the building needs to be able to adapt to other users and ocupants. Being able to change the function of the building without any trouble will increase its flexibility and will inspire experimentation within the building’s concept.Lommée and Hoegner based themselves on two strategies, Autarkytecture’s design principles and Autarkytecture’s building patterns.

The design principles are mainly based on the theory of “How buildings learn” by Steward Brand, where he describes the different life cycles of a building and their ability to adapt to new uses. Principles like “Enable adaptation” which states the importance of an open building plan that allows change over years and invites people to experiment with it so It must be designed to grow, and “imagine reconfiguration” which pleas for a kind of modularity on all scales of the building to make sure that the materials which are used can be reused in other parts of the building. These principles comunicate the main goal of the project very clearly. Autarkytecture is a system of pre-designed components that can be put together and taken appart with ease.

The principles of “consider tactility” and “mix everything .. carefully” talk about the look and feel of the building, within its context. “Consider tactility” stresses the importance of chosing the right materials for the building. Since the building will probably be there for a long time, you need to select those materials which are durable and age gracefully over time. “Mix everything .. carefully” conciders a mixed use for the building, like functionalities, materials and ownership, to create synergies.

But this requires some thought to find a dynamic balance.

Appart from the design principles, we have the Autarkytecture building patterns. The building patterns are based on the theory of “the pattern language” by Christopher Alexander. In his book, Alexander developed a theory, allong with a series of patterns, to try to find a basic architectural theory that helps even nonarchitects design their own building. A few examples are: “Modular building units”, which states that the shape of your

26

building or modules should always be rectangular, because a square is easy to devide into subdivisions and the box shape makes it easy to combine with other modules. “Connected buildings”, where a series of buildings imediately initiates a kind of neighbory interaction with each other, and the new buildings are continuations of the old, existing building. “Positive outdoor space”, because the shape of the outdoor space is just as important as the shape of the buildings around it (a pattern language - pattern 106). Give your outdoor space some kind of enclosure by surrounding it with building wings or some kind of vegetation. Other relevant principles are “arcades/balconies” and “open stairs”, which talk about the ellements of your building which create a semi-public realm in your building. For example, when you place your staircase outside of your building and acompany it with an open corridor or balcony with a view, you create a sence of public space into you building structure.

The project is made out of small modules, which are based on an

OS-grid of four meter by four meters. The rectangular grid allows the

modules to connect to each other and create a flexible building system.

The rectangular modules are accompanied by different roof structures, staircases and decks, in order to develope a working building.

However the autarkytecture project provides a lot of interesting

architectural ideas and is, thanks to its modular nature, very flexible and applicable in various situations, it still lacks some detail in designing

qualitive indoor spaces on a smaller level. The principles they use are

mainly on how the building acts and reacts within the public realm, but doesn’t tel us on how to design our own home, for instance.

If we would use the same methodology they used to develope the

autarkytecture project, we can design the same system on the scale of a house.

In the next chapter, we develope a similar set of design principles which apply to building a house, in order to create a qualitive living space.

3

Theorising basic design guidelines

Both Wikihouse as opensource.net provide a set of rules and guidelines to explain how to use their system and the philosophy behind it, but both set of rules are only relevant to the construction of their system. From ‘be lazy like a fox’, the strategy Wikihouse uses to inspire copying and redesigning each others work istead of starting from scratch, to the OSgrid rule that says each hole you drill should be exactly one centimeter apart. In order to use these systems to design a house, we need to add some extra guidelines to ease the design proces.

I used ‘A Pattern Language’ of Christopher Alexander to determine what ellements are most important in a house and what you should focus on when designing your own house. We can see this chapter as the theory behind a good family home.

3.1. General guidelines for organising indoor space.

We start with a basic set of guidelines for designing a house, like ‘the common area’, pattern 129, which is an area in your building where most social activity is happening. According to C. Alexander, the common area is defined by three rules: 1.

‘It must be at the center of gravity of the building complex,

2.

‘Most important of all, it must be “on the way” from the

building, or building wing which the group occupies.’

entrance to private rooms, so people always go by it on their way in and out of the building.’

3.

Fig. 1, Alexander, diagram for the common area (1977)

‘usually a kitchen and eating space, since eating is one of

the most communal of activities, and a sitting space — at least one

comfortable chair so people feel like staying.’ (C. Alexander, 1977, P. 618-621)

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The pattern also includes that the common area should also have an outdoor space. This way, the user can go outside for fresh air and the outdoor space can become an extension of the communal living area.

There should be one common area for every social group in the building? In case of a house, there is mostly just one social group, the family, so therefor it only needs one common area.

Fig. 2, Alexander, diagram of the intimacy gradient (1977)

When designing a house, you must always be aware of which areas are public and which areas are private. Christopher Alexander cals this ‘the intimacy gradient’, pattern 127. Each room in your house can be graded with a level of intimacy, like public, semi-public, or private room. The entrance hall is the most public room of the house where people can stay for small contact or a brief chat, the kitchen or family room is a more public room where the family can serve their friends, familly members or more intimate guests, while a bedroom is the most private room of the house and is only reserved for the occupants of the house. The bathroom and toilet are somewhere in the middle between public and private rooms and should be accesible from both sides, thus it becomes a semipublic room.

Each visitor of the house will know his own level of intimacy with the family and so he will know his boundairies within the house. For instance, a mail courier who doesn know the family will know he is only allowed into the entry hall, and will not try to go any further inside the house. A close family friend knows he is welcome to stay in the kichen or family room and will even use the bathroom from time to time, but he also knows that the bedroom is not within his level of intimacy.

It is important to keep this gradient of intimacy in mind and make sure your sequence of spaces complies with the structure of public and private spaces. In most house typologies, the border between public and private rooms is the levels of the building. Most often, the ground floor comtains all the public and semi-public rooms and the first floor contains all the private rooms.

Theorising basic design guidelines

29

A few guidelines are: 1.

‘Make sure that your common area is at the heart of the

activity in your house or building, and that all paths, comming from the private rooms, lie tangent to the common room.’

2.

‘Make the entrance hall the most formal of spaces and make

sure that every person who lives in the house has a room of his own to retire and to be alone.’

Fig. 3, Alexander, diagram of the intimacy gradient (1977)

3.

‘Place bathrooms and toilets in the middle, so people can

4.

‘Place sitting areas at all the different degrees of intimacy,

comfortably acces them from both public and private rooms.’

and shape then towards their possition in the gradient.’ (C. Alexander, 1977, P. 610-613)

After you defined the common room and ordered the rooms allong their privacy gradient, the next thing to do is to create a nice flow between the spaces themself. According to pattern 131, ‘the flow through rooms’, a building with a narrow, dark transition between two rooms will be experienced as unpleasant. The transition between spaces needs to be open and light, with perhaps a place to sit inbetween. A corridor should be wide enough for the passant to either make social contact, or rather avoid it. People need to be in control of their own environment. The pattern suggests an optimal arrangement where the common area and family room are used as transitional space between the private rooms. This way you don’t need corridors and it will encourage a possitive flow between rooms.

Guidelines here are: 1.

‘When a passage or corridor is unavoidable, make them wide,

generous and try to place them on the side of the building to increase the amount of natural light.’

2.

‘Furnish them like rooms, with carpets, bookshelves and even

3.

‘Keep doors which open in rooms, or doors between rooms at

a place to sit and rest.’

the corners of the rooms.’

Fig. 4, Alexander, diagram of the flow through rooms (1977)

(C. Alexander, 1977, P. 631)

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The last, and maybe most important, pattern we must concider is ‘Indoor Sunlight’, pattern 128. C.Alexander wrights that ‘if the rooms are facing south, a house is bright and sunny and cheerful; if the wrong rooms are facing south, the house is dark and gloomy.’ (C. Alexander, 1977, P.615) From this line, we can conclude that the orientation of the rooms can make or break a project. When possitioning the rooms on the floorplan, make sure you point the most important rooms, like the family room and the kitchen, towards the south side of the building. These are the rooms you spend most of your time during the day and a nice, natural light can possitively influence your perception of the room.

For an ideal orientation of the rooms, the long side of the building should be placed on the east-west axis, to allow for maximum southern exposure.

A few guidelines here are: 1.

‘When you can, open up these sunny indoor spaces to the

2.

‘Give the bedrooms eastern exposure, put storage areas and

outdoors, creating a nice outdoor space.’

garage to the north and try to place your kitchen counter or indoor workspace to the south for maximum exposure to the sunlight.’

(C. Alexander, 1977, P. 614-617) Fig. 5, Alexander, diagram of indoor sunlight (1977)

These are basic design principles you need to keep in mind when designing your own home. The possitioning of rooms inside your building is crucial to their succes and can not be ignored. Following these guidelines should help you set up a floorplan of your own house.

3.2. Guidelines for designing room interiors.

According to the book C2008, which is a book of guidelines made by the Belgian organisation VMSW who specialise in building social housing, a house needs some basic funtions in order to work as a living space. These funtions include: an entrance hall, a living space, a kitchen, a bedroom for parents, a

Theorising basic design guidelines

31

bedroom for children, strorage space, a bathroom, a garage, an inner staircase, a toilet and some corridors to connect it all.

By using the pattern language of Christopher Alexander, we can determine a specific set of rules for each of these functions and how to combine them with other rooms and functions.

3.2.1 Entrance hall The entrance hall is the first room of your house that your visitors will see and it is the room where you receve all your guests, therefor it is the most public room of the house. This means that the entrance hall should always be seperated from the other rooms of your house, as the other residents have no interest in being seen, as they are resting in the sofa or working at the kitchen table, when you open your front door.

Visibility is key in the design of your enterance hall. Someone who opens the front door would always like to see who is standing outside the door before anwsering. A window in the same line of the kitchen or family room and the front door is recomended.

On the outside of the door, make sure your guests find shelter from weather like rain and high winds by providing shelter at your doorstep.

On the inside of the door, you should also provide a place for your guests to hang their coats and leave their shoes, before they enter your house.

So to give a few guidelines: 1.

‘Provide a window to see who is at the door.’

3.

‘Make sure the other rooms of the house keep their privacy

2.

‘Provide shelter for wind and rain.’

when you open the front door.’

4.

Fig. 6, Alexander, diagram of the enterance room (1977)

‘Give your guest a place to hang their coats.’

(C. Alexander, 1977, P. 622-626)

3.2.2 Kitchen The kitchen is described as a communal area. This is the He

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area of the house where people spend most of their time and it should be designed to accompany a wide variety of social activities, not just the preparation of food. C. Alexander starts with a statement that a seperate kitchen will create a kind of disfunction in a household, because one would have to seperate him/herself from the common area to prepare food, which is a remenant from the time when the house servants would prepare the food for the family in a seperate room. states that this way of living is outdated and that a kitchen should be fully integrated within the communal living space of the house.

The ideal kitchen is described by a large space, it should be big enough to also include the family room, with the counter and shelves at the side, a big table in the middle with a mix of hard an soft chairs and at the end a lounge chair for someone to sleep through all the activity in the kitchen.

-pattern 139, Farmhouse Kitchen A few rules: 1.

‘Give the kitchen light on two sides. ‘When they have a

choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty.’ (C. Alexander, 1977, P.747)’ 2.

‘Make your counters really long and make sure they offer

enough space to allow a nice workflow in your kitchen. Face them Fig. 7, Alexander, diagram of the farmhouse kitchen (1977)

towards the south to get exposure to daylight at most parts of the day.’

3.

‘Put in a comfortable chair somewhere to increase comfort

inside the room.’

(C. Alexander, 1977, P. 660-663)

3.2.3. Common living area The common living area is a room that came up several times in this chapter, but which room do we mean exactly?

The common room is the room of the house where the family spends most of their time, a room where they are together. Most of the time, it is a room nearby the kitchen, because they both have the same intimacy gradient. In modern houses, the living

Theorising basic design guidelines

33

area is not a room which is seperate from the others. It is often combined with the kitchen and dining area into one large space, the communal living area.

3.2.4. Parent’s bedroom

Fig. 8, Alexander, diagram of the couples realm (1977)

The guidelines for the parent’s bedroom are derived from pattern 136, “couples realm”. The pattern discusses the importance of a private realm in the house, where the couple can retreat and be by themselves. In a situation of a couple just living by themselves, this might not be as relevant. But when a family has children, they tend to dominate all the space inside the house and leave the parents with little privacy.

‘The couples realm’ proposes a room which is just accesible by the parents, often refered to as the ‘master bedroom’, as a place where they can focus on being a couple, and not just be parents. The master bedroom should be distinct from any common area of the house and childrens rooms, but it should not be to far from the childrens bedrooms to ensure quick acces to a child in need.

As it is a bedroom, the pattern 138 “sleeping to the east” suggest to improve the quality of your sleep, a bedroom should be oriënted to the east at any time, so you would be woken naturaly by a rising sun sneaking into the bedroom.

Next to a bed, the master bedroom should also be fitted with a sitting area to allow for private conversations between the man and wife.

3.2.5. Childrens bedroom

Fig. 9, Alexander, diagram of the childrens realm (1977)

The childrens bedrooms are a little more complicated. The pattern 137 “children’s realm” doesn’t describe the child’s realm as one room, like they did in “couples realm” (pattern 136) with the master bedroom. Instead, they describe the child’s realm as a sequence of rooms in where the child can release all it energy during the day. The realm most often stretches from the bedroom where the child sleeps, to the bathroom where he washes himself, the kitchen where he eats, teh family room

34

where he meets his family and the front or back lawn where he can play outside. As the pattern language describes, every silent resting area or private bedroom in between the sequence of spaces of the child’s realm will be violated and will be suched into their realm as well.

The child’s bedroom should be at the end of the sequence and should be able to be closed of from the other rooms. This way, the child has a private space where he or she can be alone or be with their closest friend, without being disturbed. As well as the master bedroom, the children’s bedroom should be oriënted towards the east for optimal sleeping conditions.

3.2.6. Bathrooms The bathroom of the house is maybe one of the most dificult rooms to design into a standard room, since the use of a bathroon can be different for some people. Some people prefer a shower instead of a bath because it’s quicker, and others prefer to relax inside a bathtub for a little while, thus the room switches between a mere functional room and a room to relax and unwind.

Fig. 10, Alexander, diagram of the bathing room (1977)

There are in fact some key ellements that every bathroom should have tho, being: a bathing area like a bathtub of a shower, a sink to wash your face in the morning and brush your teeth and a toilet, so one doesn’t need to leave the privacy of the bathroom for traveling from the shower to the toilet or visa-versa.

As earlier discused during “the intimacy gradient”, the bathroom is best positioned between the public and the private realm. This way, the bathroom is accesible by both sides and serves as a border between the public and private areas of the house.

3.2.7. storage space Most of the time, this room is neglected by the designer, but it is essential to have enough storage space in your home to put away all the bulky thing which you aren’t using anymore, but are not ready to throw away. Pattern 145 “bulk storage” states that you

Theorising basic design guidelines

Fig. 11, Alexander, diagram of bulk storage (1977)

35

need at least ten percent of the building area and it even sugests fifteen to twenty percent. Most of the time, the basement or the attic is used as a bulk storage space, but within homes who do not have a basement or an attic, people often designate a room of the house to be the storage room. If your home is not designed with a storage space, you will end up losing one of the spaces to storage, and end up within a certain disfunction of your designed home, because you have less space than planned.

The pattern language describes the storage room as a place where you can store old, bulky things that you never use. But we need to be aware that the pattern language was written in 1977, and that the requirements of tecnical instalations whas not applicable in that time of the twentieth century. These days, the requirement of renewable energy, ventilation systems and central heating for standard housing plays a big part in the amount of storage we need in a house.

According to the book C2008, ‘concepten voor sociale woningbouw’, a storage space is used to place your central heating instalations, your washing machine etc, and should have a minimal storing area of 1.5 square meters per person. In this case, the room has multiple purposes instead of just being storage space.

Taken these two points of view in mind, a storage area these days needs to store a lot more than just your suitcases and a pair of skies. The room is used to place all your technical instalations and should be properly dimensioned for this. This topic will be further discused in the next chapter, but the need of storage space is one to keep in mind whhen designing a house.

3.2.8. corridors and staircases Corridors and staircases both fall under the general therm of ‘circulation space’. The pattern language amphasizes the importance of a clear circulation space in larger buildings, in order to get your bearings right and find your way inside and outside of a building. In order for a circulation space to be clear, they conclude that a building complex should follow three rules.

36

1.

‘It is possible to identify a nested system of realms in the

complex, the first and largest of these realms being the entire complex.’

2.

‘Each realm has a main circulation space, which opens

3.

‘The entrances to any realm open directly of the circulation

directly from the enterence to that realm.’ space of the next larger realm above it.’

(C. Alexander, 1977, P. 480-484)

These three rules mainly apply for a larger building complex, which has many different realms, but there micht be some wisdom here which is applicable for designing a house.

When breaking down the scale a bit and focus on small buildings, like a house, we can break down the circulation space into two parts, the corridor and the staircase.

Like earlier discused with pattern 131, “the flow through rooms”, you should try to avoid corridors inside your house.

But sometimes you just cant get around them. With pattern 132 ‘short passages’, C. Alexander describes four main issues with designing a corridor: 1.

‘A hall or passage that is generously lit by the sun is almost

always pleasant. Meaning that you have to try and avoid the long,

dark corridors which came with modern architecture in the industrial age. A passage should always be lit with natural light. Therefor it is best to place your corridor on the outside of your building, like discussed in ‘the flow through rooms’.’

2.

‘Interior windows, opening from the rooms into the hall, help

animate the hall. Being able to look inside a room when walking by Fig. 12, Alexander, diagram of the short passages (1977)

will transfer the atmosphere of the room into the corridor and allow

a sort of informal communication between the person iside the room

and the person walking by. But do not forget the difference in intimacy gradient between the two rooms, for instance, you should not be able

to look inside a bedroom from a public corridor, because it would be a violation of the private space.’

3.

‘If the passage is made in a way which invites people to

furnish it with book cases, small tables, places to lean, even seats,

then it becomes very much a part of the living space of a building, not

Theorising basic design guidelines

37

something entirely seperate. Make sure the corridor is a space where people like to come or pass through, or even have a conversation.’

4.

‘Keep passages short. A corridor which is to long and

monotonous can lead to a bad mental health. That is why you should try to keep your passage ways as short as possible, and if you can, avoid them at all. The pattern language states that fifteen meters is

the critical threshold on when a corridor becomes to long. Whithin the context of a house, it is unlikely you would violate this threshold, but never the less, it is something to keep in mind.’

(C. Alexander, 1977, P. 632-636)

When a house has more than one layer, a staircase is added in the mixture of rooms and spaces. The staircase is an important object within the structure of your house, as it is the key to movement in a building and becomes a central ellement in the house. Therefor it is important that the staircase is placed on the correct spot within the building. For this, the pattern 133 ‘staircase as a stage’ describes two main ellements that we need to take into acount when placing a staircase in our design.

1.

‘The possitioning of the staircase within the room it’s in.

The pattern states that the stairs should be made rather open to the

room below it. It has a unique social character and plays a great role in some socail gatherings. You can make a gracefull enterance in

the room below, or allow for comunication between two stories of a

building. A staircase should come down naturaly allong the perimiter

of the room. When it doesn’t, the stairs become free standing and will divide up the room below.’

2.

‘The possitioning of the staircase within the building itself.

The stairs are an important ellement in the circulation of your house.

Therefor, a staircase should always be placed central to the rooms

it’s serves. To keep its vital, social character in the house, it should

be placed in or near the common area of the house, and should be visible from the front door.’

Fig. 13, Alexander, diagram of the staircase as a stage (1977)

(C. Alexander, 1977, P. 637-640)

3.3. Summary Just as the with the autakytecture project, this chapter

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discusses the design principles and building patterns which are relevant for building a house. The design principles, which where described in the first part of this chapter, are summarised as follows: 1.

“Common area at the heart” The communal area should be at the center of the house, since it is the room where the family comes together.

2.

“Level of intimacy” Each room of the house is graded with an intimacy gradient, like public, semi-public and private rooms. it is important to keep this gradient in mind when preparing the lay-out of the house.

3.

“Transitional space”

Make the transitional space as open, light and as short as possible. In an optimal

arangement, the family room and common areas provide the transitional space.

4.

“Building oriëntation” The oriëntation of the rooms can make or break a project. Make sure you point the most important rooms, like the family room and the kitchen, to the south and the bedrooms to the east.

When these design principles are followed, they will help you design a qualitative space for you and your family. The “building patterns”, as are discussed in the scond part of this chapter, provide a detailed set of guidelines to follow when designing each room individualy. The next chapter will use these building patterns to design a set of modules, which you can use together with the four design principles to start with the basic design of your house.

4

Translating ideas into practice.

Building a house in the 1960’s like Walter Segal did, or Christopher Alexander described in his pattern language, was rather straight forward. You needed to build a house to shelter yourself from the ellements and provide a place to live and to sleep.

Building regulations these days are a bit more complicated.

You need a certain amount of thermic insulation, acoustic insulation, your home needs to be air tight and the emision of your house should be almost nil. You need a certain amount of technical instalations as well, which in the twentieth century, where only needed in larger buildings and offices. These building regulations make it almost impossible to build a house by yourself, without consulting an architect or engineer. An open source community can be a solution here, where we all help each other with designing a house according to the regulations of today and use an open source construction principle like wikihouse to make the design into a real house. The internet is full of fora and hatboxes on social media where people ask each other for advise on daily tasks and tinkering, where they themself lack the expertise. Sharing information like this realy isn’t something new, and the best example of this is cooking.

Years ago, instead of sharing all our bread and biscuits with each other, British economist John Maynard Keynes found it to be much simpler to just share the recipe of the baked goods then to ship them entirely. For generations now, people have been exchanging recepies with their family and neighbours. And with the arival of the internet, sharing a recipe just became that much easier. (C.Ratti, 2015, P.83) If this can be done with cooking, then why should it be different for architecture?

40

The comparisson of architecture with cooking is an interesting analysis of designing architecture. If you use the ingredients right, and in the right order, and you get a clear, beautiful architectural project. If we take the design principles of the previous chapter and view them as a ‘recipe for a house’, it can be used by everyone to design and build their own house.

With the theory behind a good family home in mind, we can start to focus on how open source building will look. The focus of this chapter is twofold. First, we look at the desing of a house, based on what we learned in chapter three. Secondly, we will apply the construction systems we learned in chapter two. And try to find a way to unify drawing and building a house.

By designing on a grid like with Openstructures.net, we can give structure to our design and make sure every part we design can work together with the other. The dimensions of the grid will allow us to make the transition from open source design, based on the Openstructures methodology, to the open source construction technology of the Wikihouse.

For this chapter, we switch from a literature based research method to a research by design methodology.

4.1. Using the OS-grid to design interior spaces.

Fig. 1, Dockx, adaptation of the OS-Grid (2018)

In chapter two we talked about the use of the OS-grid as a measuring tool to create standardised components which fit together. Openstructures provided the OS-ruler, a 60x60cm grid, on which you could base the measurement of your design.

This way, your design could fit easily to others and component coulld be combined to create new components. But the rules whas mainly for furniture and interior applications.w If we redesign the measurements of the OS-ruler to the scale of a floorplan for a building, the same design system can be used to design the layout of a room. The room will act as a component within the OS-system, and combined with other components, it will form the floorplan of a house or building.

So the OS-grid becomes a design tool for interior and exterior spaces.

Translating ideas into practice

41

To redesign the OS-ruler, we have to give new dimension to the cells of the OS-grid, in order to fit to the scale of a house.

Just like one of the main princiles in the Segal Method and Wikihouse, we base the measurement of the cells on the size of wooden boards, like you find them on the shelf in your local hardware store, being 122x244cm. To allow some manufacturing errors, we make the cells 120x120cm, which is the size of a standard wooden board cut in half. Based on this measurement, the cell is devided into four squares of 60x60cm, which is the most common used measurement for cabinets and fixed furniture in interior design.

When the cells are multiplied, the measurements stay the same, giving structure to the layout of your floorplan and creating a new OS-ruler.

Fig. 2, Dockx, designing a kitchen on the OS-ruler (2018)

Fig. 3, Dockx, kitchen floorplan (2018)

4.1.1. Applying the OS-ruler to design components When we apply the OS-ruler, based on the new dimensions of the cells, to the standard layout of a kitchen, we can start designing our components within our OS-system. The layout of the kitchen we used comes from “Neufert, architects data�, a book with diagrams and measurements of basic architectural ellements and floorplans. In order to make our kitchen area into a common area of the house, I included the dining room into the kitchen floorplan to create a living space where the family will spend most of their time during the day.

As discussed in chapter three, the kitchen needs to anwser to a set of rules in order to function within the planning of the house.

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One of the general design principles is that the kitchen should have a southern orientation within the floorplan, giving it lots of light during the day. People tend to gather in the rooms where daylight comes into the house,therefor the kitchen will become an important social room and should have daylight come in from a least two sides of the room.

With this oriĂŤntation and daylight penetration, the layout of the room becomes of great importance. This will be a room which is used at almost every period of the day. Therefor, its planning needs to fit the scale of its user and provide a comfortable working space. Long countertops in the kitchen will provide enough working space to prepare your meals in comfort. The dining table can provide a place to work on your laptop during the day and a place to eat during the evening. And in the corner of the room you find a comfortable chair to rest and relax during the day.

LARGE KITCHEN COUNTERS WASHING

COOKING

BIG DINNER TABLE

COMFORTABLE CHAIR

CIRCULATION TANGIENT TO COMMON AREA

ACCES TO THE OUTDOORS

Fig. 4, Dockx, diagrams of the basic design principles applied to the kitchen component (2018)

As a common area, the kitchen also plays an important role in the circulation between spaces inside the house. The general design principles for the organisation of indoor space state that the common area, in this case the kitchen, should be at the center of gravity of the house and the circulation within the house should lie tangient with it. Meaning when you move through the house, you should always be able walk past the kitchen and have a look at what everyone is doing, without disturbing the people in the room. The kitchen should also heve a direct acces to an outdoor terrace to allow the people to get fresh air.

When we apply the OS-ruler to all the other rooms of the house, we start to create a basic component library from which we can start designing our floorplans.

Translating ideas into practice

Fig. 5, Dockx, designing the other components on the OS-grid (2018)

43

44

Fig. 5, Dockx, designing the other components on the OS-grid (2018)

4.1.2. Using these components to design the floorplan of a house.

To design a floorplan of a house, we must look back to the general design principles we drafted in chapter three. Using the previously designed components I designed two different layouts of a family house. One is a single story house and the other has two stories. Using the design principles, we can check if the layout complies with the system and offers enough spatial quallity to make this house into a home.

By placing the components together on the OS-ruler, the space you leave in between will become the transitional space like corridors and entrance hall. It will also provide a buffer area between the bathroom and toilet and the common area. Since

Translating ideas into practice

45

the living room is not defined in chapter three, but was identified as a communal space near the kitchen or dining area, it is formed as a transitional space between the other components and makes sure that the corridors and hallways stay as short as possible.

Fig. 6, Dockx, floorplan of a single story house, designed with the OS components (2018)

Fig. 7, Dockx, floorplan of a two story house, designed with the OS components (2018)

GROUND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR

“The common area at the heart” is the first general design principle. It makes sure that the common areas of the house are at the center of the lived space. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the common area should be in the middle of the layout, but it means that the common areas should be in between the public area, like outside and the entrance hall, and the private area’s of the house, like the bedrooms.

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GROUND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR

Fig. 8, Dockx, diagram of the common area at the center of the house (2018)

PUBLIC SPACE

GROUND FLOOR

PUBLIC SPACE

SEMI-PUBLIC SPACE

FIRST FLOOR

SEMI-PUBLIC SPACE

PRIVATE SPACE

PRIVATE SPACE

Fig. 9, Dockx, diagram of the intimacy gradient throughout the house (2018) ENTRANCE

ENTRANCE

GROUND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR

Fig. 10, Dockx, diagram of the circulation space within the house (2018)

In both the layout of the singel story house as the two story house, we can see the common area’s lying in between the public and the private realm. In the single story, the common areas are located at the west side of the house, and for the two story house we see that the common area makes up almost the entire ground floor.

The second principle whas “the level of intimacy”. Each room of the house can be graded with a specific level of intimacy, being public, semi-public and private. As shown on the diagrams, the public spaces of the house are coloured red, the semi-public blue and the private rooms are coloured green. This shows the intimacy gradient between the rooms and the positioning of the rooms towards this gradient. In the layout of the single story house, the gradient is followed quite linear from public rooms at the west side of the house to the private rooms on the east side of the house. In the two story house the division is much more clear, with the ground floor of the house being the public realm of the house and having the private rooms upstairs on the first floor.

One of the most delicate ellements of your house are the transitional spaces, since they decide how you move through your house. The thrird design principle adresses these spaces and helps to guide you through the design of your corridors and hallways. Like the principle says, you should always try to make your corridors as short ass possible to avoid the long, boring walkways which you find in modern architecture. In both layouts, the corridors are interupted by the common area. This way the transitional space gets cut up into smaller corridors and the flow in between rooms becomes more spatial. In the two story house, I left out the ceiling over the living room, making it two stories high. By doing this, the corridor between the rooms upstairs opens up into the living room downstairs, giving it acces to daylight and making the corridor and the staircase part of the common space.

The fourth, and last principle is maybe the most difficult one to determine with a general principle, being the orientation of the rooms within the building.

The orientation of your rooms strongly depends on the

Translating ideas into practice

WEST

EAST

SOUTH

WEST

EAST

GROUND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR

SOUTH

Fig. 11, Dockx, diagram of the orientation of the house (2018)

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orientation of your building site, but let’s say the orientation is free to chose. The principle gives us a couple of guidelines to follow, like the kitchen and family room should always be located on the south side of the building to allow for maximum exposure to daylight during the day. People will tend to use the rooms which are lit with sunlight. As well should all the bedrooms be orienteted to the east, in order to catch the morning sun when you wake up.

When designing the layout of your house, you should always keep this in mind, but we must be realistic and know that the optimal orientation for all rooms of the building might not be possible. This way, the common area should always be lit from two sides of the room, giving it a better exposure to daylight and you should try to get the light from one room into the other.

For the single story house, the layout of the rooms, according to their orientation, is a little bit easier. With its long floorplan, you can place it allong the east-west axis and make sure you get the optimal amount of sunlight on the south side of the building, where the common living area is placed. Placing the kitchen to the west allows you to catch the evening sun during dinner and on the eastern side of the house, the bedrooms are greeted by the sunlight in the morning. The two story house has more of a square floorplan, so it’s southern exposure will also be less.

But the hight of the two stories does allow the sunlight to come deeper into the house.

You must keep in mind that the general design principles of chapter three are mere guidelines for you to follow during the design of your house. They aren’t rules which you need to follow in order to get a layout that works, but you should use them to ensure your house has enough spatial quality to make your house into a home.

4.2. From design to construction, using OS-architecture.

Until now, we only talked about the use of OS-architecture to design a 2D floorplan. But if we want to build our house, those floorplans eventualy need to become threedimensional. So lets talk about the construction

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of an open source house.

Steward brand, with his book “How buildings learn”, teaches us that a

building is made out of several layers. Each layer has his own experation

date, so you need to make sure that these dates don’t interfere with each other. For instance, the structural ellements of a building have a longer

lifespan than its wiring and technical instalations. Therefor we must make

sure that the replacement of the wiring will not interfere with the structural ellements of a building, like drilling a hole in a concrete beam in order to get the ventilation shaft to the next room.

By using the construction method of the Wikihouse, we will explore

the possibilities of open source construction on the components and floorplans which we designed earlier.

4.2.1. Designing the component.

The benefit of using the Wikihouse construction system lies in it’s simplicity and easy use. Once your foundation is alligned and straight, little can go wrong during construction. I have analyzed the different steps of the construction and applied them to the scale of one component first, the kitchen as a common living area. This way, we can focus on the different steps of the construction first Fig. 12, Dockx, diagram from 2D drawing to 3D component (2018)

Fig. 14, Dockx, diagram of the first construction step (2018)

1.

The first step of construction is to lay a strong foundation. The Wikihouse system uses a chasis of timber beams, supported by small concrete blocks. This way, the impact on the land is less because you dont need to dig up a ton of soil in order to put a concrete slap as foundation.

Translating ideas into practice below: Fig. 15 - 19, Dockx, diagram of the construction steps 2-6 (2018)

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2.

When the foundation is set, we can start on the structural framework. The frame consists out of smaller ellements which are put together to form the load bearing structure, like the example given in chapter two. The frames are placed one by one ont the same grid we used to design the component, leaving one cell of 120cm between each frame. The seperate frames are connected by wooden ellements, running perpendicular to the frames themselves, making sure the frames ceep the correct distance from each other.

3.

The next phase of construction is placing the internal sheeting. These panels are made out of the same material as the framework, being plywood or OSB panels, and are perforated to be an exact fit in between the frames, giving stability to the framework. They are produced in the same way as the other parts, so it should be a precise and tight fit. With the inner sheets in place, you can start filling the space between the frames with insulation, before placing the exterior sheets.

4.

The placing of the exterior sheets is basicaly the same as the placement of the internal sheets. Also the end walls are aded to finnish the structure. The material you use on the external sheets should allow for some breathability of your exterior wall, so don’t use OSB cladding, use plywood instead.

5.

After the first four steps, all the structural ellements should be in place. The next step in the building process is installing the tecnical instalations, such as the floor heating system, the electrical wiring and the ventilation system. The Wikihouse system makes sure that the wiring and ventilation ducts will not interfere with the structural ellements.

6.

When the structural ellements are in place and the wiring is done, you can focus on the finishing of the interior space. This means placing the windows, putting up drywall, adding the floorboards and making sure the room is air-tight.

For this component, we mainly focus on fitting the inside space.

Fitting the exterior cladding is discussed later in this chapter.

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Fig. 20, Dockx, diagram of the last construction step (2018)

7.

With the doors and windows in place, we can move on to the final ellement of construction, being furnishing. As discussed by Steward Brand, the furniture is the layer which has the shortest lifespan. Therefor it seems logical that this will be the last peace which is added, since it will probably be the first ellement which will be replaced. This way, the adding and removing of furniture will not be affecting any of the other layers of the house.

When we follow the chronological order of the construction, we begin to see the structure of the layers as Steward Brand describes them. Starting with the impact on the site and building the load bearing structure of the house, after which you put on it’s skin and add some services, to finnish of with placing doors and putting in furniture to determine the spatial plan of the house.

Fig. 21, Dockx, diagram of the chronological order of construction (2018)

STUFF

SPACE PLAN

SERVICES

SKIN

STRUCTURE

SITE

4.2.2. Applying the construction method to build a house.

After analyzing the different steps of building using the Wikihouse system, it is time to apply the construction technique to build a house, following the same steps we used with the component. To do this, we start from one of the units we designed earlier in this chapter, the two story house

Translating ideas into practice

GROUND FLOOR

51

FIRST FLOOR

Fig. 22, Dockx, floorplan of a two story house (2018)

below: Fig. 23-25, Dockx, diagram of the exterior construction step 1&2 (2018)

1.

To start, we must construct a good foundation. Just like with the kitchen component, the foundation exists out of a simple wooden beam construction which is supported by concrete soles.

2.

Secondly comes the construction of the frames and loadbearing structure of the house. Since it is a two story house, the framework needs to be assembled in two parts in order to be able to put the frame in it upright position without the use of a crane or other heavy equippement. You start by putting together the ground floor. Once these frames are all fitted together and held into place by the spacers in between, you can start putting up the frames on the top floor.

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3.

Once the frames are up, the inner cladding can be put into place. As discussed before, the wooden sheets are made using the same cnc-milling technique and will be a tight but perfect fit. The sheets will add stability to the structure against the wind load and they can be used as a backboard to pin the insulation against in between the frames.

4.

The insulation comes in two parts. First, the hollow wooden frames are filled with insulating granulates, making sure the entire frame is given the optimal insulation. Secondly, the space in between the frames is filled with a soft insulation, like rockwool, to ensure the flexibility of the structure.

5.

After insulating the frame, the exterior wall panels can be added to close of the structure. the last frame on both ends is fixed with the end-walls. The end-walls don’t heve any load bearing responsibility, they are added to close of the structure. When this step is completed, the Wikihouse structure is completed and ready to be finnished like a regular wooden structure.

6.

The entire exterior is covered with a breather membrane.

This membrane protects the underlying structure against the ellements, like rain and snow, without suffocating the structure.

At the same time, the manufacturers instructions and the house can be made airtight.

7.

All that is left to do now to finnish the exterior is to add the wooden cladding. Other kinds of exterior cladding can also be used, like bricks or metal sheets, but let us use a wooden facade in this example. First, on or two layers of wooden battend are fixed to the underlying structure, depending on the horizontal or vertical orientation of the wooden cladding.

Afterwards, the wooden cladding is added to the facade of the house, finishing the exterior.

Translating ideas into practice

53

left: Fig. 26-30, Dockx, diagram of the exterior construction step 3-7 (2018)

Fig. 31, Dockx, drawing of the finished model (2018)

4.3. Summary By redesigning the OS-ruler to fit the dimensions required for the Wikihouse construction system, we closed the gap between design and construction just a litle bit further. The combination between open source design and open source construction creates a lot of possibilities towards the flexibility of a house and how it changes over time.

This chapter helps to visualise the research done in chapter two and three, and helps us in showing what an open source mindset can mean for designing for a single household. It is a mere summary of how one could design and build by him/ herself, using open source systems, but how does this anwser our general research question?

The scope of our thesis was to find out if systems like this could be intergrated into our way of building houses in Flanders. In the last chapter, we need to zoom out a little bit and see ho wan open source construction system can work on the scale of a neighbourhood.

5

An open source build neighbourhood

How does an open source building system find its way into our Flemish building culture? This is the research question we started with, and its time to anwser it. In chapter one we learned what effect a building system can have on the neighbourhood.

In Walters Way an Segal’s Close, the self-build streets in Lewisham, UK, the neighbours grew quite close to each other because they shared their knowledge on how to build their own homes. This is a perfect example in showing the importance of building by yourself and the peace and satisfaction it brings into your life.

Our final chapter offers a case study concerning the developement of a new neighbourhood in Genk. From the 26th of April until the 30th of April this year, I joined the masterclass “Sustainable Neighbourhoods” at the university of Hasselt. The assignment of the masterclass was to rethink the masterplan “op’t stroep”, made by BUUR, to make it into a sustainable neighbourhood. The site is located in between the Niewstraat and the cemetery at the Hoogstraat in Genk and in between the neighbourhoods of Kolderbos and Vlakveld. This area is part of an important ecological corridor within the city, connecting ‘de maten’ with ‘park middden Limburg’, the two most important green area’s in the city. The aim of the masterplan of BUUR was to maintain the ecological corridor and create a neighbourhood which is free of cars and generates the feeling of living outside of the city.

Next to the value of this ecological corridor, the masterclass focused on other themes like food production, mobility, social interaction, density, materials and construction methods. In teams of five to six people, we did some research on these

3 . INR IC H T IN G SVOOR STEL MASTERCLASS SUSTAINABLE NEIGBORHOODS

An open source build neighbourhood

OV E RZICHT

Fig. 1, Buur, axonometric drawing “op’t stroep” (2016)

55

topics and what they could mean for the developement of a sustainable neighbourhood. Like the production of local food could mean less import and will limit some of the transportation and its strain on the environment, providing a system to share a car, instead of every household owning two cars in order to reduce parking spots and get more green into the street and experimenting with different building typologies to create an interesting social mixture.

But the part we want to focus on in this chapter is the materials an construction methods of these houses and the social impact of self build housing in the neighbourhood.

25

5.1. The importance of flexibility on the scale of the neighbourhood.

To comply with the base premise of BUUR’s masterplan, which is to maintain the ecological corridor, we need to rethink the way we build. At the moment, they plan on building 190-200 living units on the site to make the project feasible. But what if we don’t need as much living units in the future? A recent demographic study shows that the population in Genk is

56

actually shrinking slowly (Vlaamse overheid, 2017), so maybe we dont need as much living units in the future.

The anwser might be to use a flexible building system which can change over time. If we take a look at the change of a single family household over time, we see that it always starts with two people who get children and after a while, the children move out and start their own family, leaving again two people.

Why should we build houses with four bedrooms and two bathrooms from the start, just because you might have children one day?

A flexible building system offers the possibility to addapt and change your house, based on the number of current occupants.

Like the drawings show, you can start with a two person house and add some rooms when the family grows and take them away when it shrinks again. The materials can be reused by another family or to start with a new house for your children.

Fig. 2, Dockx, diagram of flexible housing system (2018)

On the scale of the neighbourhood within the masterplan, this could mean you provide 190-200 living units today, but if in time the demand of singe household housing in Genk would decline, the houses can be removed to reduce the density and give back the used space to the ecological corridor.

This is where our building system comes in. Its chasis based foundation system makes sure that the footprint of the building on the site is as minimal as it can be. With the exception of some concrete soles, the foundation requires no digging on the site, leaving much of the soil in place. This means that the ecological impact on the site is kept to the bare minimum and the site can be easily transformed back into a green area within the urban fabric of the city.

To make sure the houses are flexible in its use, we have to carefully select the materials we use to build them. In 2015, the european union started a project called BAMB, building as material banks. This program focuses on creating a circular economy within the building sector by creating new sustainable building materials and using flexible designs to allow the re-use of building materials.

They promote a reversible building design where the building is viewed as a databank of building materials. These buildings are

An open source build neighbourhood

57

easy to take appart and put back together somewhere else. With this concept in mind, they are trying to reduce the building sector’s strain on the environment. According to the website (http://www. bamb2020.eu/about-bamb/). With our flexible building system, we should try to integrate this concept of a material databank. Hereby, the residents of the self-build neighbourhood can buy a share of this material databank instead of paying for the building materials themselves. Should they want to expand their house, they just buy more shares of the databank and use the materials which are already present in the neighbourhood. Only in this way can a neighbourhood become completely flexible.

5.2. Social impact of an open source building system.

Fig. 3, Parvin, drawings of self-build neighbourhood (2014)

In his video ‘homes by people’, Alistair Parvin talks about the economics of the current housing market in Britain. The market where large peaces of land are sold to developers who hire one architect and one contractor to develope large monolithic neighbourhoods. What we end up with are large building blocks, made out of small ‘one size fits all’ boxes without a sence of community or social interaction. He proposes a new way of building. One where new houses aren’t build by large developers, but by the people themselves. He beleaves that the most sustainable house scan only be build by the people who are going to live in them, because they value the living quality of a house above its market value. And by doing some of the work themselves, they actually make it more affordable.

His proposal is to divide the large plot of land into smaller plots for individual home owners to develop themselves. From these individual plots, a layout for a neighbourhood can be made and a communal factory is added to the site. The communal factory can serve the neighbourhood by assisting with the design of the houses and produce the parts of the structure, just like Jean Prouvé designed and produced his ‘maison a portique’ in his own factory. This way, the house can be build by individual home owners working together, under the supervision of the communal factory. When the neighbourhood is finished, the factory can be transformed into a public function to serve

58

the neighbourhood again. By building this way, you create a strong neighbourhood that can grow and change over time, with people who help and support each other like they did on Walters Way and Segal Close.

During the masterclass we tested this typology in the urban context of Genk. The only problem we found was that it was hard to reach the required density on site when we just use this typology. In order to reach this density, we used three different building typologies, a medium rise appartment block, a dense cluster of social housing and a self-build neighbourhood.

By mixing these three typologies we where able to create an interesting mixture of neighbours. But The flexibility of the self-build neighbourhoods is quite important within the structure of the masterplan because they offer the layout of the neighbourhood to change over time. Like we discussed earlier, when the housing demand in Genk shrinks, these self build houses can offer their used space back to the ecological corridor, therefor changing the urban environment back into a green space.

Fig. 4, scetch self-build neighbourhood within the masterplan of the masterclass (2018)

An open source build neighbourhood

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5.3. Can an open source building system be integrated into our Flemish way of building?

For the past couple of years, it has become clear that there needs to be a mentality shift in the way we organise our urban and suburban planning. Instead of paving our entire countryside with asphalt and concrete, putting freestanding houses everywhere, we should try top reserve our countryside and rethink the way we build neighbourhoods today.

The masterclass is an example of how we could change towards a sustainable, all-inclusive neighbourhood which changes over time. And within this sustainable thinking, I think there is a place for open source architecture. It is undeniable that people take great pride in building their own home and this pride wil result into a happy lifestile inside the house. The open source building system we proposed earlier in this research provide the tools they need to design and build the house of their dreams.

When we redisigned the masterplan of ‘op’t stroep’ in Genk, we proved that a flexible building system like this can find a place within a sustainable neighbourhood and become an important part of the comunity. This also proves that building high density appartement blocks isn’t the only way to change our current urban problems, but it can also be solved by changing to a circular mindset and use flexible building technologies to change our suburban fabric over time.

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A reflection on architectural practice.

During this research we talked a lot about how people can, and should, design and build their own homes.But we rarely talk about the involvment of the architect in the story of the self-build house. When we bring open source architecture to the people as a tool for self-design and build, then the role of the architect gets replaced by a piece of software. If the way we are building houses is changing, then maybe the architectural practice should change with it.

In his book “open source architecture”, Carlo Ratti and his adjunct editors talk a lot about the promethian architect.

The promethian architect is described as a true visionary on urban structure and design, forcing uniformaty and clean, white architecture on the people, selling the utopian vision of modernism. Architects like Ledoux and Le Corbusier who are seen as true revolutionaries of architecture, lifting the importance of the architectural practice to an almost mythical stature. But the social utopias and cities that run like clockwork, which the modernist architects all promissed us, where never realised. Instead, the architect isolated himself from the public, losing touch with reality and with the people they build houses and buildings for.

Today, the architect has taken notice of this fact and is trying to reconect to its users through all-inclusive design and user participation. But user participation within top-down building projects has proven to be an almost one-way street of stakeholders asking questions and then critcizing the anwsers.

Geert Bekaert, a Belgian architecture theorist, once wrote in is tekst “Waarom nog architecten?” that the time of the architect as an artist are over. He pleas for the architectural practice

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to change into a collaboration between multiple parties. The building proces of today is becoming more complex and therefor several experts are needed to get the job done. The architect is trained in management and problem solving. He is the one who is most capable of connecting all the dots within a building project, but he has to realise that his uniform way of designing isn’t relevant anymore.

The architect has a responsibility to guard the quality of the used space. Nowadays, they put a lot of atention into the esthetics of architecture and the perception of being a beautiful building. For a large building with a prominent role in the city, the way it looks can be of some importance because it will become a landmark within the urban fabric. But with housing, the esthetics are of less importance. People just aren’t interested in living in a new avant-gardistic house which is designed to be on the cover of a magazine, they just want a place where they can raise a family. The job of the architect, when building a house, will be to guard the livability of the house and the neighbourhood, making sure the spatial qualities, necsesary to create a comfortable living environment, are respected within the design of every house.

The architectural practice needs to reform to a choral architecture where the architect becomes more of a consultant in the building proces, providing guidelines and expertise to those who want to build a house.

The growing influence of the internet in modern society has become an important player in this change of practice. People are more connected to each other than they ever where, making it a lot easier to organise a group of people to work together.

The shift towards an open source mindset is an important one.

Wikipedia was a pioneer in giving people acces to information on almost every topic, and more importantly, giving the people the opportunity to share their own knowledge with others. This can be the same for architecture. In 2006, Cameron Sinclair gave a TED talk about his work with ‘Architecture for Humanity’, a company he founded together with his wife to make social

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architecture in third world countries and disaster area’s. In his talk he proposes a colaboration between all the architects of the world through an ‘open architecture network’. This network has a goal to unite architects to think together about the urgent problems in developing countries, getting not one sollution to a problem, but one hundred different sollutions.

This open source mindset is what we need in architecture. A network of architects an ddesigners sharing their work and ideas and learn from each other, losing the idea that copying someone else’s idea is a bad thing.

A reflection on architectural practice

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6

Fig. 1, Dockx, map of the region Hasselt Genk (2017)

Reflection within the Master studio

In the studio ‘New Economies’, our focus lied on the new economic developement of the region Hasselt-Genk in Belgian Limburg. The two cities have suffered some giant economic setbacks the past fifty years, with the closing of the coalmines, Ford Genk and Philips Hasselt. But nevertheless, the region possesses great qualities for future developement and has already some campusses and incubators who are focussing on technological advancement and clean energy production. The main topic of the studio whas the waterways of Hasselt and Genk, and the Albert canal connecting the two cities. During the first semester, we did a general research of the site which focussed on five aspects: History, Geography, Infrastructure,

Reflection within the master studio

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Fig. 2, Dockx, map of potentials (2017)

Economy and Social Activity. Everything we learned from these five topics, we poured into one map, creating the map of potentials. This map shows all the potentials of the site and it shows us where certain aspects of the research overlap. For instance, we learn that every green area is somehow conected to the Demer or Stiemerbeek, which are the two main natural waterways in the region. From the goegraphical study, we learned that the soil and air in Genk zuid are quite poluted because of the (former) heavy industry on that side of town.

But the main objective we found in our research will be the connection between the two cities, because at the moment, this is quite poor. The main goal of our general masterplan therefor has become the conection of Hasselt and Genk through a slowfast network of tramways and bicycle paths. After the general research whas finished, we split up into smaller groups with each group tackling a different zone of the region. The work where I whas involved with was the creation of a new

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2000

1990

2015

‘Water Frontyard’ for the city of Hasselt. According to the demographic research we did in the first semester, the population density of Hasselt will continue to grow until at least 2030. With this demographic growth, the city will keep expanding in all directions, except at the waterside where the city meets the Albert canal. The canal creates a fracture in the city’s infrastructure plan and now a days, it doesn’t offer much to the city. But from our general research on the history of Hasselt and the Albert canal, we learned that the best places for future economic developement always lies between two 2. CULTURAL “DEFORESTATION” existing infrastructure lines. In our case, the region we want to develop is the industrial area in between the Gouverneur Verwilgensingel and the Albert canal, an area formerly know as ‘quartier canal’. This industrial area has a lot to offer the cities future developement, since it is the only part of the city which is connected to the economic highway of the Albert canal, which will connect the city with the port of Antwerp and the city of 4. BAD SMALL SCALE CONNECTIONS Liège. We created a new masterplan for this area of the city, in

2030

65+

2. CULTURAL “DEFORESTATION”

20 - 64j

1. AGING POPULATION

2030

4. BAD SMALL SCALE CONNECTIONS 3. INFRASTRUCTURE AS A FRACTURE

2. CULTURAL “DEFORESTATION”

5. LACK OF HUMAN SCALE

S

WEAKNESSES

NEW ECONOMIES

MASTERPLAN QUARTIER NEW ECONOMIES M2#studio New Economies

onomies

"BEACH" AREA (LEISURE)

SLOPE "BEACH" AREA (LEISURE)

4. BAD SMALL SCALE CONNECTIONS

FOOD & DRINKS

RECREATIONAL DECK

CANE FIELD (WATER FILTER)

MULTI-SPORT

SLOPE

MOVIE BASIN

RECREATIONAL DECK

H

PARK AREA

Niels Niels

DEELFABRIEK (Steven Beyen) DEELFABRIEK (Steven Beyen)

MOVIE HOUSE _Naömi

1

KISS & RIDE HEATER & HERBS

MARKET PLACE?

POND

WEAKNESSES

PARK AREA

OVERFLO DEMER

MASTERPLAN QUARTIER NEW ECONOMIES GREEN BUFFER

M2#studio New Economies

GREEN BUFFER

PARK AREA

INFRASTRUCTURE, A FRACTURE IN THE LANDSCAPE? PASSAGE AREA

Fig. 3-6, Schuermans, diagrams of the site analysis (2018) Fig. 7, Dockx, masterplan Water Frontyard (2018) DESIGN PRINCIPLES

MASTERPLAN QUARTIER NEW ECONOMIES M2#studio New Economies

Reflection within the master studio

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Which we designed an new harbour for the city. The masterplan is build upon two actions, one being we start to pull in the water by creating some new docks next to the scheepsvaartkaai and the second one being the creation of a new city park by connecting the site with the Demer and the Demervalei.

With these two actions we mean to create a more diverse region and try to re-introduce the human scale onto the site.

The newly developed site will host various new activities, like a leisure harbour, new sports facilities, a space for craftsmanship and economic developement and even a new market hall.

The goal of the masterplan is to turn the Albert canal from a backyard, which it is now, into a new frontyard for the city.

Fig. 8, Dockx, sketch of new masterplan for quartier canal (2018)

With this new economic developement around the Scheepsvaartkaai, we will start to see that the existing buildings and existing companies will follow this developement and turn their backs into fronts towards the water. The docks will create a new way of transportation for these companies, using the canal.

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KEMPISCHE BRUG (REDESIGNED Michiel ?)

EMRE

MAIN ROAD

VAKhuis _Yves

HARBOUR INDUSTRIAL AREA

PARKING ?

(Part building Michiel?)

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HEATER & HERBS

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Reflection within the master studio

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Fig. 9, Dockx, sketch of the new scheepsvaartkaai (2018)

2000

1990

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65+ Fig. 10, Dockx, diagram of the age population of Hasselt (2018)

20 - 64j

To start with our own project, we must look back to the general research more time. According to our demographic study, AGINGone POPULATION the aging population becomes a much more present problem in Hasselt. This is, in part, because of the high cost of living in the city center. The younger generation can’t afford a place in the city so the available space is filled with elderly people who have the means to live in the expensive city centre.

This problem whas the generator of the Kapertoren building project by Kolmont developement. The Kapertoren is a living project around the Kolonel Dusartplein and takes shape as a big tower with appartements. But the catch of this project is that it can only be occupied by people who are younger than 32.

‘Hasselt must become attractive for young people and families’, says party leader Steven Vandeput (N-VA). ‘That is why we have always argued for allowing and encouraging the free market to develop so-called’ starter homes’. “However, a residential tower with an age limit is a bridge too far for N-VA. ‘The legal enforceability is unstable and the port for abuse is INFRASTRUCTURE AS A FRACTURE open.’ ‘Young people let live together in a neighborhood where there is also a college and a university, we were inclined to accept that idea,’ says Laurence Libert (Open Vld).

This project caused a political debate in Hasselt wether or not it is called upon to take such drastic measures to ensure young people will live in your city, But at least it raises the question of how do we deal with this aging population and with the brain drain that comes with it?

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Fig. 11, Kolmont developement, kapertoren (2017)

3.

5. LACK OF HUMAN SCALE

WEAKNESSES

MASTERPLAN QUARTIER

M2#studio New Eco

70 FABRICATION FACTORY A PLACE TO MAKE ALMOST EVERYTHING WHAT AND WHY? project definition The past few years, the topic of “urban sprawl” has gained a lot of attention in Flanders. Our current way of building houses causes us to tear up our natural landscape in order to make room to build more houses on the countryside. The future calls for a different approach on building houses.

With my thesis, I research the possibilities of open source manifacturing towards architecture and buildings. I beleave that an open source building system can provide us with a flexible housing typology that will take some of the urban stress of of our country side.

This project will serve as an incubator of knowledge on this particular subject. It will be a house where people who want to build their house themselves can come and consult architects and engeneers, in order to gain the knowledge they need to produce and build their own house.

NEW ECONOMIES Integration into the masterplan The nature of my project has two faces It is a makerspace wich allows people to create the most amazing things they can imagine. It offers a wide amount of tools and machines for the public to use, but this means that the factory needs to be within reach of the people. A public place with a good connection with public transport and cycling paths is required.

On second hand, the fabrication factory also fits into a heavier kind of industry, wich depends on heavy lory trafic and deliveries of large building materials. For this to be able to work, the factory will need a good connection to highways and provincial roads for easy lory traffic.

The new masterplan of the canal site in Hasselt provides both things. The new boulevard allongside the banks of the albert canal provides a good connection to the city center and together with the new cycling paths, the site will be within reach of most people who visit Hasselt.

And it’s location next to the ring road provides a good connection with infrastructure wich is capable of handeling the lory traffic.

The nature of the project, being open source productin, will also fit nicely into the new, creative industries wich are introduced to Hasselt within the masterplan.

SCALE & SPATIAL AMBITIONS SQUARE METERS +- 5255M2

FACTORY

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1200 M2

The factory floor is the area of the building that is designated for the production of the parts and projects. The large, open floor plan allows you to move around with a forklift between the different machines.

ENRTY HALL -

377 M2

This is the area where guests sign in, wait for their meetings with the architect/engeneer and order materials.

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285 M2

The café is a designated area where you can relax after a long days work in our fabrication factory.

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1150 M2

The storage area both provides storage of ready-to-use materials, to be used on the fabrication floor, as well as offers to store your items while you can take care of all the preparations on the building site.

OFFICES

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PIETER DOCKX

MASTERPLAN QUARTIER NEW ECONOMIES M2#studio New Economies

FABRICATION FACTORY

PIETER DOCKX M2#studio New Economies

Fig. 12-13, Dockx, Panels for the intermediate jury in January (2018)

right: Fig. 14, Dockx, diagrams of the site study (2018) right: Fig. 15, Dockx,implementation on the site (2018)

377 M2

In the tower, there are several floors available as office space. These can be rented out as flex offices or meeting rooms, but can also be used by the architects and engeneers who work at the fabrication factory.

This is where my project starts to pick in. In order to both tend to the needs of the studio in generating new economies for the region and the needs of the city of Hasselt to stop the braindrain of its population and attract younger people to the city, I designed a buisnes model which is based on the shareeconomy I discussed in my thesis research i.e. open source developement.

The idea is to create a space for young start-ups to go and develope their ideas and prototypes by building a large makerspace, called ‘the Fabrication Factory’. The Fabrication Factory is a building that offers almost every machine you need to build and produce the prototype for your start-up and offers help and assistance to those who have no idea where to start. As a start-up, you can rent a space on the campus of the fabrication factory and in return, you are free to use all th eavailable machinery. This creates benefits for both the startups, since they don’t have to pay anymore to buy or lease expensive equipement, and for the Fabrication Factory, since they will have a steady income to provide the services that are expected of a makerspace i.e. free use of machinery. With this new developement, I hope to lure more young companies to

Reflection within the master studio

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Hasselt, a younger population for the city.

1. thereby FOOT &attracting BIKEPATH The location of the Fabrication Factory lies to the right of the The sitesteenweg lies tangient and to a pedestrian roadover to thethe north Kempische the bridge canal. The site of the project site. the pedestrian road connects the is on the border between the newly developedsite city park and to the Scheepsvaartkaai on the right and the new citythe new Scheepsvaarkaai, making intoaccesible a transitional space park on the left. The pedestrian road isit both by pedestrians as cyclists. between the two new developements. It’s connection with the gouverneur Verwilgensingel to the south and the Albert canal to the north makes it the ideal location for transporting materials to and from the site because its connection 2. VEHICLE ACCESIBLE ROAD to both the water and the highway. siteside is enclosed bothlies the south side as thebuildings of the MINI On theThe east of theonsite the existing west side by a vihicle accesible road. The gouverneur and BMW dealership tangent verwilgen singel runsnext to thedoor northand of thelies project site with the loading docks and of the dealership. creates a good connection of the site with other autoroutes, but to the west of the site, the road can act as a border betwen the site and the new citypark.

From here we start designing the Fabrication Factory by using some of the design principles we studied in our thesis.

3. NEIGHBOURING The main design idea is thatBUILDINGS the start-ups can rent a share of materials and then build their own office space on the campus Our site is the first plot on the west side of the scheepsgrounds.

INDUSTRIAL AREA

vaartkaai, which means that the existing buildings are on the eastern side of the project site.

4. CANAL The canal on the North side of the site provides a good enclosure to the water for import and export of materials and products.

MAIN ROAD

5. GREEN AREA HEATER & HERBS

The new citypark to the west of the project site gives that side of the plot an open, social character. It forms FOOT & BIKE PATH the start of the new urban greenery, which is important for the design of the fabrication factory. WW

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Fig. 16-22, Dockx, models and drawings of the Section AA (1:500) design proces (2018)

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"BEACH" AREA (LEISURE)

SLOPE "BEACH" AREA (LEISURE) FOOD & DRINKS

RECREATIONAL DECK

CANE FIELD (WATER FILTER)

MULTI-SPORT

SLOPE

MOVIE BASIN

RECREATIONAL DECK

HARBOUR

PARK AREA

Niels Niels

VAKhuis _Yves

INDUS

MAIN ROAD

DEELFABRIEK (Steven Beyen) DEELFABRIEK (Steven Beyen)

MOVIE HOUSE _Naรถmi

KISS & RIDE

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Fig. 44-49, Dockx, models and drawings of the design proces (2018) right: Fig. 50-54, Dockx, models and drawings of the design proces (2018)

Reflection within the master studio

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Fig. 55-56, Dockx, drawings of the design proces (2018)

As you can see through the design proces, I started by taking the ofset of the site to create enclosure for the Fabrication Factory’s campus. With the first design I started with a concrete foundation of one layer, in which I incorporated all the communal functions such ass a restaurant and the factory floor. On top of this concrete plint, the start-up’s could build their own office, according to the open source construction method I explained earlier in chapter four. The idea in itself might be good, but the execution of the design was to diverse and needed to be a more unified structure.

In order to do this, I designed an OS-grid of 3m x 3m on the site itself and started to design, using the same principles as the Autarkytecture model I discussed is chapter two. With this design, I created three basic modules that represented the common areas, the offices and the circulation space. The modules itself where designed to be flexible and they could be produced in the factory on site, reducing transportation costs of

Reflection within the master studio

79

the construction. The flexible system allowed me to create the sustainable building concept of using slanted rooftops with both east, south and western orientation, allowing the factory to generate its own energy the entire day long.

But unfortunately, by using the open source design method of Autarkytecture and openstructures for such a large project, the quallity of the architecture is not translated well to the bigger scale. The context asks for a bigger, more unified structure like you can see in the third design, which can allow for a flexible use of space inside, but can not be build with the same techniques as I researched in this thesis.

But the general idea we must take with us is that the open source program of its buisnes model will provide the city with a new kind of shared-economy and will help rejuvenate the neighbourhood and the city, weither it is build by one hand or a thousand.

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Architecture Foundation. (2015, 11 augustus).

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McKean, J. (1987, januari). A discource on method:

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Alexander, C., Silverstein, M., & Ishikawa, S. (1977).

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Aerts, J., De Paep, M., Vandenbossche, A., & De Bruyn, J. (2015). Genk, rasterstad (Herz. ed.).

Mechelen, Belgium: Public Space.

Brand, S. (1995). How Buildings Learn: What

happens after they are build? (Herz. ed.). London, UK: Penguin Books.

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Grahame, A., & Wilkhu, T. (2017). Walters Way &

Alistair Parvin. (2013, mei). Architecture for the

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people by the people [Video]. Geraadpleegd op 7

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parvin_architecture_for_the_people_by_the_people/ details

Segal Close (Herz. ed.). Zürich, Switserland: Park

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Building systems in the 20th century

Fig 1. Perriand et Jeanneret architecten, Prouvé Fig 2. Peeters N., Prouvé

Fig 3. Segal W., Walters Way & Segal Close

Fig 4. Richardson B., 1983, Walters Way & Segal Close

Fig 5. Broome J., 1983, Walters Way & Segal Close 2

Open source design platforms

Fig 1. Wikihouse foundation, wikihouse.cc Fig 2. Dockx, own image Fig 3. Dockx, own image

Fig 4. Openstructures, openstructures.net Fig 5. Openstructures, openstructures.net Fig 6. Openstructures, openstructures.net Fig 7. Openstructures, openstructures.net Fig 8. Dockx, own image Fig 9. Dockx, own image 3

Theorising basic design guidelines

Fig 1. Alexander C., A pattern language Fig 2. Alexander C., A pattern language Fig 3. Alexander C., A pattern language Fig 4. Alexander C., A pattern language Fig 5. Alexander C., A pattern language Fig 6. Alexander C., A pattern language Fig 7. Alexander C., A pattern language Fig 8. Alexander C., A pattern language Fig 9. Alexander C., A pattern language

Fig 3. Dockx, own image Fig 4. Dockx, own image Fig 5. Dockx, own image Fig 6. Dockx, own image Fig 7. Dockx, own image Fig 8. Dockx, own image Fig 9. Dockx, own image

Fig 10. Dockx, own image Fig 11. Dockx, own image

Fig 12. Dockx, own image Fig 13. Dockx, own image Fig 14. Dockx, own image Fig 15. Dockx, own image Fig 16. Dockx, own image Fig 17. Dockx, own image Fig 18. Dockx, own image Fig 19. Dockx, own image Fig 20. Dockx, own image

Fig 21. Brand, How buildings learn Fig 22. Dockx, own image Fig 23. Dockx, own image Fig 24. Dockx, own image Fig 25. Dockx, own image Fig 26. Dockx, own image Fig 27. Dockx, own image Fig 28. Dockx, own image Fig 29. Dockx, own image Fig 30. Dockx, own image Fig 31. Dockx, own image

Fig 10. Alexander C., A pattern language

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Fig 12. Alexander C., A pattern language

Fig 2. Dockx, own image

Fig 11. Alexander C., A pattern language

Fig 13. Alexander C., A pattern language 4

Translating ideas into practice

Fig 1. Dockx, own image Fig 2. Dockx, own image

An open source neighbourhood

Fig 1. Buur, Genk rasterstad

Fig 3. Parvin A., Homes for people Fig 4. Dockx, own image

List of figures

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A reflection within the master studio

Fig 1. Dockx, own image Fig 2. Dockx, own image

Fig 3. Schuermans N., Book 3 New Economies Fig 4. Schuermans N., Book 3 New Economies Fig 5. Schuermans N., Book 3 New Economies Fig 6. Schuermans N., Book 3 New Economies Fig 7. Dockx, own image Fig 8. Dockx, own image Fig 9. Dockx, own image

Fig 10. Dockx, own image

Fig 11. Kolomont developement, Kolomont.be Fig 12. Dockx, own image Fig 13. Dockx, own image Fig 14. Dockx, own image Fig 15. Dockx, own image Fig 16. Dockx, own image Fig 17. Dockx, own image Fig 18. Dockx, own image Fig 19. Dockx, own image Fig 20. Dockx, own image Fig 21. Dockx, own image Fig 22. Dockx, own image Fig 23. Dockx, own image Fig 24. Dockx, own image Fig 25. Dockx, own image Fig 26. Dockx, own image Fig 27. Dockx, own image Fig 28. Dockx, own image Fig 29. Dockx, own image Fig 30. Dockx, own image Fig 31. Dockx, own image Fig 32. Dockx, own image Fig 33. Dockx, own image Fig 34. Dockx, own image Fig 35. Dockx, own image Fig 36. Dockx, own image Fig 37. Dockx, own image

Fig 38. Dockx, own image Fig 39. Dockx, own image Fig 40. Dockx, own image Fig 41. Dockx, own image Fig 42. Dockx, own image Fig 43. Dockx, own image Fig 44. Dockx, own image Fig 45. Dockx, own image Fig 46. Dockx, own image Fig 47. Dockx, own image Fig 48. Dockx, own image Fig 49. Dockx, own image Fig 50. Dockx, own image Fig 51. Dockx, own image Fig 52. Dockx, own image Fig 53. Dockx, own image Fig 54. Dockx, own image Fig 55. Dockx, own image Fig 56. Dockx, own image

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