Housing as mass customization

Google images, Casas GEO Ixtapaluca

Isadora Hastings, Ixtapaluca

Low income housing, Mexico City

In countries like Mexico where the mass production of living is a must due to the enormous demand of the population, mass customization has become a real solution.

In front of the absence of planning and construction of the public space, in addition to the constant demand of the government for getting more and more land for building living properties for the increasing demand of the population; the public space has started to disappear. Almost all the land surrounding the city area that used to be designated for agriculture or even as a protected area is condemned to be urbanized.

This phenomenon has developed the mass customization in living, real state companies have adopted this kind of solution creating kilometric rows of identical houses without any urban equipment, far away of any idea of the appropriation of the public space ignoring the needs of its inhabitants.

But this idea of mass customization disappear as the time goes by, any individual transforms it’s own living space into a constant changing space, the original idea of the constructor of using one solution for everyone eventually turns to be a serial of individual changes not controlled by anyone that at the ends suits the same necessities but transform the urban space in a more inhospitable space.

So is this idea of mass customization for the masses is really a good idea?

It could be for other countries, the development of a project allowing small changes that suit every client that can be controlled from the beginning by the architect is a good idea, but what happens when the budget is limited and the main idea is to give a home to thousands of people that do not have the opportunity to reach something better; this kind of solutions end up being ghettos.

These spaces where people are isolated from the rest of the city, where the idea of individualism or quality living disappears, become the result of a non-stopping mass customization development where real estate companies can make a lot of money by cutting expenses and repeating the same solution again and again, no matter the climate, or the close environment, it is like a “copy-paste” phenomena, where the final result can be seen long before the construction starts.

So when it comes to peoples homes, the result in the living quality is not as a good idea as it first seemed.We might think either way, but the reality is that this phenomena gives a lot of people the opportunity of acquiring a house, and by this fact, they might trigger a personal influence over their homes, which gives them the opportunity to at least differentiate themselves from the people next to them. We just think that the approach that has been taken towards this kind of mass customization, must be revaluated in order to give the city and its people quality living spaces which can merge with the urban mesh, rather than just neglect it, and to give the opportunity to the owners as to really feel as part of the process.

Bibliography

Hastings, Isadora
"De la auto-construcción a la vivienda en serie"
Arquine International Architecture and Design Magazine
# 35 spring 2006 pp. 4-8

Architects on EBay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Information age has impacted every aspect of design. Not only has it changed design processes and design economies but it has also widened the scope of people along the design group. CAD software has given helped people to interact better in terms of distinct design environments and now designers are no longer the select group but other professionals from various fields are also collaborating handsomely in the efforts. These new processes are instrumental in working out various design solutions and options making the inputs more efficient and creating an intelligent environment that can guide and inform the design process. And due to these innovations the customers are also being given a say in the outcome of the product. CAD and CAM systems enable design by consumers. This enables the customers to interact and also take part in the manufacturing process and also alter the core product.

Mass Customization in architecture hasn’t been that prolific (thank god!!!) as compared to other fields. Buildings are more complex structures and customization can only occur at a very in tangible scale. The components of buildings such as glazing, doors, closets etc. are some examples that have been made to order. A popular example of mass customization in architecture is the Skylights from AGC, Waterboro. It has an object-oriented design approach to designing and manufacturing custom skylights. It allows technicians to import geometry generated by the architects, build upon this model, and generate a complete model of the skylight or curtain-wall parametrically in 3D.
The same model, after several post-processing steps, is used directly for computer numerical control (CNC) manufacturing of frame members and for the CNC cutting of custom glass sheets. Builders and individual homeowners can now also design their own glazings by giving parameters online.

But the question now arises till what point does mass customization let the users or consumers make design decisions. Mass customization could change the way designers design, as specific inputs will have to be put in for it to function as a custom made product. Mass customization in architecture is finding its ground but it will be kept to a very limited scale. Architects wont be too happy to see people changing the way he or she perceived the building. Modern era was the age for prototyping buildings, but in the age of digital technologies it will be more related to for e.g. Gehryism : making structural members of various on going Gehry design projects and making new design solutions out of those only. And where different elements of design could form a part of an architects vocabulary and be used only in his design solutions: could be called copyrighted customization where the designer has the final say. Otherwise it wont be too long before architects are found listed on EBay.

http://www.architectureweek.com/2005/0420/tools_2-2.html
http://www.architectureweek.com/cgi-bin/wlk?http://www.archsky.com

prosumerism vs. customer centricity

In customer centricity approach companies decide on the basis and customers get to choose more detailed settings of the product they are planning to purchase. This kind of approach was introduced my many companies already. The customization available on Dell’s or Apple’s websites, famous Nike trainers that can change colors, M&M platform for inscribing your girlfriend nickname on the candy and ONL’s Variomatic all bare the same quality of the possible only. Customers get to decide between the already fully pre-designed products. The promise of mass customization in therefore limited only to the pre-designed solution, which makes the array of available products more diverse than in a traditional producer-consumer relation, but still far away from truly personally suited product.
In 2003 Don Tapscott coined the term prosumerism in order to describe how “the gap between producers and consumers is blurring. Tapscott and Williams give the Second Life as an example of the community where prosumerism is leading marketing force. The participants create goods of any kind, using only their creativity in order to sell them for Linded dollars, which are worth real money. Interesting issue is, that the regulations which need to rise when any kind of commerce enters the scene, are created mostly in a bottom-up manner, pretty much in a way like Wikipedia society erases the spoilers of it’s content form their rows. Second Life not only enables, but demands the creativity of it’s users in order to maintain and grow, but it is a fully virtual environment.
Prosumerism is possible also in regard of the tangibles. Customers not only answer to the limited set of questions regarding the future product. The self-organize to create their own products. One of the examples is how prosumers hacked into the I-pods. The I-pod hack is available on the net, and while you install it, the I-pod functions are much wider – the Podzilla can be installed also and I-pod becomes the pocket Linux environment. Companies, as usual in regard of the new collective intelligence in action, can try to fight with those attempts, or can use it for their purposes.
If we can think about performative architecture as the code of behavior, then we can hack the code. If we would hack the ONL Muscle tower and reprogram it, we would act like prosumers. The question is if Muscle would then bare the quality of negotiation between real and virtual, not only possible?

Useful + Agreeable

If a Porsche 911 Turbo were a house, what kind of house would it be? Or if a Wilson Triad titanium tennis racket were a house, what would it be? How would it use state of the art technology, advanced engineering, on-board computer components and premium materials to outperform the other houses? We tend not to think of houses in the same light as consumer goods, but at least one firm of forwarding thinking architects is pushing the product.

Oliver Lang and Cynthia Wilson, partners in Lang Wilson Practice in Architecture Culture (LWPAC), an avant-garde Vancouver firm, are currently in the final stages of research and development on a concept they call PAC Hous(e)ing. If they have their way, house buyers will soon be asking these same questions - beginning to think of houses as products and purchasing components of the architects' system which they can then customize.

The digital age, Lang and Wilson suggest, allows us both the ability to customize as did craftsmen in the agrarian age and the low unit cost associated with mass production of the industrial age. Previously, choice and mass production were seemingly at odds with each other. But, using computer technology and robotic production, we can now have the best of both worlds. The term for this is mass customization - and it has already proven popular in other sectors. Levi's custom fit jeans and Swatch watches are among the many popular and profitable examples of mass customization in contemporary design goods - the way of the future according to LWPAC.

LWPAC's answer to the malaise in the housing market, PAC Hous(e)ing, represents not a fanciful vision of a future house, but the logical next step for an industry catching up with the other smaller products such as computers, cell phones and running shoes.
The inevitable first question "what will they look like?" is somewhat beside the point. A central feature of PAC Hous(e)ing and mass customization in general, is that the appearance will evolve out of the process of determining an individual's needs. The computer generated images which LWPAC has produced suggest an appearance influenced by the smooth colorful curves and sleek hard edges more typical of the electronics industry than house construction.

The connection to electronics is more than skin deep. Traditional house designs do not adequately respond to the growing need for many computers and electronics devices within the home. PAC Hous(e)ing is being designed to encase the wiring of our growing list of gadgets much like a stereo or computer casing does on a small scale. Individual users' needs can be met by plugging everything from fridges to televisions, computers to lighting into the wall and connecting and communicating with the rest of the house and to mobile communication devices as well. Continuing the theme, the walls themselves are plugged into one another to add or subtract spaces and to reconfigure the homes at will.

More significant than the particular aesthetics are the materials being proposed. The materials of the future - thermal plastics, glass, steel and recyclable plastics - all begin in a liquid state and can be poured to fit a wide variety of customizable molds.

PAC Hous(e)ing is not a house style, but rather a system by which owners will be allowed to essentially design their own homes. Individual components can be chosen by the customer to be assembled and configured as they choose. Rather than purchasing a completed house with a set layout and size, the PAC Hous(e)ing concept is infinitely adaptable. If a family's or individual's space needs change, additional components can be purchased to dock onto the existing structure to add more space, windows or doors. Groups of PAC houses can be attached to each other in a multi-unit cluster to fit more units onto a given property in dense urban areas.

The name "PAC", is also a play on the word pack. The system which can be assembled and re-configured easily can also be packed up and transported when we move. Lang and Wilson have lived in Barcelona, Berlin, New York and Vancouver in the past ten years - a degree of mobility not uncommon in our global era. In theory they could have taken their home with them.

Link
http://www.usefulandagreeable.com/lwpac.html
Lang Wilson Practice in Architecture Culture - www.lwpac.com

Architectural Glazing Technologies: Customizing for the Masses in Practice.

How do you pretension a cable-supported skylight with over 41,000 pounds of pressure to provide the required structural support? You talk to Architectural Glazing Technologies, a design and manufacturing firm in Waterboro, Maine, USA. They have worked with the likes of Gehry and Rafael Vinoly, but also work with anyone who needs to do anything with glass from a simple window wall to the answer of the fore-mentioned question. They are an innovative firm who are willing to take big risks in design and manufacturing.

There contributions to the idea of mass customization include an online program where you can design and get a price quote almost instantaneously for a skylight. E-Skylight is a system where you can design any number of combinations of skylights using standardized pieces, from a 12 sided polygon with 15 degrees of pitch to 12 pyramid skylights with 45 degrees of pitch. Then they will give you the plans, sections, data sheets and a price quote for the project, all for free and the entire process of designing one skylight from beginning to end takes less than 10 minutes.

This idea of quick, thorough design straight to the manufactured product epitomizes mass customization. For mass customization to be a successful endeavour there must be seamless flow from idea, to design, to manufacturing, to construction. If there are glitches in the process the system breaks down, becoming more akin to customized production, and therefore slower and more expensive. E-skylight is a system which embodies this idea of a multitude of design options based on mass produced, simplified pieces. The modular system of the production of aluminium supports in the case of e-skylight creates possibilities for individual, inexpensive designs; mass customization.

Mass customization is an idea being driven more by the industry than academics. It’s frequently observed that radical innovations and research work being conducted outside school. This is primarily because task involves huge investment and technical expertise. Working under strict prescribed conditions as per law, licensing such ideas and getting patents also required meticulous work. More over it has evolved from the popular idea of mass-production, which now is being enriched. In a way, to understand modularity in terms of parameters reveals possible alterations that can generate customized iterations. The idea is viable commercially and suits consumer needs.

Digital technology, both is design and data processing has enabled mass customisation, primarily by introducing parametric-city for control in simulation which has completely removed the need for prototypes (hence removing labour cost while still maintaining standards). Simulation being the key to this process, interface comes as a close second most important aspect in allowing this mass-customization process to be accepted by masses. User friendly interface enables commercial success which is of prime importance to continue interest in this philosophy. Advertising strategies combined with digi-tech have generated some pretty interesting interfaces which are more fun to use than even the final product. Another cruicial part for the whole process to succeed is to interpret a product or design in components (physical parameters). While the more complicated and technical parts of the product may remain the same, the modifications can be in areas of user requirements and tastes.

ttp://www.emachineshop.com/

http://www.paulkrush.com/2007/02/03/3d-mass-customization-configuration-tools-in-real-time-using-actionscript-in-flash/

http://genometri.com/DIY/

http://www.bigbluesaw.com/saw/

http://www.threadless.com/?streetteam=FTP69

http://www.crowdspirit.com/

MADE FOR YOU

“YOU CAN HAVE ANY COLOUR YOU LIKE AS LONG AS ITS BLACK”
THIS WAS THE MOST USED PARADIGM OF THE LAST CENTURY WHICH WAS DOMINATED BY THE IDEA OF MASS PRODUCTION. THE IDEA OF MASS PRODUCTION WHICH IMPLIED AFFORDABILITY AND STANDERDIZATION ON ONE HAND DENIED SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HETEROGINIETY ON THE OTHER. ALTHOUGH SOME ATTEMPTS WERE MADE TO OFFER PERSONAL CHOICE BUT FAILED SPECTACULARLY. ‘FOR EXAMPLE IN 1940 WALTER GROPIUS DEVELOPED FACTORY BASED MASS PRODUCTION SYSTEM TO OFFER HIGHLY CUSTOMIZABLE HOMES ’THE PACKAGED HOUSE’. THE IDEA WAS TO MEET CLIENT’S DESIRE FOR INDIVIDUALITY AND PLEASURE OF PERSONAL CHOICE BY PROVISION OF INTERCHANGABLE PARTS. HOWEVER HE SOON REALIZED THAT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO OFFER PERSONAL CHOICE WITH THEIR SYSTEM AND THE FACTORY WHICH WAS BUILT TO PRODUCE 10,000 HOUSES / YEAR CLOSED BEFORE MANUFACTURING EVEN 200.’ (A+U) TODAY MORE THAN HALF CENTURY LATER THE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES OFFER US FLEXIBLE AND AGILE SOLUTIONS OF CUSTOMIZATION COMPARED TO INFLEXIBLE SYSTEM OF MASS PRODUCTION. THE USE OF CAD-CAE-CAM TECHNOLOGIES NOT ONLY OFFER CUSTOMIZATION AT EVERY LEVEL (DESIGN/ENGINEERING/MANUFACTURING) BUT ALSO SMOOTH TRANSITION BETWEEN EACH OF THEM. THE DETAILS OF THIS NEW PRODUCTION SYSTEM CAN BE FOUND OUT IN CASE STUDIES OF NIKEID, DELL OR TOYOTA. ALL OF THEM OFFER THE CONSUMER; NUMEROUS CHOICES OF THE PARTS TO SELECT FROM AND TO CREATE A PRODUCT BEST SUITED TO HIS IDENTITY. THUS THE PARADIGM OF THIS CENTURY IS NOT ‘LESS IS MORE’ BUT ‘LESS IS BORE AND MORE IS DIFFERENT’
THE IDEA OF CUSTOMIZATION IN ARCHITECTURE MEANS ‘ONE BUILDING ONE DETAIL’. THE SIMULTANEOUS DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIELD OF DIGITAL VISUALIZATION AND DIGITAL FABRICATION MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR ARCHITECTS ACTUALIZE THE TECTONICS OF NEW TERRIOTORIES. THE EXAMPLES CAN BE SEEN IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORKS OF FRANK GHERRY, KAS OOSTERHUIS, FUKSSAS AND MORE. WHERE EARLIER ATTEMPTS OF CUSTOMIZATION FAILED BECAUSE OF BEING ECONOMICALLY UNSUSTAINABLE, THE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES ALLOWED PRODUCTION OF CUSTOMIZED PRODUCTS WITH THE SAME ASSEMBLY LINE. FOR EXAMPLE IN THE MILLING PROCESS WHERE VARIATION IN DESIGNS IS OBTAINED BY CHANGING THE MILLING TOOLS OR MILLING PARAMETERS. THE OTHER IMPORTANT ASPECT ABOUT DIGITALLY CUSTOMIZED PRODUCTS IS THEIR PRECISION AND CONTROLLING THE WASTEAGE. THE PRODUCTS CAN BE SEEN AS A SET OF INFORMATION AND THEREFORE CAN BE CONTROLLED AND MANIPULATED BEFORE PRODUCTION OR IN SOME CASEES DURING THE PROCESS OF PRODUCTION. TO CONCLUDE THE IDEA OF CUSTOMIZATION BRINGS UNIQUENESS TO THE DESIGN AND THEREFORE SHOULD BE SEEN AS A DESIGN TOOL IN ORDER TO OPTIMIZE ITS LIMITS.
Interesting article to read here: http://www.di.net/articles/archive/2054/

"A new epoch has begun..."

“A new epoch has begun . . .
We must create the mass-produced spirit.
The spirit of living in mass-construction homes.
The spirit of conceiving mass-produced homes.”
Le Corbusier, 1923

In the 1940s, Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann developed a factory based on mass-production system, to manufacture highly customizable homes – the Packaged House. Gropius wrote, “It is by the provision of interchangeable parts that (we) can meet the public’s desire for individuality and offer the client the pleasure of personal choice and initiative without jettisoning aesthetic unity.” The effort failed spectacularly. The aim was to produce 10,000 houses per year, but by the time the company was closed, less than 200 had been manufactured.[1]
Now, more than a half century later, digital technologies make it possible to replace both inefficient labor-intensive site production as well as inflexible mass-production with agile mass-customization, enabling formal and technological possibilities.
Greg Lynn’s Embryological House Project (2000), is one of the contemporary projects that mark the intercept of architecture and mass-customization.
“The Embryologic Houses can be described as a strategy for the invention of domestic space that engages contemporary issues of brand identity and variation, customization and continuity, flexible manufacturing and assembly and, most importantly, an unapologetic investment in the contemporary beauty and voluptuous aesthetics of undulating surfaces rendered vividly in iridescent and opalescent colours. They employ a rigorous system of geometrical limits that liberate models of endless variations. Addressing brand identity and variation allows “recognition and novelty” and “design innovation and experimentation”[2]
To both design innovation and experimentation, many of the variations in the Embryologic houses come from an adaptation to contingencies of lifestyle, site, climate, construction methods, materials, spatial effects, functional needs and special aesthetic affects.[5]
The biologic borrowings shape a certain mode of contemporary architecture as a more naturalistic mode of production, and introduce a new internal history of architecture. “There is no ideal or original Embryologic house. Everyone is perfect in its mutations.”[3] The variation occurs in the relationship between the generic envelope and a fixed collection of elements, “marking a shift from a modernist, mechanical technique to a more vital, evolving, biological model of embryological design and construction”[4,6]
[1] http://www.architectureweek.com/2004/0818/building_2-2.html
[2,3,4]Lynn, Greg. “Greg Lynn: Embryological Houses,” AD “Contemporary Processes
in Architecture”, London: John Wiley & Son, 2000: 26-35.
[5,6] http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2100/467/1/Burns_Greg+Lynn.pdf

Architecture, Virtuality, User Manipulated Spaces

When thinking about virtuality and architecture, virtuality or virtual objects in architectural case should be questioned. Because if virtuality is only kept as an idea in imagination, it describes a potential that is actually impossible to come true. Virtuality in architecture however, has the opportunity to go beyond these boundaries, as it starts to describe “existence” in virtuality, as we can see examples like “Liquid Architecture” and “Trans Architecture”.

With the effect of information technologies, today’s architecture isn’t only described by form-function relationship. Interaction, interface and the idea of creating living surfaces forces architecture to change constantly. Now, form and function don’t have to stable. Information isn’t only replying the “how” question of materials anymore, it is an indispensable part.

The combination of architecture and virtuality takes materials beyond their physical properties, giving them except from “touch” also changeability and fluidity.

Interactive architecture can be changed by the user. One of the example is “Hyper surfaces” which are liquid architecture applications (media layers) that are attached to architectural object’s topographic surfaces. Ron Arad designed the borders of a space by screens at his “lo-rez-dolores-tabula-rasa” design. Borders aren’t only working as limits, describers, surroundings, they are also moving structures, getting closer, going far away, giving reactions, enriching experiences as information surfaces like Decoi’s hypersurface application “Aegis Hypersurface”.

Another example can be Oosterhuis’s “Muscle Body” project. At this project, the object is designed as a whole architectural body. It reacts in different ways depending on the user’s body movements (the user is placed inside the design) with the help of vir-tool software. This introduces users to a constant movement experience.

Material property isn’t the only thing that is changing. All these developments effect the design time and tools used by the designer: digital design technologies, parametric design tools, productive systems that are based on structural grammar, diagram based information collection systems, evolutionist systems that are annotating genetic algorithms, animation techniques combining design and production and personally developed mass production integrated systems are commonly used.

New technologies let users experience multiple dimensions of artifacts whose objectivity can be changed. This situation makes the aim more important than the result; is the aim idea a temporary or variable representation or the design of a consistent object that has rules and laws? Remembering Goethe’s words: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it”.

MASS COSTUMIZATION AND PREFAB ARCHITECTURE

The relevance of single family housing in architecture has been at the center of discussion for centuries. Architects seem to underestimate the importance of this topic in their practices, but still today, housing represents the largest segment of the construction industry worldwide. Can architects take advantage of the globalization and mass customization phenomena today and try to work in conjunction with manufacturers to promote relevant architecture, sustainable building practices and creative urban solutions? Or is mass customization in danger to create homogenization of cities, repetition and complete disregard of local conditions and culture? Furthermore, will mass produced architecture become another object of consumption?

When we think about mass customization in contemporary society, we are usually referring to parts or components fitting a specific arrangement with very sophisticated features. But imagine that instead of ordering a “custom hybrid car” we could shop on line placing an order for an entire house, walking thru the building in a virtual space, choosing the layout, finishes, appliances, furniture and paying with our credit cards?

Prefab housing has been under development for decades and it is now gaining popularity because of its capacity to address urgent problems: reduction of construction waste by the efficient use of materials, rapid assembly time, factory controlled construction techniques, energy-efficient materials, flexible designs developed with advanced digital technologies, and even some sustainable features. Sophisticated minimalist designs have been developed by several companies nowadays in response to a young generation accustomed to high end design in their ipods, laptops and smart cars. What is most interesting about the design of contemporary prefab housing is the concept of living small and efficiently, a trend already started by the “smart car” for a generation of environmental-conscious customers.

Many companies are now operating internationally offering customized houses in response to a growing market demand. When ordering a house from “Weehouse”, it is now possible to choose from the siding colour to finishes and appliances. Other companies, such as LV homes are now offering kits with partial structures that can be completed and customized by the owners, a sort of “open end” design. Another interesting development is the microcompact home, a tiny micro compact home that can be used alone or inserted into a "tree" mega structure, made out of high steel poles arranged in a cylindrical formation around an open central shaft. The footprint on this concept is just 12m-sq, to allow the villages to be built among tall, mature trees, and the rooftop of each house becomes a deck for the one above it creating a green roof opportunity.
Although many current prefab projects seem underdeveloped and overpriced, they are opening a dialog and expanding the notions of what housing can or should be. Many discussions for architects are related to the meaning of architecture in contemporary society and the relevance of architectural practices in response to quickly shifting markets and globalization. Is architecture becoming a “good”, another consumption object, and a disposable element that can be ordered to fit? Or should architects embrace this trend and try to contribute with innovative designs to address issues of mass production, new digital and construction technologies, cultural diversity and sustainable practices? The dialog is now open for discussion.

User manufacturing: apoc, ponoko, fab@home

The relatively new and fascinating prospects of using mass customization in architectural practice seem to find their forerunner to the “user manufacturing” processes. New infrastructure is enabling consumers to become instant designers and manufacturers. User manufacturing is enabled by three basic technologies: (a) Easy-to-operate design software that allows users to transfer their ideas into a design format. (b) Design repositories where users upload, search, and share designs with other users. (c) Easy-to-access flexible manufacturing technology. New rapid manufacturing technologies ("fabbing") realize the process of translating any 3-D data files into physical products - in a desktop scale. Combining this technology with recent web technologies we arrive at a radical new way to provide customized products skipping the entire line of product development, central manufacturing and transporting. To define better this process of mass customization, three examples will be briefly examined.

1. 'a-poc'
'a-poc' is based upon miyake's design concept, a piece of cloth, is a unique suggestion for everyday life, which goes far beyond the boundaries of fashion.It is made using an industrial knitting or weaving machine programed by a computer. This process creates continuous tubes of fabric within which lie both shape and pattern.The customer cuts sleeves and skirts exactly to the length he wants. 'a-poc' is made in a sequence in which thread literally goes into a machine and re-emerges as a piece of clothing, an accessory, or even a chair. This interactive new method not only reduces leftover fabric, but also permits the wearers to participate in the final step of the design of their clothing: they determine the final shape of the product.
Mass production and custom-made clothing, seemingly opposing ideas, become compatible with each other through the wizardry of technology and the fire of imagination.

2. ponoko
For most companies, product design and development is a long process of trial and error, involving, among other things, in-house designers, committees, timed product releases, and, ultimately, customer feedback. Until a product sells, or if it doesn't sell, it takes up costly shelf space in either stores or warehouses.
But by letting individuals dream up, make, and then sell unique products on demand, Ponoko
is attempting to eliminate the product-development wing. Ultimately, it hopes to eliminate the need for a centralized manufacturing plant as well, by recruiting a large enough community of digital manufacturers--people scattered around the world who have 3-D printers, CNC routers, and laser cutters. Moving the site of production as close as possible to the point of purchase will reduce the need for long-distance shipping.

3. Fab@Home
Creativity is a uniquely human trait, but Lipson is driven by the idea of allowing machines to do design and manufacturing for us. Lipson has now created the fab-home machine for anyone to build for a cost of around 2000 euro. Pushing the boundaries beyond simple shapes, Lipson has made a working battery, an electrically-activated polymer muscle and a touch sensor by printing different layers of material. The possibilities are limited by what you can extrude from interchangeable cartridges - quick-hardening plastic is the favourite, but the machine can also handle and layer plaster, Play-Doh, silicone, wax and metals or mixtures with a low melting point such as solder (made of tin and lead). Some users have found chocolate, cheese and cake icing (which may also be used as a temporary soluble support material for hollow structures) rewarding too.

If you make a conventional part in manufacturing, you either machine away a block of material or form the part in a mould. And as any manufacturer will confirm, 'tooling up' is incredibly expensive. Rapid manufacturing techniques use digital data to make the part additively, laying down layers of material which do not need a mould.If these technologies take off, it may spark a new industrial revolution.
"In 1975, people were soldering together Altair 8800 computers - that's where RepRap and Fab@Home are now. The Apple II came out in 1977, the BBC Micro and IBM PC in 1981, and then the world was never the same," says Bowyer. "I think that within 10 years private individuals will be able to make for themselves virtually any manufactured product that is today sold by industry. I sometimes wonder if politicians realise that the entire basis of the human economy is about to undergo the biggest change since the invention of money."
In that case, fabbing won't just break the mould - it will throw it away entirely.

Personalized Medicine

Mass customization is the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce custom output. Those systems combine the low unit costs of mass production processes with the flexibility of individual customization.

After the successful assembly of the human genome, five years ago, mass customization became possible in the medicine production also, that is personalized medicine. Personalized medicine refers to using information about a person's genetic makeup to tailor strategies for the detection, treatment, or prevention of disease. The human DNA code is a combination of 3 billion letters, this “instruction book” is 99,9% identical between two humans. This 0.1 percent holds clues to the variations among humans in susceptibility to disease. Its discovery sheds new light on the biological basis of disease, which in turn provides new targets for therapies and new options for prevention.

The first application of personalized medicine is Pharmacogenetics, which is the study of inter-individual variations in DNA sequence related to drug response. Science now allows researchers to predict the probability of a drug response based on a person's genetic makeup. It's about getting the right dose of the right drug to the right patient at the right time.

Apart from creating better medication choices and safer dosing options, personalized medicine can offer tests for genes involved in susceptibility to serious diseases, such as breast cancer. By 2010, it is likely that predictive genetic tests will be available for as many as a dozen common conditions, enabling individuals to take preventive steps to reduce their risks of developing disorders. Due to the continuing technological development it is likely that each of us will be able to have our genomes sequenced using microchip technology. That information can then be used to guide prescribing patterns and develop a lifelong plan of health maintenance customized to our unique genetic profiles.

Additionally, HP Labs has used its inkjet technology to make a micro-needle drug patch. These patches contain 400 cylindrical reservoirs connected to a micro-needle. This system is fuelled by a low-power battery and controlled by an embedded microchip that is programmed to heat up any given reservoir to deliver a specific drug. The array is scalable, and it can be designed to contain tens or even hundreds of reservoirs, depending on its intended therapeutic use. Moreover, the patches may be customized to the patient’s needs, or even tiny sensors embedded in a patch could detect when medication is needed and automatically deliver it.




http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/19365/page2/
file:///C:/iaac%20works/digital%20tech/CA00078.htm
file:///C:/iaac%20works/digital%20tech/605_genomics.html
file:///C:/iaac%20works/digital%20tech/Personalized_medicine.htm
http://www.pwc.com/techforecast/pdfs/pharmaco-wb-x.pdf
http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/news/2007/03/72860
http://www.mlnm.com/about/personalized/index.asp

prefab housing in the digital age

The housing markets today are saturated with cheap affordable houses that are indistinguishable from each other. The idea of customizing your home to your particular needs or tastes does not go beyond the color of the exterior wall and the height of the hedges outside. Mass customisation in architecture, particularly housing, can currently be divided into four broad categories:

Mobile Home - Manufactured off-site, transported to the site in a largely completed state, minimal on-site labour.
Kit Home - Kit manufactured and packaged off-site assembled on-site.
Modular Home - Building designed using pre-existing modular products/systems, built on-site using modular/prefab components and "standard" materials.
Custom Home - Custom designed, custom-built on-site from "standard" materials, on-site labour-intensive.

However, mass customization of the prefab home is only now gaining momentum as a solution for housing in all markets.
Even though the prefabricated home has been around for a while it’s been slow to produce a popular home for the masses. After the Second World War there was a general effort to design, fabricate and sell homes as if they were automobiles. The Lustron home in the U.S. became a popular solution to housing with its aluminum house, and before that Matti Saarinen with his Futuro home, but their intention was plagued by high production costs and low demand. These were all moving in the same direction, but how customizable were these homes? How did they respond to their owners needs?

Recently, however, modern architects are experimenting more often with prefabrication as a means to deliver well-design and mass produced CUSTOM homes. Werner Aisslinger’s LOFTCUBE is basically a mobile home that is built off-site and later on transported and placed in any setting. Its exterior paneling is interchangeable, and there is a choice of different enclosures, and various distribution schemes. Its portability which relies on its cube shape, and size to be transported, is also the reason it is not as customizable for masses.
The Quon modular home however utilizes interchangeable spaces that connect to each other and can be arranged adapted to the owners needs. These modular cubes consisting of a living, bathroom, master bedroom, and kitchen are built off-site transported by truck and placed by crane in the desired configuration. The transportability of this house (fits into a average container) and its rapid production make it an innovative solution as a customized home. They do become homogenous after they are stack one beside the other.

In essence the idea of buying your home by parts is as customizable as you can get in the housing market, but the architects from System prove to take it one step beyond with their BURST house. Creating custom houses parting from a structural frame, cut on a CNC machine, transported to the site and assembled simply. Then applying the distinct configurations to allow sunlight and ventilation in, making the house environmentally passive. The façade of the house is designed to fit the owners tastes. In the end the house responds to a prefabricated construction system using cnc milling, responds to environmental concearns and is unique at the same time. This intention of a customizable home that meets today’s global requirements using todays technology gives an idea of the direction of the prefab home and its incursion into mass customization.

Web-site/web-house.

Web-site/web-house looks carefully at a very new issue in design which is called ‘mass-customization’: how can we make objects – in this case houses – that are designed as for an individual, but have the pricing of a mass-product? Generally the answers that are given to this question are purely of a technological nature. Web-site/web-house investigates new ways to use technology and mass-media. There is a strong political sense behind it: How can we deal with the forces of globalization (which are often forces of atomization and individualization) and re-organize them as positive and contributing to social fabric?”(Lars Spuybroek).

The issue of the “customer” (subject who personalizes a industrial product) was achieved thanks to “The Web of life” from Fritjof Capra (0), Ulrich Beck’s essays about “Individualization, Globalization and Politic” (1), Bart Lootsma’s “Synopse: Jenseits des Standards” (2) and “New subjectivity: architecture between Communication and Information” from Antonino Saggio (3). After studying contemporary research that have treated these issues – like Nox, Greg Lynn, Oosterhuis, RAMTV (4) – as well as the most interesting brands who already customize products through the web - such as Nike, Acumins, Levis (5) - the focus of the research was set: the goal is to connect people and to make the housing-process more comfortable, affordable and highly customizable.

The www is the best place for such a design. An abstract world where customers can operate, build and destroy, cluster, share, and most important, see what their actions cause to other people.

An endless space (6) in which the houses are thought of as a model, or clusters of a model, that the customers can personalize and transform like a living organism, until a state of equilibrium in the pattern before the industrial production.

Web-site is a virtual-atmospheric site to where people can cluster and create communities. The virtual site is intended as a tool that improves the communication between the designer and the customer.

Visiting the web-site, the customer selects the Web-house [house-model to personalize] from a catalogue referred to existing house-types. Then people can modify, playing the housing-machine interface, their own house-model based on a path [an organizational centre line that concentrates all activities along a spline and that builds the topological geometry and program above them].

Thus, the customers can connect to neighbor houses, making agencies and creating new typologies. Each house-model is thought as a whole living organism made of a web of relations between his parts.

Once a cluster of customers is done and the internal equilibrium [both programmatically and socially] is found-the models, and their relations, are frozen and the virtual whole is ready to transform in the real one.

The city Frankfurt (GE) is re-mapped selecting high identity areas where the cluster can look for the site to build between a range of free-sites proposed.

Once the site is individuated, the geometrical information is sent to the factory. Then, using C.A.M.- non-standard sandwich panels are manufactured. In order to reduce the milling cost, a re-modeling strategy [per repetitions in the forms] in each house and between different houses of the cluster is used. Thus optimizing the form without loosing information of its geometry.

All these strategies together [sharing site and space, co-manufacturing panels] decrease the cost, improve the relative budget of each customer and build the social relations between future neighbors.

In order to optimize the cost and stress the potential of the C.A.M. technology, we designed a special system of UHPC [Ultra High Performance Concrete] sandwich panels consisting in two structural skins [internal and external]. The shape of panel is structural and aesthetic at the same time.

Re-cycling. Finally, the design was put under stress checking the flexibility of each produced house. Since each house is unique [personalized and part of a social and topological cluster], the aim was to understand how the houses might be re-cycled. More precisely, how the houses and the clusters can transform if a crisis occurs [a dweller leaves or a house is transformed] and what happens to the cluster both geometrically and programmatically.

The results show some limits of the personalization process due to the extreme determinacy of the form. For instance, a “rapid” re-customization process is possible just if the old customer is similar to the new one, otherwise a geometrical transformation of the house [and of course the cluster] is needed.

Reference:

(0) Capra Fritjof, The web of life, Doubleday-Anchor Book, New York 1996

(1) http://www.archplus.net/archiv_ausgaben.php?show=158

(2) http://architettura.supereva.com/coffeebreak/20040718/index_en.htm

(3) Greg Lynn 1998-99, Embryological House, http://www.glform.com/
Nox 1999, Offtheroad_5speed, http://www.noxarch.com
Kas Oosterhuis 2002, Variomatic, http://www.oosterhuis.nl
RAMTV, 2002, Negotiate my boundary!, http://www.ramtv.org/

(4) NikeID, http://nikeid.nike.com/
Acumins spa, http://www.acumins.com

(5) Levi's, http://eu.levi.com/

(6) Hatje Cantz 2001, Frederick J. Kiesler Endless Space, Dieter Bogner and Peter Noever editors.

Abstracts List

Abstracts submitted until now:

12.11.07
G06: "Forms and Tectonics of Cellular Aggregation"
G12: "Collective intelligence in the process of real-time environment reprogramming"
G07: "Tradition Revised"
G10: "Clouds in the Bottles"
G18: "Zaha Hadid"
G01: "Rejecting Materiality: In-Forming Forms"
13.11.07
G03: "Mass Customization and the Prefab House"
G14: "The Abaqus Unified FEA application in the field of architecture and industrial design."
G05: "Nanotechnology and Architecture"
G02: "Advanced Design Processes"
G09: "Bio-materiality"
G15: "HYPERBODIES: Complex Adaptive Dynamic Multi-Agent Systems as Self-Sustainable Environments of Inhabitance."
G04: "Emergent Form"
G13: "Ubiquitius Computing"
G17: "Coherence and Chronology in Digital Design Manifestation"
14.11.2007
G08: "Scripting: Emergent Design Process"
15.11.2007
G16: "Digital Technologies's Implementation on Urbanism"
G11: "Tech is More? (UnStudio Design Models)"

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The 3 groups missing should submit their abstract using the Form as soon as possible!
The submission order is the sequence that we will follow to discuss the papers next week.
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BA3: List of Posts

The list of posts submitted to the BA3 assignment, will be published here. If there is any incorrection, please comment about it.


Deadline is Friday 16th.
As usual, labels should be "Your group Number" + "BA3: Mass-Customization / Non-Standardization" label, which is already created.
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BA3: Kas Oosterhuis interactive environment at Utrecht

The architecture of Kas Oosterhuis (ONL Architects), suggests Interactive Architecture (which he abbreviates to iA). Oosterhuis defines iA as an art of building 'bi-directional relationships' through the interaction of input, processor and output.

Parametric design processes allow architects to insert specific and variable environmental data and gain diversity results. Oosterhuis describes iA as, creating a "equal input (listening), process (thinking), and output (talking) of people as well as the built components of architecture." Through the efficiencies of CAM technologies, designers are now able to produce customised responses with comparable economies. Oosterhuis calls this approach 'non-standard architecture' (NSA), that are unique and produce manufacturing processes of ‘mass-customization’.

NSA provokes the disadvantage of mass production era to obtain a better response to individual variation. Each building component is uniquely produced and configured to the assembly method by the use of computerized documentation. The built environment is able to diversify in a more fluid or a natural-like way. Oosterhuis writes, “Repetition is no longer beautiful. In NSA the unique characteristics/ uniqueness/ unicity/ unity of the components is felt as natural, logical and beautiful”

The project is a combination between varied uses of public hardscape and a commercial space. A showroom that submerge in between a 1.5 kilometer strip of a sound barrier in the city of Utrecht, Netherlands. The showroom ‘Hassing Cockpit’ displays luxurious cars with a 5000 square meter building is placed along the side of A2 highway containing large continuous floors of display space sitting on top of workshops and garages underneath. The design concept derived from the studies of car, boat and airplane spline and morphed with a flow continuous 'dike' form with seemingly no start or end points. Sections of the dike change as a result of the different functional scenarios, from straight erected to concave. The acoustic barrier smoothly curves around a showroom space and turns again into convex glass wall. Finally it ends with the flip to a horizontal plane.

Each part of the structures, joinery and its envelopes were documented with a single computer model, linked with output fabrication documentation processes. He calls it as a ‘file2factory’ in order to directly describe all the parts built in a pre-fabricated manner ready for production. The efficiency comes from a means of design and documentation linked (and at one) with the means of describing fabrication.