From Scale Models to Construction Innovations, USA Helps Build the Home of the Future
The diversity of USA’s capabilities has allowed us to participate with our esteemed client, architects KieranTimberlake Associates, in several phases of an exhibition entitled Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling, which is currently on display at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in midtown Manhattan.
The long history of prefabricated housing is presented in a gallery exhibition of some 60 projects represented by drawings, ephemera, models, photographs, patent applications, films, computer animations, and partially assembled full-scale houses. In the outdoor space to the west of the Museum, five contemporary architectural firms have been invited by MoMA to display full-scale, prefabricated houses which attest to the popularity and innovation of factory-produced architecture today.
The five projects were chosen after an initial consideration of some 500 architects and firms, from which 21 proposals were solicited. The proposals were evaluated by a jury of internal Museum curators and staff, as well as invited architects, who advised the curatorial team in making the selections. The five houses represent designs by emerging and established architects, different styles of homes that use varied manufacturing techniques, and houses that span the economic market.
KieranTimberlake Associates is a Philadelphia-based firm well known for its sustainable designs and innovative research. KieranTimberlake’s design for the MoMA competition utilized a time-saving manufacturing concept called “chunking”, a term taken from automobile manufacturing, allowing different components of the same end-product to be produced simultaneously. KieranTimberlake also incorporated a product they have developed called SmartWrapTM, a building material they say “integrates the currently segregated functions of a conventional wall and combines them into one advanced composite.” SmartWrapTM is made from PET and is embedded with photo-voltaics and designed to handle the necessities of shelter, climate control, lighting, information display, and power in one composite. The name Cellophane House has come from the extensive use of the SmartWrapTM material to create a transparent house– visually striking in either an urban or natural setting.
The Competition Model
KieranTimberlake called upon USA to support their proposal for the Home Delivery exhibition at MoMA with an elegant model of the Cellophane House. The model, built at 3/16” = 1’ scale, is made entirely from clear acrylic. We engineer our models in CAD and mill the components, walls, floors, and support structures, using a variety of CNC technologies. The result is a custom “model kit”, which our skilled craftsmen assemble by hand.
In the case of the Cellophane House model, quality glue joinery was essential; the clear surfaces needed to be kept clean for the gem-like effect of the model to really shine. White-glove care was taken with the parts, and careful planning and craftsmanship created a stunning model. The crowning touch was a crystal clear travel box designed to protect the model while asserting the jewel box qualities of the model.
Prototyping the Manufacturing Process
After Cellophane House was chosen, construction of the full-size dwelling quickly became the next challenge, and KieranTimberlake knew it would take many different fabricators and skill-sets to arrive at the final product.
KieranTimberlake’s original prototype for SmartWrapTM was displayed in 2003 at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York. When they wanted to create the next generation of this building envelope, NextGen SmartWrapTM wall panels for Cellophane House, they approached USA to create the prototype.
Utilizing what KieranTimberlake learned from their own internal testing, USA quickly built a production environment – a clean room and an assembly table – suitable to test and analyze methods of tensioning the PET plastic film; adhere the film to the extruded Bosch aluminum frames (Bosch IPS); and install the integrated SmartWrapTM technologies. USA staff Don LeCates and Toby Bohn prototyped and built custom table fixture to stretch the PET to achieve the best balance of tension and stability for the aluminum frames. The fixturing was designed to accommodate a variety of frame sizes as would be required in different areas of the house. The table includes a template of a generic photo-voltaics layout. Individual “maps” would guide the fabricators to customize the individual wall’s photo-voltaics.
Producing the Panels
Prototyping gave us the experience to intelligently plan the production process required to fabricate all the wall panels, and project an achievable work plan with schedules and budgets for the client. After a successful process was established USA quickly and efficiently began producing the panels to be used for the Cellophane House’s installation at MoMA. In the future, of SmartWrapTM may be mass-produced, but for this project, the dexterous, precise hands of USA’s production staff, working diligently as a coordinated team, completed the production.
A total of 74 panels were required to clad the superstructure of the five-story house. Each “pane” consisted of two IPS frames, with a combination of plain PET, PET with photo-voltaics and IR blocking material from 3M applied to both sides of each frame. Teamwork remained essential to the manufacturing process in order to complete the panels by the opening date. Four fabricators worked in Just-In-Time sequences, so that prep, production, and packing flowed like clockwork.
As groups of the panels were completed, they were delivered to Kullman Building Corporation for assembly of the floor “chunks.” Once all chunks were completed, they were delivered to MoMA’s site for installation.
The Cellophane House on Display
USA was honored to attend the opening of the exhibition on July 15th. The Cellophane House will be on display at MoMA through October 26th. We hope that you too will find the time to see this inspired exhibition.
The web site for Home Delivery, which launched in April at www.moma.org/homedelivery, has included weekly diary postings from each of the five architects whose full-scale prefab houses are displayed on the lot to the west of the Museum, and from the curators and collaborators of the exhibition, recording the process of fabricating, delivering, and assembling the houses leading up to the opening of the exhibition.