Towards customised industrial housing
Edited by
Mick Eekhout
CONTENTS
Mick Eekhout
Introduction
3
Mick Eekhout
Towards a Customised Industrial Concept House
5
Age van Randen
The Power of an Idea
29
Ype Cuperus
Thoughts on Mass Customisation in Housing – Inspired by Japan
41
Bernard Leupen
The Frame Concept providing Freedom for Dwelling
51
Richard Horden, Wieland Schmidt
A European Concept House – Designed by Europeans for Europeans
61
Andreas Vogler
The Universal House – An Outlook to Space-Age Housing
77
Ties Rijcken, Mick Eekhout
Towards a Floating Concept House?
89
Henk Westra
The Dutch Housing stock: demands & needs, chances for new housing concepts
103
Erwin Hofman, Joop Halman
Identifying Customer Preferences for Housing Projects
111
Alex Sievers
Where Seniors can grow – Cities for Senior Citizens
125
Han Michel
An industrial gap in the housing market?
133
Sannie Verweij, Mick Eekhout, Jos Lichtenberg
Market Target Groups of Concept House
139
Mick Eekhout
Conclusions for the Future
161
The Universal House
An Outlook to Space-Age Housing
Andreas Vogler
Architect (dipl. Arch ETH), Architecture and Vision, Munich, Germany.
[email protected]
Abstract
Sending Humans to long-duration space missions like Mars, is imposing radical challenges
to the way we look at the human habitat. We have to build a complete machine for living,
which will support all hard and soft requirements of human life under extreme conditions
with minimum space and minimum energy use. This requires light-weight mobile structures,
autonomous and interactive environmental systems. Similar trends can be found in terrestrial architecture, where the house eventually could become, through technology, a more
active part of the planetary ecosystem.
Keywords: Space Habitats, Extreme Environment, Mobile Architecture, Autonomous Systems, Psychology
1. Introduction
„If our designs for private houses are to be correct, we must at the outset take note
of the countries and climates in which they are built.“
Vitruvius, de architectura 6.1.1, ca 27 bc
"The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one can not live in a cradle forever!"
Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, 1911
The space-age has made fundamental impacts on our understanding and perception
of our home planet Earth. The first images from the Earth seen from space, especially as the ‘‘blue marble’’ taken by the 1968 circumlunar Apollo 8 team, showed us
the preciousness of this blue planet with its thin atmosphere in the vast dark vacuum
of space (figure 1). These images helped a growing understanding of the limitation
of resources and the understanding of the Earth as a living system. This was first
postulated by James Lovelock in the early 1970s in his ‘Gaia’-Hypothesis.1 The interesting point in this hypothesis is, that favourable conditions like average temperatures of 15°C and atmospheric oxygen content of about 20%, were not provided for
life to happen, but actually established by life and maintained by it. Without life it is
assumed the Earth would have an average temperature of about 240-340°C and an
atmosphere consisting of 98% carbondioxide [1]. The architect has been aware of
the influence of the environment on the architecture as much as the profession has
learned by failures in the early industrial cities in the 19th century as well as in the
1
The Gaia-Hypothesis was named after the Greek goddess of the Earth. As much as it was
praised by the esoteric movement at the time, it was rejected by the sciences, whether geophysics, chemistry, geology, or biology, which believed they said all that there was to say about
the Earth. Dubbed under ‚Earth System Sciences’ and ‚Astrobiology’, today there is a clearer
scientific understanding of the interaction of life and its environment.
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social housing programs of the 1960s, where the influence of the architecture on the
environment has been ignored. We know today, also by satellite data, that the tremendous growth of our cities and the sub-urban sprawl is counteracting on our environment dramatically. It was Buckminster Fuller [2] who pointed out that the Earth
should in fact be regarded as a spaceship. (Figure 1 and 2).
Fig. 1. The Earth is our home. A
wonderful large scale macro architecture
with dynamic systems. Images taken
from the Galileo Mission in 1991. Credit:
NASA
Fig. 2. The astronaut suit is representing
a micro architecture, allowing the human
being to live 8 hours in free space.
Credit: NASA
What we face, when designing a space habitat is, that we have to build a ship, which
handles speeds of 30’000 km/h and more, provides all life-support functions like
fresh air, drinking water, food, environmental control and deals with our metabolic
off-products like the system Earth does in a recycling way. Further, the longer the
mission the greater the need to compensate for the lack of our social life and
psychological experience. Leaving the gravity of Earth demands great energy and
requires minimal volume, minimal mass and minimal energy systems for spacecrafts.
Thus, a space habitat can be characterized as
•
Mobile
•
Autonomous
•
Interactive
Although there are still many unknowns on how the human being will adapt to longduration spaceflight and how the design of space habitats will evolve, it is claimed
here, that the space habitat is the prototype of an ‘universal home’. It has to be able
to offer in one way or another all basic functions, which we usually get for free on
our home planet. It thus forms an ‘archetype’ of architecture2. The world is
incorporated into the spacecraft.
There are actually clear trends in terrestrial architecture, which point into the same
direction of mobile, autonomous and interactive homes. There is a tendency, that
houses will incorporate all systems to be independent from the environment. The
2
Archetype is not understood temporally of what has been first, but as the general concept of a
minimal optimized system for the human being to ‘live’ (not just survive) in the most extreme
environment of space. Today’s spaceships are still far from that optimum.
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viewpoint from space architecture should help to clarify some aspects of the human
habitat in its most extreme condition and hopefully help start a new practical and
theoretical discussion about the human being and the self-made environment in the
space-age. Thus, outlining an outlook for future concept houses, not deriving from
the past, but heading into the future.
2. The Space Habitat
Space Habitats are the most challenging of extreme environment habitats. As new
human missions to the Moon and eventually to Mars in the time-frame of the next
20-30 years are realistically discussed by the Space Agencies, we just start to realize,
what challenge this is for the human being. And although architecture is one of the
oldest professions, we do know little about the implications and countermeasures of
sending a crew of six in a 8m diameter tin can for two years to Mars, as current mission plans are proposing [3]. Three main characteristics of future space habitats will
be 1.) Mobility, 2.) Autonomy and 3.) Interactivity3. These will eventually impact our
understanding of the terrestrial habitat, which is infact also a ‘space habitat’, just on
a planet with more favorable conditions, than the ones around us.
2.1 Mobility
Space habitats are vehicles, even if their final specification is a surface habitat. They
need to leave the gravity field of Earth travel through space and land on another
planet. The mobility has major implications and restrictions on its construction, dimensions and mass. The space shuttle (figure 3) can fly 24’400 kg to Low Earth Orbit with a fairing of 4.7 m diameter and a length of 18.6 m. The whole International
Space Station (figure 4) is build up on these launch dimensions and mass. The average speed of the station is 28’000 km/h. To fly one kilogram of mass into Low Earth
Orbit costs currently USD 20’000. If you price the 3.5 kg of potable water, the
0.62 kg of solid food and the 0.84 kg of oxygen needed per day per astronaut [4],
you start to realize how valuable resources in space are. When you have to bring
everything from ‘home’, you start to look at your home differently.
Fig. 3. The Space Shuttle is the ‘truck’ for
the orbital construction site. Credit:
NASA
Fig. 4. Each part of the International
Space Station has to be delivered by the
Space Shuttle or the Russian Proton
3
Further important characteristics, which are not included for this essay are radiation protection
and pressure vessel structures.
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Rocket. Credit: NASA
For surface habitats, these restrictions, lead to discussions and research of how to
use in-situ resources (ISRU) to produce energy or to build domes and shelters
against radiation with regolith, how the local material on a celestial body is called.
2.2 Autonomy
Up to these days spaceflight is still dependant on resupplies from Earth. The International Space Station ISS is resupplied, by the Automatic Transfer Vehicle ATV, which
brings consumables like water, food and oxygen and is filled up with waste before
burning during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. To go beyond the Earth’s orbit,
autonomous closed-loop systems will be necessary. There are several research programs moving in this direction. Space simulations are planned or have been conducted like the chamber experiment at NASA-JSC (figure 5). The primary goal of the
Lunar-Mars Life Support Test Project (LMLSTP), conducted from 1995 through 1997
at the NASA Johnson Space Center, was to test an integrated, closed-loop system
that employed biological and physicochemical techniques for water recycling, waste
processing, and air revitalization for human habitation. As an analogue environment
for long-duration missions, the conditions of isolation and confinement enabled studies of human factors, medical sciences (both physiology and psychology), and crew
training. The results of these studies provide a wealth of important data not just for
Space Shuttle and ISS missions into space, also other missions in extreme environments here on Earth. The longest simulation was done by a crew of 4 for 90 days,
using wheat to re-vitalize the air and a bioreactor for the water recycling process,
which used microbes to clean-up the water. An incinerator was used in the solid
waste processing system to turn crew fecal matter into ash and gaseous carbon dioxide products for reuse by the wheat [5].
These systems will have to become light-weight with a minimum power usage in future. The astronaut of the future will likely be a ‘bionaut’ as well, living in symbiosis
with controlled plant and bacteria systems on smallest space (figure 6).
Fig. 5. In this 6m diameter vacuum
chamber, NASA tested autonomous life
support systems for up to 90 days.
Credit: NASA
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Fig. 6. Plants provide oxygen, clean water and provide food. They are also supporting the crew psychology. They are
an important factor in spaceflight. Credit:
NASA
2.3 Interactivity
The astronaut will be forced to live in a closed interactivity with the spacecraft.
Technical systems will monitor the environment, but will also need to be maintained
by the astronaut (figure 7). Housekeeping is a major task in small spaces, even more
so in weightlessness. More than that on a long-duration spaceflight the sensory deprivation will be a major psychological problem. Once the terrestrial orbit is left, there
will be no day and night cycles, no clouds moving, just black space with a bright sun
and distance stars and planets. The systems and interior design of a space habitat
will have to provide countermeasures for that [6]. They will have to allow the astronaut to reconfigure the interior as well as to provide active sensory stimulation by
the use of light, acoustics, odours and materials (Figure 8). Real-time communication
with Earth will impossible, when a signal from Mars to Earth takes 20 minutes one
way. A personal conversation robot may also become an important device for expression problems outside the crew community. The most extreme environment may
actually be our inner self.
Fig. 7. The Zvezda Module of the International Space Station is the main Habitation Module at the moment. In the
foreground you see the dining table.
Credit: NASA
Fig. 8 Mars Habitat Crew Quarter design
concept by TU Munich. The Crew Quarter contains a interchangeable modular
storage system. The light can be adjusted by computer in colour, intensity
and distribution. Credit: TU Munich
3. The Universal House
“Who said pleasure is not useful?”
Charles Eames
th
In the 18 century Abbé Laugier derived the ‘Urhütte’ (Primitive Hut) from a natural
timber construction (figure 9). The looks of the building were dominated by its structure. Le Corbusier separated construction and appearance of the house in his five
points of architecture establishing the Maison Domino as the ‘primitive hut’. The
looks of the building were dominated by its function. Today, without any deeper
theoretical discussion nor vision the looks sometimes seem to be fairly independent
from anything, maybe from the last update of the Nurbs modeling software. Space
Habitats have to develop their own aesthetics under the laws of nature and limited
resources (figure 19). They are highly optimized complex structures, they form the
‘primitive hut’ of the space-age, a universal house, which works on Earth as well as
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on any other celestial body. A next step to the concept house of the future may be a
more research based optimization of the production, the advanced environmental requirements of the house and the interior needs of the inhabitant. Thus a modern
house could evolve, leaving behind the iconic discussion, and rather develop like a
modern industrial product, where design is more than styling, but systems integration.
If we just consider the three characteristics mentioned for space habitats, it shows
us astonishingly known concepts, but also provides an outlook towards space-age
housing, which can be defined as the scientific understanding of architecture as the
technical interface between the human being and its environment. The architectural
understanding of technology does include aesthetics and pleasure as functional
needs of the human being.
Fig. 9. In 1753 the Abbé Laugier introduced the primitive hut as an embodiment of classic principles in his “Essai sur
l’architecture”. The primitive hut, four
tree trunks supporting a rude pitched
roof, became the natural origin of architecture.
Fig. 10 The inflatable Moon Base by Architecture and Vision, is shaped by
minimum transport volume and atmospheric pressure after deployment. A
pure, rational structural form, as postulated by Laugier’s primitive hut. Credit:
Architecture and Vision.
3.1 Mobility
Mobility in architecture is not a new concept. Nomadic tents are likely to be the oldest and lightest structures ever built and date back to 25’000 years. But also the
most impressive transport logistics started with architecture. The Cheops pyramid
built 2530 BC, consists of about 2.3 million stones, 2.5 tonnes each and transported
from quarries around 1000 km distant. Nevertheless, the reality on some modern
building sites, does not seem much more advanced since then and the level of prefabrication is still relatively low. The requirement of mobility is driving construction to
lighter, compact and modular structures and is an important element of the industrial
production of houses. Mobility comes together with prefabrication. An important advocate of mobile building is Richard Horden [7][8], who continues to blur the boundary between vehicle and architecture and thus working on the aesthetic and technical
language of these small-scale structures (figure 11). Extreme environment building
like in the mountains also requires different solutions. The short available building
time during summer and the transport by helicopter require a high degree of prefab-
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rication and a modular design, which is taking into account weight limits and flight
dynamics (figure 12)
Fig. 11. Skihaus by Richard Horden. A
small light-weight mountain hut, which
can be transported by helicopter.
Fig. 12 Design for a high altitude
weather station in the Swiss Alps. Credit:
Andreas Vogler
3.2 Autonomy
The traditional farmhouse has been fairly autonomous, based on a in-situ resource
utilization, providing food from crops and animals and fire wood from the forest (figure 13). With the growth of the cities and the building up of modern infrastructure
this concept has been lost. Most buildings are fully dependant on supply of water,
electricity and heating energy. With the oil crisis in the 1970s a better insulation of
houses and the use of solar energy started to reduce the energy need of houses.
Steady improvements in materials and building technologies led to the passive house
standard, making active heating redundant. Although the zero energy house is not
economic yet, the industry developed a drive and the market of houses is a potential
mass market. The Fraunhofer Institute recently predicted a substantially growing
market on passive houses in the next 10 to 15 years [9]. There is a clear trend of
houses becoming self-sufficient again (figure 14).
Fig. 13. Traditional farm-house in the
Austrian Alps. Credit: Petra Gruber.
Fig. 14 Competition design for a
autonomous mountain hut. Credit: Architecture and Vision.
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3.2.1 One Step Beyond: Houses are improving the environment
The reduction of the energy use of building and their self-sufficiency is an honorable
objective, but regarding the expected development of the world’s climate, this may
not be enough. Buildings of the future should not only visually improve the environment, but also clean the air, collect water and produce energy and fresh vegetable
for our daily needs. Now this may sound romantic, but is actually challenging our
continuing romantic understanding of nature. The NASA BioHome project employed
inhouse plants for wastewater treatment, harvesting drinking water, crop growth and
air purification [10]. A more compact vertical arrangement of plants, supported by
robots and LED lights can become the ‘green lung’ of a house. The house would become the technological equivalent of the tree, actively cleaning the air around it.
3.2.2 Another Step Beyond: Water for the World
As we get excited by technological possibilities, we shall not forget that according to
UN reports 1.1 billion people don’t have direct access to drinking water (figure 15)
and 2.4 billion don’t have access to basic sanitation. Developing countries often do
not have the means for extensive infrastructure. Mobile and low energy water recovery systems can help to improve the situation and maybe allow a technology jump as
it happened with the mobile phone. The insufficient infrastructure in landlines was
suddenly redundant in many developing countries by the growing market of the mobile phone. Analog to the mobile phone market the large housing market of the
wealthy countries can help to make a cheap mass product in the future out of a now
expensive technology (figure 16).
Fig. 15. According to UN about 50% of
the world’s drinking water is carried on
women’s heads.
Fig. 16. Mobile Eco Units powered by solar energy can provide safe sanitation.
Credit: Architecture and Vision
3.1 Interactivity
In the last century all formerly public events have also been privatized and integrated
into the home. The radio brought the concert hall, the TV the Cinema, the washing
machine the former washing house etc. This century will start with the integration of
data systems and the interactivity of the house and the user.
Further technology movements are directed towards the networked ‘Smart Home’
and household robots, making the home a fully interactive ‘machine for living’, as it
has been postulated as early as in the 1920s by Le Corbusier and others. But as
alienation and social isolation of the individual is increasing in the modern mass soci84
ety, these ‘toys’ become more than just an electronic servant. They become objects
of affection. The Sony QRIO and the Honda Asimo robot (figure 17) recognize your
face, can dance and walk and offer social skills. ‘Cocooning’ is a recent and growing
trend for making the home the main center of one’s private life. The home has to increasingly serve for the ‘grounding’ of one’s senses. A growing in-house wellness
market is reflecting this. ‘Home’ is the cradle of ones privacy and psychological
health. Like in a space habitat, the terrestrial home will increasingly offer countermeasure against exhaustion, boredom and loneliness.
Fig. 17. The Honda Asimo robot shows
social skills and interacts with the people
around. Credit: Honda
Fig. 18 Multiple sensory environments
will provide power-relaxation in future.
Credit: Architecture and Vision.
3. Results and Discussion
The comparison of the space habitat and the existing trends in terrestrial architecture
show that the Universal House is more and more developing towards a fully technically controlled environment, a machine for living. What is a requirement for a space
habitat – incorporating everything needed inside – becomes an evolutionary trend in
the terrestrial home. This is going that far, that not only the physical comfort of the
inhabitant will be maintained, but also the psychological comfort. Now this is
happening at a time, where machines become invisible and technology gets smaller
and smaller, but also friendlier and less frightening than it has been before.
Embedded systems will allow the architect to work in a new dimension with space,
light and material. The requirement for mobility in aerospace creates lightest
structures and new materials, which provide highly compact spaces for living.
Buildings have been becoming lighter and lighter through history. Modern buildings
employ light-weight materials, saving transport mass and grey energy. It is a clear
technology development: lighter, smaller more efficient, or ‘Touch the Earth lightly’.
Autonomous building systems are needed for spaceflight and face an increasing market potential in the housing segment. First buildings are built using vacuum toilets, a
system known from aerospace and trains. These use five times less water and are
gravity independent, providing more flexibility in design. These systems will also create a new relation to resources and nature. Inhouse gardens complement their technical and psychological functionality. Buildings in future will be able to not just to reduce their own energy and consumables need, but actively clean the environment
and provide energy.
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An interactive environment in the space habitat will allow the environment to adapt
to the activities of the astronauts, but also to countermeasure against sensory deprivation. The smart house development is exploring similar steps. The research from
spaceflight will also affect the leisure industry and vice versa. There is a need for
people for ‘power relaxation’, ‘resetting’ after a working day. Much of the leisure time
of modern people is used by inefficient relaxation. The future house will be able to
react to the moods of the inhabitant and to be pro-active about it.
Nevertheless, the construction industry is lacking a lot of innovation found in other
industries. Whereas the Aerospace industry is leading in research, it is especially the
automotive industry, which is leading in production. A similar approach to houses can
only be found in Japan. In USA and Europe the standard house factory is basically a
building site put under a industrial shed, with builders crawling on their knees over
timber structure, cutting insulation material and hammering nails into panels. But
neither in Japan nor anywhere else the prefabrication of houses is reaching a substantially higher market share than 15% in average. The majority of houses are built
by local companies with 2-10 employees. There are different reasons for this, which
need to be understood. Although production is a major key to lower costs and rise
quality, mass production is not the only key as well as low costs is not the only market. In the US, where manufactured housing mostly supplied the lower end of the
market, the industry had a severe drop with the current housing boom, where the
market shifted to the mid-range and luxury segment. Different in Japan, where industrial housing industries where able to maintain their market share throughout the
sharp recession on the market. Japanese industrial manufacturers where always focusing on the mid-range and high-end market, offering quality and life-time warranty
for their products. The evolution of the new home will neither happen by marketing
studies, production technologies nor design alone, it only can happen by a interaction
of all elements of this complex system. And, it only will happen, if we keep on challenging our preconceptions of the home.
Fig. 19. Mercury House II is a concept house by Architecture and Vision introducing
mobility, pro-active environmental systems and interactive, robot-supported environments. Credit: Architecture and Vision.
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3. Conclusion
Long-duration Human Spaceflight requires a full symbiosis of the crew and its spaceship, which will have to provide a ‘whole world’ for them. This ‘micro world’ development can similarly be detected in the terrestrial house, where increasing building
technology and smart systems make the house and its inhabitants more and more
independent. As architects we need to keep up with these developments and help
shape them to increase the quality of our lives and our environment. Concept houses
play a crucial role in this development, since these technologies are initially expensive and we need to use them to understand them. But also the concept of ‘home’
needs to be questioned rigorously. If we observe the reality of house building as it
happens everyday, it seems, that we have never been as far away from a truly modern architecture as today. But maybe the house of the future is not evolving from the
mass market, but rather from a niche market, where it develops its identity and is
ready, when the generic perception of the house is changing as the way we view our
world is continuously changing.
3. References
[1] Willerding, Eugen. Die Gaia-Hypothese - Anhang zu einer Vorlesung Planetensysteme WS 2003, 2004, <www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~willerd/GAIA.pdf>.
[2] Fuller, R. Buckminster. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Simon & Schuster, 1969.
[3] Hoffman, Stephen J., and David L. Kaplan, eds. "Human Exploration of Mars:
The Reference Mission of the NASA Mars Exploration Study Team," (NASA Special Publication 6107). Houston, Tx: Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 1997.
[4] Reed, Ronald, and Gary Coulter. "Physiology of Spaceflight." In: Human Spaceflight: Mission Analysis and Design. Eds. Larson, Wiley J., and Linda K Pranke.
New York: McGraw-Hill & Co., 1999. pp. 103-132.
[5] http://advlifesupport.jsc.nasa.gov/lmlstp.html
[6] Vogler, Andreas, and Jørgensen, Jesper. “Windows to the world - Doors to
Space: A Reflection on the Psychology and Anthropology of Space Architecture”.
Space: Science, Technology and the Arts (7th Workshop on Space and the
Arts), Noordwijk, The Netherlands: ESA/ESTEC, 18-21 May 2004,
[7] Horden, Richard, "Light Tech - towards a light architecture", Ed.: Werner Blaser,
Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser Publisher, 1995
[8] Horden, Richard, "Architecture and Teaching", Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser
Publisher, 1999
[9] Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy. “Enormous Potential for Passive and Lowest-Energy Houses”, (Press Release 06/04). Freiburg: 2004.
[10] http://www.wolvertonenvironmental.com/air.htm, accessed May 23, 2005
[11] Adams, Constance, Ingvar Andersson, and John Feighery. "Water for Two
Worlds - Designing Terrestrial Applications for Exploration-class Sanitation Systems" Eds. Warrenburg, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, 2004.
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