MODULES + HYBRIDS IN BEGINNING DESIGN

Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake assert that the design and fabrication technique of the module is poised to usher in a more qualitative and sustainable architectural future. The module, which can be found in many contexts including nature and has been ap-propriated by the design professions, is a ripe specimen for changing the ways in which architects design and make architecture. As supported in their book “Refabricating Architecture” 1, the module is a strategy employed throughout the shipbuilding, aircraft and auto-mobile industries. This use of a module has, for those industries, allowed for a highly coordinated and better fabricated product without sacrificing design integrity. The use of a module has produced results including more efficient use of labor and compressed time frames through simultaneous fabrication. Additionally, because of the ability to create a more focused and specialized subassembly process, quality control and coordination are far better than was previously achieved through the assembly line.

The module as a unit of measurement is currently found throughout architecture in the form of sheet goods and standard building units (plywood, wood framing, masonry units, etc.). At present though, the use of a module it is limited primarily to material manufacturers as a way to package and deliver materials rather than a technique in the hands of the architect. While some architects are exploring this strategy, they are doing so on the fringe of professional practice and are seen as an anomaly.

Additionally, Tom Wiscombe argues that the development of hybrid systems is also poised to have a significant impact in the future of architectural design. Instead of a technique of collage where systems such as structure, ventilation, and skin are loosely integrated and find themselves relating only through juxtaposed location, hybrids find commonalities and overlaps increasing the efficiency, perfor-mance, and coordination within a system. Wiscombe addresses this relative to skin and structure stating “the stable, dogmatic relation of frame to skin in architecture dissolves into a complex dynamic in which skins sometimes become structural and frames sometimes delaminate from skins.” 2

In addition to positioning the module and hybrid systems within the history of architectural innovation through the works of architects such as Buckminster Fuller, Archigram, Kisho Kurokawa, Tom Wiscombe, and Iwomoto Scott, this paper will champion the use of the modulated and hybrid techniques in beginning design as a systemic approach to the design of architectonic form and space. Through the use of student projects incorporating these strategies, this paper will interrogate their ability to create a thought process in the stu-dent that encourages an awareness of the potential that the module and materiality have to increase the performative aspects of their designs. At the beginning level, this may be limited to a form that simultaneously overlaps the needs of structure, surface, aperture, but later may lead to the design of a hybrid system which synergizes systems of structure, skin, ventilation, and lighting for example.

1. Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake, Refrabricating Architecture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004).2. Tom Wiscombe “Beam-branes, Surface-to-strand Hybrids, and Hydronic Armatures” (http://www.emergentarchitecture.com/) accessed 21 October 2011.