ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 520
The demand for housing and environmental issues
The house, considered as a primary asset, closely linked to issues of urban renewal, energy saving
and economic and environmental sustainability, raises today increasingly complex questions related to changes in lifestyle and composition of family units. Italy, in comparison to other European and non-European countries, has fallen behind in providing adequate response to housing demands, that are increasingly influenced by phenomena associated with immigration and growing
low-income social groups who are unable to access the free housing market. A contribution to
improving this situation can be offered by the use of advanced pre-fabrication processes in the
housing sector. Recent international experiences (see for example the exhibitions held in 2008
“Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling” at the MOMA in New York and “Housing for all.
Inhabiting the global city” at the Triennale in Milan), combined with recurring annual events and
numerous publications on the subject, have indeed made prefabrication in building and experimental results in the field the center of interest for the housing industry.
The reasons for this renewed attention to mass production in housing seem to depend not only
on economic grounds and reduced construction time but, more particularly, on environmental
pressures and production efficiency, which, thanks to new digital tools, encourage industrial approaches borrowed from other production sectors. The PLM (Product Life Cycle Management)
software, for example, by providing a collaborative environment between various interdisciplinary teams (structural, engineering, electrical analysis etc.), make it possible to conduct and evaluate simulations to support development of both product and process before construction is
initiated (KIERAN, TIMBERLAKE 2004). In addition, in factories, production reduces waste of raw
materials because it is possible to plan exactly how much material is needed, while recycling is
easier than on construction sites and the constant effort to improve the quality of components
guarantees the building’s performance from the point of view of statics and energy. Finally, producing a building in a factory and then assembling it on site in a short period of time reduces the
impact of building yards, and the well known risks related to noise and environmental pollution
and hazardous construction machinery (GERSHENFELD 2007:109).
The advantages of prefabrication and mass production
Since ancient times mankind has been engaged in the transformation of the living environment,
striving to organize and streamline the operations necessary for realizing this objective. The use
of the module goes back to the very origins of architecture (MANDOLESI 1978:199-216). The module concept has multiple implications: a unit of measure to rationalize and compare design items;
a repeatable element which facilitates the product‘s construction; a spatial and aesthetic control
system in accordance with a logic of proportions and harmony of all building parts (Leon Battista
Alberti, De re aedificatoria). It is with the advent of industrialization in the construction industry, between the late XIX and the early XX century that the concept of module, associated with
prefabrication and mass production of building components, assumed a technical connotation
related to the idea of system.
The idea of buildings as systems, composed of parts, completed by assembling the mass produced elements in a factory, with considerable savings in time and construction costs, represents
the basis for experimentation on housing as an industrial product; experimentation that started
with Le Corbusier, Gropius (GROPIUS 2004) and other masters of the Modern Movement, continued with research developed by American housing builders, the utopian experiments of Buckminster Fuller, the mass housing designed by Jean Prouvé (PROUVÉ 1971), and housing modules
designed to also reduce energy consumption, proposed by Richard Rogers in the Seventies, all
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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy