Buckminster Fullers one piece Dymaxion Bathroom 1936

image from

I don't know for sure the dimensions of the bathroom but i think it is close to 2mx2m

from http://users.design.ucla.edu/~djvmc/24/bucky/bathroom.html

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth - read online

 Art Tattler has a good page on Bucky

image from http://www.salsburg.com/ 

Buckminster Fuller FAQ: Fuller's Ideas About Human Society:  Critical Path

 

flow kitchen by studio gorm 2008

complex pathways have been figured out an the resultant form is some what unimaginable.

Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

© Courtesy Buckminster Fuller Institute via olats.org

"Buckminster Fuller is best known for the invention of the geodesic dome –the lightest, strongest, and most cost-effective structure ever devised. The geodesic dome is a breakthrough in shelter, not only in cost-effectiveness, but in ease of construction. Today over 300,000 domes dot the globe. Plastic and fiberglass "radomes" house delicate radar equipment along the Arctic perimeter, and "radome" weather stations withstand winds up to 180 mph. Corrugated metal domes have given shelter to families in Africa, at a cost of $350 per dome. The U.S. Marine Corps hailed the geodesic dome as "the first basic improvement in mobile military shelter in 2,600 years". The world’s largest aluminum clear-span structure is a geodesic dome which houses the "Spruce Goose" at Long Beach Harbor. Fuller is most famous for his 20-story dome housing the U.S. Pavilion at Montreal’s Expo ’67. Later, he documented the feasibility of a dome two miles in diameter that would enclose mid-town Manhattan in a temperature-controlled environment, and pay for itself within ten years from the savings of snow-removal costs."
quoted from olats.org - Pionniers & Précurseurs - BUCKMINSTER FULLER - BIOGRAPHY

Le Corbusier (1887–1965)

Image from Le Corbusier's "Le Modular"

Many architects and entrepreneurs explored prefabrication at varying scale of componentry and achieved varying degrees of success.
Le Corbusier proclaims, in Towards a New Architecture

“We must create a mass-production spirit.
The spirit of constructing mass-production houses.
The spirit of living in mass-production houses.
The spirit of conceiving mass-production houses.
If we eliminate from our hearts and minds all dead concepts in regards to the house, and look at the question from a critical and objective point of view, we shall arrive at the “House-Machine,””. (Le Corbusier 1931)

Frank Lloyd Wright : American System-Built Houses

Images from MOMA new york - THE COLLECTION

From 1911-1917 Frank Lloyd Wright with a building company worked up "American System-Built Houses" reported to have done over 900 the "system built housing array" was never constructed.

"Wright explicitly indicated that it was the elements that where prefabricated no the overall forms."

A collection of components; walls, floors, doors, windows and staircases etc. could be used as a tool kit for the architect, or more interestingly as a catalogue/menu of options for the client.

From limitations to mass customisation.

Text references from "Home Delivery" exhibition book MOMA NY 2008

Moshe Safdie - Habitat 1967 - Montreal

source: http://www.space1999.net/~sorellarium13/habitat-67.htm

Moshe Safdie's Habitat 67 appears as a growing structure, but like the capsule tower is suspended in time.
A static form only evoking metabolist ideas of endless change.

Box on Box : Harbo building system 002

002- Vertical linear extend-ability

A simple system allowing the building to grow vertically by stacking identical components.
Continuation of the circulation is fundamental. Visible here in the external staircases. Internally similar extend-able paths could be made for plumbing and electrical connections.

Skeleton & Tissue : Harbo building system 001

My aim is to create a system of building where the users can tailor their buildings as they wish, based on a catalog of interchangeable prefabricated components.

This model represents a concept of building with two elements. Core and customisable space. The core I have labeled 'skeleton' and the customisable space 'tissue'.
The skeleton supply's vertical human movement, circulation of services and a permanent primary structure. The more temporary, tissue spaces customised by their users are supported by the skeleton.
The skeleton spaces connect to functions such as kitchens and bathrooms requiring integral service connections. Other interchangeable programs find themselves in the tissue space. Bedrooms, living rooms and even balconies can be added, subtracted and swapped from a catalog of prefabricated components depending on the users desires.

Read more >> Options >>

Re-Growth Pod by 1:1 Architects, Melbourne

Re-Growth Pod by 1:1 Architects, Melbourne

A starting point for Victorians who's homes where destroyed by the bushfires. A kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. It's a prefabricated, transportable, instantly usable piece of architecture providing the services for human life.

The pod is designed to be built around, this relates it to the Kurokawa's Capsule Tower. A Metabolist building, capable of change and an expression of its inhabitants, The Individual.
The re-growth pod would be the central core to compare it to the Capsule Tower further. The growth/construction around it would then be the "customisable" capsules of the tower.

Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972

This 37 year old metabolist residential and commercial structure has been sentenced to demolition by its residents. Unhappy with the asbestos, earthquake resilience and general ware of the building the residents are living in capsules 12 years over their 25 year design life. The service core however is designed to last 100 years allowing the living capsules to be replaced.


There are two major shortcomings in this building.

1- The capsules are attached in such a way that to remove/replace any capsule the capsule above must also be removed.
Capsules should be individulay replacable, the control of the individulal, not a beurocratic gridlock.

2- There is no way for an individual owner to purchase a new capsule.
There should be a capsule market, manufacturers promoting capsules with various different layouts and functions. This would allow individuals, who are the focus in the metabolism movement, to customise their space and express themselves.

An analysis I did of the building in semester 1 of 5th year.

winning tender

Design proposal by UrbanConstruct who are currently doing the Balfour's site. I assume the towers in this plan will be very similar to the one with the 2 big yellow columns going upon the Balfour's site now. Large cube of office space on the bottom and a cross shape apartment arrangement, with smaller floor area but larger perimeter for views, ventilation and sunlight above.

The Site : Old bus terminal Adelaide

111 Franklin/Grote Street. Adelaide city center; neighboring the Bus terminal (270,000 passengers/year*), Chinatown, the central markets, pubs, restaurants and backpack hostels.
In line with the beach, the airport, the interstate train terminal and a pedestrian linkage between the train station and the central market.

site marked as proposed by council
from google earth

View Larger Map


* - Adelaide City Council Registration of Interest Information Memorandum for the site