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_id	cf2011_p127
id	cf2011_p127
authors	Benros, Deborah; Granadeiro Vasco, Duarte Jose, Knight Terry
year	2011
title	Integrated Design and Building System for the Provision of Customized Housing: the Case of Post-Earthquake Haiti
source	Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures 2011 [Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures / ISBN 9782874561429] Liege (Belgium) 4-8 July 2011, pp. 247-264.
summary	The paper proposes integrated design and building systems for the provision of sustainable customized housing. It advances previous work by applying a methodology to generate these systems from vernacular precedents. The methodology is based on the use of shape grammars to derive and encode a contemporary system from the precedents. The combined set of rules can be applied to generate housing solutions tailored to specific user and site contexts. The provision of housing to shelter the population affected by the 2010 Haiti earthquake illustrates the application of the methodology. A computer implementation is currently under development in C# using the BIM platform provided by Revit. The world experiences a sharp increase in population and a strong urbanization process. These phenomena call for the development of effective means to solve the resulting housing deficit. The response of the informal sector to the problem, which relies mainly on handcrafted processes, has resulted in an increase of urban slums in many of the big cities, which lack sanitary and spatial conditions. The formal sector has produced monotonous environments based on the idea of mass production that one size fits all, which fails to meet individual and cultural needs. We propose an alternative approach in which mass customization is used to produce planed environments that possess qualities found in historical settlements. Mass customization, a new paradigm emerging due to the technological developments of the last decades, combines the economy of scale of mass production and the aesthetics and functional qualities of customization. Mass customization of housing is defined as the provision of houses that respond to the context in which they are built. The conceptual model for the mass customization of housing used departs from the idea of a housing type, which is the combined result of three systems (Habraken, 1988) -- spatial, building system, and stylistic -- and it includes a design system, a production system, and a computer system (Duarte, 2001). In previous work, this conceptual model was tested by developing a computer system for existing design and building systems (Benr__s and Duarte, 2009). The current work advances it by developing new and original design, building, and computer systems for a particular context. The urgent need to build fast in the aftermath of catastrophes quite often overrides any cultural concerns. As a result, the shelters provided in such circumstances are indistinct and impersonal. However, taking individual and cultural aspects into account might lead to a better identification of the population with their new environment, thereby minimizing the rupture caused in their lives. As the methodology to develop new housing systems is based on the idea of architectural precedents, choosing existing vernacular housing as a precedent permits the incorporation of cultural aspects and facilitates an identification of people with the new housing. In the Haiti case study, we chose as a precedent a housetype called ‚Äúgingerbread houses‚Äù, which includes a wide range of houses from wealthy to very humble ones. Although the proposed design system was inspired by these houses, it was decided to adopt a contemporary take. The methodology to devise the new type was based on two ideas: precedents and transformations in design. In architecture, the use of precedents provides designers with typical solutions for particular problems and it constitutes a departing point for a new design. In our case, the precedent is an existing housetype. It has been shown (Duarte, 2001) that a particular housetype can be encoded by a shape grammar (Stiny, 1980) forming a design system. Studies in shape grammars have shown that the evolution of one style into another can be described as the transformation of one shape grammar into another (Knight, 1994). The used methodology departs takes off from these ideas and it comprises the following steps (Duarte, 2008): (1) Selection of precedents, (2) Derivation of an archetype; (3) Listing of rules; (4) Derivation of designs; (5) Cataloguing of solutions; (6) Derivation of tailored solution.
keywords	Mass customization, Housing, Building system, Sustainable construction, Life cycle energy consumption, Shape grammar
series	CAAD Futures
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last changed	2012/02/11 19:21

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