Pre-Fabricated Regionalism
With phrases like "of the place" and "reacting to the surroundings" used often to describe critical regionalism, it got me thinking about its relationship to a process that is specifically Not "of the place, prefabrication. Designing something for the moderate-mass production of fabrication warehouses to be shipped to the construction site may not intuitively sound like a very regional thing to do, but I think it can leverage regional concerns other than just the proximity of construction. Response to the environmental conditions, using traditional spatial layouts to maximize conditions, etc. can still be utilized in pre-fabricated modules. Then the moniker of critical regionalism relies on the knowledge and planning of the architect, and not simply a reliance on using local materials. Although they may seem opposed to each other, I think critical regionalism and pre-fabrication may share the same goal of higher performance and efficiency.
KieranTimberlake's "Cellophane House" (Pre-Fabrication)
Auburn's Rural Studio (Critical Regionalism)
Good point! I hadn't thought about it that way but it makes sense. If we were to design for a region with local materials but make it environmentally conscious from its conception to its end through pre-fab seems to me that it fits within critical regionalism. Even in our reading, Tzonis and Lefaivre define it as "Defamiliarization is the at the heart of what distinguishes critical regionalism from other forms of regionalism and its capability to create a renewed, versus an atavistic, sense of place in our time." So.. yeah! haha
ReplyDeleteInteresting take Russel! I think there is truth to this, however, I think there is a trade off...first, I appreciate that you believe an architect should/would/could have the knowledge to leverage a standard, 'out of context' technology to be optimized in a pre-fab design.
ReplyDeleteSecond, if an architect were to do this successfully, they themselves would have to be the 'local' in this equation. So where you may substitute one, you must replace it somewhere else in the equation. Basic algebra.
That argument may be null and void in years to come though, as it increasingly becomes easier to learn anything about everything on Google. But this is also where the danger lies. The question of authenticity then becomes part of the equation and adds a variable that wasn't covered in the Pythagorean theorem.
I think 'environmental conditions' is a key word here...pre-fabrication has become a way to be more efficient with materials and resources. If pre-fab responded more closely to the environmental conditions (perhaps a sole purpose) pre-fab might become completely reinvented.
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