Arch Tracker

The Fab Lab House, developed by the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), is a self-sufficient building that marks a new paradigm of energetic efficiency through its innovative hability to generate energy, food and utensils. The house produces three times more energy than it consumes, and thanks to its elevated structure –which naturally creates a patio/orchard/kitchen space underneath to provide for food. Also, it incorporates state-of-the-art machinery which can build tools and everyday objects by using the very same parametrical designs used in the general design of the space. More info and pictures after the break.

The house has been designed by architects of over twenty different countries and developed by the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), The Center for Bits and Atoms of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the world network of Fab Labs, along with an important group of private firms. According to Vicente Guallart, Director of the IAAC, “the form of the house responds to its energy production potential. While in the 20th century form followed function, in the 21st century, form will follow energy. Buildings must be like trees, which are self sufficient, and must follow natural principles. Rather than built, the project was manufactured, as digital manufacturing machine tools (known as 3D printers) were used in the construction process. This process partakes on the humanistic idea, advocated by Guallart, that things must be again produced in cities. Says Guallart “We produced our solar house with researchers, in accordance with medieval principles: the designer and the builder are the same person.”

The Fab Lab House is not only a piece of social and technical engineering but also a design in full coherence to its immediate environment. The design is conceived to create a flexible structure which adapts to the climate of its location and is both visually and environmentally respectful towards its sorroundings. It makes the most out of solar rays and natural drafts, and cuts therefore with the need for artificial heating or AC.

A prototype of the Fab Lab House was exhibited recently at the Solar Decathlon Europe Contest held in Madrid last month, and over 20.000 people visited it. The house was awarded the Public’s Choice Award at said contest, which showcases cutting edge sustainable architecture. The house is currently on the market, and its prize starts at 45.000 € for the smallest version.

INTRODUCTION

The Fab Lab, a workshop on small scale but with the infrastructure and tools to make everything. Although unable to compete with large scale production and distribution, it allows a certain freedom and creativity that large production systems and their business interests do not allow. Thus, they are able to adapt to local needs or more individual intentions, resulting in more advanced solutions.

Each of the Fab Labs’, distributed worldwide, specializes in the design and manufacture of a range of components ( “from bits to territories”) Thus, the design process may be distributed, by sharing knowledge between different locations, scales and technological fields. At the same time, thanks to common protocols across this network of laboratories that speak same language have the same software and the same basic machinery, the prototype can be built anywhere in the world locally, reducing costs and adapting to the various materials or technological conditions. The local and global thus work together to form a network structure.

On the one hand, this model is capable of bringing within direct reach to the individual, custom manufacturing. The power of output reaches the user, thus reducing intermediaries such as transportation of raw materials. Therefore saving energy and, in turn, facilitates the adaptation of the object to actual needs. This individual adaptation is a key to sustainability. The use of standard materials and techniques, closer to the raw material and craftsmanship, gives us a greater accuracy of response.

STRATEGY

PRODUCTION METHODOLOGY
The Solar House is a new generation FabLab home whose goal is to not industrialize but allow any person to manufacture anywhere in the world, from the platform of Fab Labs, or fabrication laboratories.

The production methodology of the house is founded in a structure fabricated from common materials sourced globally (plywood panels, etc.), and in the use of locally found machinery (laser cutting and/or milling machine). It is definitely a very affordable housing solution, designed with a combination of simple construction, geometric sophistica tion and technological wealth, both in its creation as an energy system as well as in the active and passive management of the house.

MATERIAL SELECTION
The selection of wood, not steel, as the basic structural material is deduced from two lines of thought, the first being that a solar house must be reduced from a solar material and the second that the choice of wood leads to structural elements and components which are small, light and manageable. Thus material, scale of building elements and level of technology used will be selected not for their excellence and functional optimi zation, but also by its availability and ease of use and maintenance.

CONSTRUCTION AND ASSEMBLY
We propose a pre-fabricated wooden construction in which all its structural components are laser cut from a 1220x1440mm plywood sheet. These components are then assembled and transported in transversal ring sections to site. Upon arrival to site, each section is then lifted and fixed into place.

TECHNOLOGICAL EFFICIENCY
Through the utilisation of a global network of production laboratories (FabLab’s), we begin to promote the idea of using the Internet to make things. The computer, attached to a laser cutter allows you to print a chair, for example, with a wood-cutting machine and then assemble it. The prototype reduces energy expenditure by 25%, It is through the use of such passive techniques that we aim to use technology, of fabrication and within installed components (i.e. solar panels), efficiently. We propose to measure this efficiency by the relationship between price, availability, complexity / opacity of technology, usability, ease of assembly, maintenance and how malleable it is to the design process.

DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE
Faced with the typical house model of a “box construction” made up of standard industrialized components, we chose to build a clever house with systemic logic components, rising into what we call a distributed intelligence. This means that each component of the prototype contains the same level of technology, energy, structural, etc… With this we say that the logic of all is found in each of the parts, and not vice versa.

That is, distributed intelligence can be understood as the development in fusion research systems and materials, implying a change of procedures, multi functionality in the construction field. Opening the possiblities of digital parametric design from the traditional assembly of standardized industrial components of the home-computer.

Understanding the process from its base, instead of relying on market products, the IAAC is working with MIT to develop devices that allow us to merge building systems, the creation of an intelligent infrastructure, ‘Internet 0’. A single component which can manage complex insulation, ventilation, water collection and yet, through their assembly and structure, enclose a space. This brings us to the concept of skin as a tissue- complex, adaptable and multifunctional. The skin initiates dynamic responses to external variables through simple sensors, mechanisms and programs integrated onto an open hardware platform based on simple inputs and outputs and not have to go through the typical, expensive home automation protocols.

This is the first house to be digitally created that can be manufactured anywhere in the world, through the network of Fab Labs that are in the Americas, South Africa, India, Netherlands, Norway and Spain. Although this prototype has cost more, once the exclusivity is taken away, costs will be lower. The Solar House can comfortably accomodate a family of 4 within 75 m2 and this makes it possible to fabricate and build the entire dwelling under fifteen days. The Solar House’s aim is to reduce the projected cost ,with further development, to make it more market viable.

The IAAC has considered the project from the viewpoint of material efficiency, customization and cost reduction, proposing a customizable home that is very affordable, to the extent it will also reduce overall production costs.

DESIGN STRATEGY
PROTOTYPE MODELS

INITIAL CONCEPTS
The following proposals explore both the various design resources within the principles and concepts presented in the original proposal.

INTELLIGENT COMPONENTS
The notion of a component as the basic unit of the project, scale and production. With the generation of a distributed system component interrelated. Within this concept explores several possible formalizations.

ARCHITECTURE
The prototype is out of context and can be manufactured in vari- ous materials. All proposals are high, trying to generate two main spaces, one linked to the ground, more natural, climatic systems complementary to the high proportion who generate domestic space.

GEOMETRY
A standard paraboloid section is positioned for suitable solar tracking (per year per day), and deformed in appropriate steps aimed towards an optimal orientation for summer (narrowing to the west, eastward widening and flattening toward the zenith of 70 degrees) . The freedom we get from the paraboloid prototype model allows us to swiftly and smoothly adapt the prototype’s envelope to strategic solicitations we want to impose.

SPATIAL
The Solar FabLab house not only has a rounded shape that allows for maximum internal volume with minimal exterior surface but is elevated off the ground upon three ‘legs’, in order to create a space under the house for the development of certain outdoor activities. Using the shade of the house itself to create a space through which cooled air can be introduced into the home when required for natural ventilation. This simultaneously creates a comfortable outdoor space, doubling the living area. These three ‘legs’ are not only structural but are also specialization points for programs and technical equipment for ground level access.

Readers who viewed this page, also viewed:

Deja un comentario