Transportable Environments

Theory, Context, Design and Technology

Papers from the International Conference on Portable Architecture London 1997

Edited by Robert Kronenburg

E & FN SPON
An Imprint of Routledge

London and New York

First published 1998
by E & FN Spon, an imprint of Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1998 collection, Robert Kronenburg; individual papers, the contributors

Book design by
Timothy Davies and Robert Kronenburg

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0 419 24250 3 (Print Edition)

ISBN 0-203-02385-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-03907-6 (Glassbook Format)
Contents

Acknowledgements v
Foreword by Cedric Price vii
Introduction by Robert Kronenburg 1

Theory
Body World and Time: Meaningfulness in Portability 8
Rumiko Handa, University of Nebraska, Lincoln USA
Following the Trace—Spirits in the Landscape 19
Ada Kwiatkowska, Technical University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland
Constructing the Ephemeral:The Notions of Binding and Portability in Japanese Architecture 31
Vladimir Krstic, Kansas State University, Kansas, USA
The Suitcase: (Postcards and Paraphernalia) Redefining the Space of Tourism and Travel 37
Christopher M.King, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

Context
From Learned Pigs to the Burning Man: Itinerant Amusement in America 47
Nicholas Tobier, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, USA
Fullers DDU Project (1941–44) Instrument, Art or Architecture?
(Heroic design versus ad hoc pragmatism) 59
Yunn Chii Wong, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Gimme Shelter: Short-term Solutions for a Long-term Problem:
Temporary Housing for No-Income and Low-Income People 69
Sigrun Prahl, Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany
Kyoto Machiya: Ideas of Spatial Layering, Ritual Disclosure and Portability
in the Form of Japanese Traditional City Dwelling 75
Marina Pecar, Kansas State University, Kansas, USA
Shelter not Homes—Appropriate Emergency Relief 83
Gordon Brown, Southampton Institute, Southampton, UK

iii
 Design
Micro Architecture in Education 90
Andreas Vogler, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
The Principle and the Commercial Reality of Portable Architecture: A Manufacturer’s View 95
Nicholas Whitehouse, Terrapin International Limited, Milton Keynes, UK
The Service, Form and Function of Relocatable Structures: A Constructor’s view 101
Nigel Brown and Adrian Billingsley, Pagoda/Nomad Group, Gloucestershire, UK
Softdwelling: A Programme for Living and Working 105
David Clews and Rex Henry, University of North London, London, UK
Standardisation in Portable Architecture 115
Alan J.Brookes, Brookes Stacey Randall Architects, London, UK
A Structure, a Village, an Exploration 120
Linda Nelson Johnson, Arizona State University, Arizona, USA
Sustainable Portable Housing, Cave Cay, Bahamas 126
Huy Ngo, Glenn Hill, David Driskill and Joe Aranha, Texas Tech University, Texas, USA
Wearable Environments 133
Marie-Paule Macdonald, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Whaur Extremes Meet The Story of a Line 146
Gavin T.Renwick, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
Wendy Gunn, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Technology
The Development of a Lightweight Military Structure 158
Neil Burford, Daniel Fish and Fraser Smith, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, UK
An Expandable and Contractable House 165
L.Jankovic, University of Central England, Birmingham, UK
Implementing Portable Architecture 169
Mieke Oostra, Technical University of Delft, Delft, Netherlands
Lightweight Prefabricated and Precast Construction for Remote Building Applications in Australia 177
David Morris, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Austalia
Steel-Frame Modular Building Comes of Age 185
Keith Blanshard, Managing Director of Yorkon Ltd., York, UK
Possibilities for the Development of Building with Pre-assembled Portable Components
in the Developing World 190
Antônio Jucá-Filho, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil
Sustainable Transportable Classrooms 195
Glenn. Hill, Huy Ngo and David Driskill, Texas Tech University, Texas, USA

Endword: 201
Extracts from the closing plenary session of the Portable Architecture Conference and Symposium

List of Delegates 203

Selected Bibliography 208
Index 214

iv
Acknowledgements

In 1995, I first put together a proposal for a three year
programme of research into the topic of portable
architecture, included in which was the Portable
Architecture conference, the proceedings of which
form the basis for this book. From the beginning this
work has been supported financially by the Building
Centre Trust, London. The publications, exhibitions,
conference and this book would not have been
possible without their support and advice. In
particular I would like to thank Mr Andrew Scoones,
manager of the trust, for his particular interest and
involvement. The University of Liverpool has
provided the administrative base for the Portable
Building Research Unit throughout this period. I
would like to thank Professor David Dunster, Roscoe
Chair and Head of the School of Architecture and
Building Engineering, for his continuous support for
the project and Matt Greavey and Tim Davies who
worked with the unit during the crucial preparation
period for the exhibitions and conference, always
with unstinting enthusiasm and skill. The Building
Centre, London, and the Royal Institute of British
Architects Architecture Centre provided the
conference venues. The distinguished conference
guests who communicated freely their knowledge
and experience in the field provided valuable
inspiration not only for the creation of the events but
also for much of their content. Finally, this publication
would not be possible without the contributions of
the delegates, both those whose work is included in
this book, and those who came to listen and
contribute to the debate.
Robert Kronenburg
University of Liverpool, School of Architecture and
Building Engineering, July 1998

Illustration Credits
The editor, authors and publisher would like to thank those who have kindly permitted the use of images in the illustration
of this book. Attempts have been made to locate all the sources of illustrations to obtain full reproduction rights, but in the
very few instances where this process has failed to find the copyright holder, apologies are offered.

All material is courtesy of the essay authors unless otherwise stated: p.13, Shinkenchiku-sha; p.14, p.15, courtesy of the
University Archives/Special Collection, University of Nebraska Libraries; p.39 (bottom) reproduced with permission from
RIBA Journals Ltd who hold copyright of the article and any accompanying illustrations; p.40, Zero Halliburton; p.41, David
Lurie and Krzysztof Wodiczko; p.46, courtesy of the Bread and Butter Puppet Theater, Glover, Vt., photograph Paul Petroff;
p.54, courtesy of the Bread and Butter Puppet Theater, Glover, Vt., photograph Ron Simon; p.58, 59, 63, 64, copyright 1960
Estate of Buckminster Fuller, courtesy, Buckminster Fuller Institute, Santa Barbara, California, USA; p.68, Ted Bakewell III
and Mike Jantzen, courtesy of Progressive Architecture; p.115, John Gloag; p.116, p.134, NASA; p.118, photograph Putler/
Armiger; p.137, Kanangina, West Baffin Eskimo Co-op Ltd.; p.142, Steve Topping; p.144, Norman Richards and Dogbite;
p.182, 183 (bottom) Troppo Architects Pty. Ltd.; p.183 (top), Paul Pholeros; p.185, Portakabin UK; p.200. Robert Kronenburg;
cover image; The Communicator by Apicella Associates, photograph by Robert Kronenburg.

Dr Robert Kronenburg is an architect and senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool, School of Architecture and Building
Engineering and is principal investigator of the Portable Buildings Research Unit there. He is a past Fulbright fellow and his
research work has been supported by the Graham Foundation and St. John’s College, Oxford. His published work includes
several books on portable architecture, a monograph on the work of US architects FTL Happold, and contributions to the
World Encyclopeadia of Vernacular Architecture.

v
 ‘An Experiment in Freedom’ project 1969 © Cedric Price

vi
Foreword
Cedric Price
The title of this book, Transportable Environments, is
the key—the key to the future.
Movement is implicit, together with change, of the
surrounding conditions existing at the time.The speed
of a total ‘life-span’ can be quantified in relation to
time—the essential equation is then complete. The
fourth dimension of artifactual design is introduced—
together with the condition of movement, and the
occasion and occurrence of its start and finish. All
details to describe the design and method of such
movement, its sources, reinforcement, distortion,
need and aging—the ‘life-span’ — can be determined.
The establishment of the validity of the resulting
design follows. The required technology will either
be individually searched for or invented. Variations
in speed, frequency, and interval will vary, as will
the reason for the design’s need—hardship,
shor tage, curiosity, convenience or delight—
already established to the satisfaction of the
individual designer.
For example, the pre-boxed folding bicycle exhibits a
variety of transportation needs in both time and place,
while its convenience is in its operation in relation to
its environment. In relation to its design development
the time worth measuring at varying but appropriate
intervals is constantly changing. Other factors—
whether the weight of the human body for stability and
traction, or the aptness of the use of a particular alloy,
or the employment of one of the oldest inflatable
components, the tyre, will be a matter for continuous
design judgment.
Now read on, considering the implications of the
opportunities, the magic for the future, and the value
of rejection and redesign—in time.
Cedric PriceLondon, 1998
vii
‘Spontaneous Construction’ travelling exhibition, 1997. Exhibtion curated by Robert Kronenburg, exhibition design by
Robert Kronenburg, Matt Greavey and Tim Davies, exhibition canopy by the Pagoda Group.
Introduction
Robert Kronenburg
Of all the objects made by humankind, buildings are
amongst the heaviest and most enduring. They shape
and inform not only our urban and rural landscape,
but also our history and sense of ourselves. However,
the problems inherent in a static and inflexible
approach to the creation of buildings and spaces are
becoming increasingly apparent.1 In a society that is
making more stringent demands on the physical
environment and where the surrounding economic,
social and cultural climate is in a state of constant and
dramatic flux, a form of architecture that can respond
to change and that is sensitive to widely differing
needs is required. A more intensive search for viable
alternatives to meet the basic requirements for shelter
and comfort could help with the search not only for
more efficient and appropriate modes of habitation
for work and rest, but also for more sensitive ways of
defining our human condition and the space in which
we live.
The built environment is commonly perceived as a
relatively static entity, change occurring slowly over
years, decades and lifetimes, nevertheless; easily
movable buildings were amongst the earliest artifacts
made by human beings and some of these traditional
architectural patterns have not only existed more or
less unchanged for millennia but are the inspiration
from which the permanent building forms of today have
arisen. Despite this, the contemporary perception of
the portable building is of a low-quality tool, cheap
and disposable. However, temporary in siting does
not necessarily mean temporary in existence and it is
their ability to move that make such buildings reusable
and recyclable.
Many methods of transport contain living and working
facilities which mean that they are also permanent
dwelling and work places capable of movement in
space and time.The essence of movement is freedom
and the technological challenges that accompany its
exploration naturally lead away from the stiff, static
approach found in much conventional building design.
Transportable buildings take hours, days or minutes
to erect. As with vehicles, arrival and departure are
integral to their character, as are the qualities of power,
vitality and excitement. The environments such
structures create therefore possess a unique quality
associated with event and memory that static
architecture can never match.
A transportable ‘building’ in its simplest terms is a
building that moves. Transportable ‘architecture’
implies that it does much more—it possesses all the
capabilities that permanent architecture has to create
meaningful, identifiable, recognisable environments
that enable human beings to come to terms with their
physical existence and the relationships that they ‘Spontaneous Constructison’ at the Building Centre,London
have with the man-made and the natural world. With
such transient environments this may only happen
for a year, or a day, or an hour; however, this makes
them no less meaningful to the individual, and their
impact no less powerful. If these benefits can be
achieved with structures that use fewer resources,
have a low environmental impact, and are recyclable,
it is clear that they have a potential that should be
explored and developed.
Transportable buildings can fulfil the role of almost
any permanent building but they can also satisfy
1
Robert Kronenburg

‘Portable Architecture’ exhibition RIBA Architecture Centre, London, 1997. Exhibition curated by Robert Kronenburg and the
RIBA Architecture Centre, exhibition design by Urban Salon, graphic design by Studio Myerscough.

2

functions that permanently sited structures cannot—
they can be in use quickly, on sites not suitable for
conventional construction, and can be capable of
reuse at a later date in another place. Buildings that
have low and temporary environmental impact, that
make more efficient use of materials and can respond
to complex requirements at remote and difficult sites
are particularly relevant in an industry that is
becoming increasingly aware of its environmental
responsibilities. Many of the most ambitious portable
buildings have resulted from the need to solve a
difficult logistical architectural problem in a pragmatic
manner. Their implementation has led to appropriate
economic, ecological building provision strategies
designed to fulfil specific functions, when they are
required, where they are required. The discipline of
working within the confines of maximum performance
for minimum weight has led to some remarkably
refined solutions.
Transportable architecture is manifested in diverse
patterns, many of which are audacious in size,
ingenious in strategy and dramatic in form. It is found
in all fields of human activity—habitation, education,
entertainment, medicine, commerce, and industry. A
movable space can be made that responds to the
requirements of any human activity and there are
many examples in history that express this ability—
from circuses to concert auditoria, from police stations
to hospitals, from schools to banks, from factories to
laboratories, from swimming pools to ice-rinks.
Portable architecture is not just something for difficult
sites or special problems, it is a part of all architecture.
The increasing ambitions of clients and architects and
the building industry’s willingness to respond to these
demands have produced some recent dramatic
examples of transportable architecture.2 We are
consequently now able to reassess this design route
in the search for more sensitive and responsive
architectural forms tuned to the contemporary world’s
needs.
Introduction
Good portable architecture is based on the principles
of efficiency in form, light weight in materials, flexibility
in purpose—though its ephemeral nature means that
standard construction methods are not usually
suitable. This encourages innovative thought and,
regardless of budget, special care and attention given
to detail. Innovative designers perceive architecture
as work that cannot rely solely on precedent —not
without inspiration or influence from previous
experience—but as a completely contemporary
problem to be solved in a contemporary way.
Transportable structures are particularly suited to take
advantage of technology and techniques which are
otherwise used primarily outside the building industry
and exploit the potential of technological advances
in other fields—maritime, automotive, aviation, extra-
terrestrial. They explore the limits of architectural
design as their design is based on a new range of
environmental and technological issues that must still,
as always, take account of human sensibilities. These
innovations have the potential to be reinvested in the
conventional building industry which benefits from the
utilisation of new (or more efficient ways of using the
existing) materials and construction techniques.3
Non-permanence means that new forms of
architecture can be more acceptable to client and
legislative authorities and that society in general has
the opportunity to come to terms with the idea that
effective building solutions may come in unusual
packages. Transportable architecture, despite
making use of strategies that may have been tested
for centuries, can push back the boundaries of
architectural form by enabling contemporary
buildings to be erected where permanent buildings
would not normally be allowed.
Contemporary transportable architecture is not just
the province of professional designers or reserved
for use in conventional construction scenarios.
Nomadic people in the developed world utilise
unpredictable and unreliable resources to support Ski-haus in the RIBA courtyard, London, 1997
3
Robert Kronenburg
highly individual lifestyles. People make their homes
in movable dwellings that float on water or roll on
wheels and can be resituated as desire or necessity
requires. Though these people sometimes exist on
the fringes of society, they have created dwellings that
solve specific problems in alternative ways and
constitute important examples of a continuing
vernacular tradition.Transportable structures are often
associated with shelter after disaster situations;
however, their deployment may not always offer the
most effective solution.The design of many temporary
structures of this kind has been donor-led rather than
user-led and their provision has too often been
inappropriate and too late. In many disaster response
situations there are much higher priorities for the
victims and resources could be better spent in other
ways. The longer-term issue is to provide help with
the rebuilding of the disaster hit area, enabling
residents to stay close to their home and possessions
and begin rebuilding their lives, dwellings and
occupations.
The changing needs of society and our growing
awareness of the ecological impact of building means
that attitudes to the creation of the built environment
need to be reassessed. Structures and building
enclosures that have minimal impact on the
environment, that can respond and react to change,
are now more relevant than ever before. Transportable
architecture can function as well and often better than
static architecture and can provide adaptable high-
performance facilities quickly. It can be deployed at
remote and difficult locations, be recyclable and
efficient to manufacture and operate, and provide a
range of responses to sensitive and historic sites from
the minimal intervention to the highly provocative.
Perhaps more significantly these transient
environments can also define a sense of place and
significance of event in a unique way not possible in
any other manner. They challenge our preconceptions
of what a building can be, and provoke speculations
on what architecture can do. In a world that must come
4
to terms with dramatic sociological, economic and
cultural changes an architecture which has the ability
to respond to dynamic situations has a special
relevance that should not be ignored.
It is in this context that the first international conference
on portable architecture was held in London in 1997
with the objective of bringing together a wide range of
contributors from the design professions, the building
industry, client groups and the academic world. The
event was truly international with delegates attending
from Europe, Asia, North and South America,
Australasia, and the Far East. The conference was
arranged at a time when interest in the creation of
transportable buildings was greater than it had ever
been. In recent years, a number of projects have been
completed that are clear expressions of the potential
that lightweight, responsive, adaptable structures have
in solving difficult problems in a dramatically changing
world. Some of the most experienced designers in the
field were invited to make presentations on their work:
artist Maurice Agis’ inflatable Colourspace and
Dreamspace environments; Lorenzo Apicella’s mobile
pavilions for the Hong Kong Tourist Association and
the TSB bank; Mark Fisher’s touring rock stage sets;
Nicholas Goldsmith and Todd Dalland’s range of
mobile tensile membrane buildings; Richard Horden’s
Micro Architecture projects, Cedric Price’s Fun Palace;
and engineer Ian Liddell’s work on a wide range of
transportable structures.4 Architectural concepts that
were once just dreams have now become reality and
enlightened clients have been able to take advantage
of the new opportunities this reality affords.
The enormous response that surrounded the launch
of the Spontaneous Construction exhibition at the
Building Centre and the Portable Architecture
exhibition at the Royal Institute of British Architects
Architecture Centre was testimony to a new public
interest in innovative building strategies and a forecast
of a change in attitudes to what a building might be
expected to do. Portable buildings have ambi tious

design objectives that are not based on limitations but
on possibilities. Exploration of these possibilities was
what the conference was all about. The content and
scope of the papers was diverse, though many who
took part were surprised at a concurrence of ideas,
often reached in the context of widely differing
experiences. Topics ranged from the theoretical
aspects of human perception of transient space, as
seen from both a historical and contemporary
perspective, to the detailed pragmatic research
programme necessary to develop a working prototype
of a new constructional system— from the education-
based explorations of young designers to the
pragmatic issues that face commercial relocatable
building manufacturers in a competitive market.
Despite this diversity, it is clear that there are some
areas of this subject which are under-represented
within the content of these essays, however, it is not
the intention of this book to be a carefully selected
survey of the entire field— rather it is to indicate the
diverse furrows that must be ploughed in order to create
a field of knowledge from which a genuinely useful form
of innovative architecture can be nurtured.5
The original organisation of the conference papers
was divided into a range of eight clearly defined areas
that categorised the various topics. However, after
1 Some widely recognised symptoms are a general waste
of resources, both natural and man-made, rampant
environmental pollution, incapacity to provide adequate
shelter for all—even in the developed world.
2 A visitor to the Olympic Games at Atlanta in 1996 could not
only see the visions of an instant city realised, but also
experience a complete environment which will be
reconstituted in different locations around the world for years
to come.
3 The use of tensile membranes is the clearest example of a
transportable architecture whose value has been
Introduction
examining the contents of the essays it became clear
that many of the investigations, though exploring their
subject from differing standpoints, had much in
common. It therefore became apparent that a much
more simple and rational organisation would be to
place the essays into four simple categories: theory,
context, design and technology. This does not mean
that essays within these defined groups do not also
relate to others placed elsewhere—such was the
nature of the conference, and also the nature of the
subject of portable architecture that it is essentially
an area of crossed boundaries and interdisciplinary
activities. Similarly, the title of the conference, ‘Portable
Architecture’, did not seem truly to represent the scope
and content of the presentations which could not be
restricted within the limits of building design but
explored all aspects of manufactured space.
Consequently, the more appropriate title
Transportable Environments was chosen. This book
therefore contains many elements that are very close
to the central issues of this field of design both in its
The Rolling Stones’ inflatable, Angie, briefly sits on the roof of
organisation and content and it is a contemporary the RIBA Architecture Centre on the opening night of the
snapshot of an expanding, metamorphosing area of ‘Portable Architecture’ exhibition
architectural development which provides a
tantalising picture of a range of explorations,
experiments, and pragmatic ventures that are being
pursued around the world today.
recognised and transferred into permanent built form.
4 All these designers have completed many projects besides
those listed that explore the potential of transportable
environments. For detailed descriptions of some of their work
and references to other examples, see Robert Kronenburg,
Portable Architecture, Oxford, 1996.
5 For instance, extra-terrestrial work, traditional and
vernacular architecture, and sustainable architecture.
However, this material is available in other recent publications.
5
Theory

…location or position is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of place, even if it is a very
common condition. This is of considerable importance for it demonstrates that mobility or nomadism
do not preclude an attachment to place.
Edward Relph, Place and Placelessness, 1976

Suitcase 1: The Suitcase: Postcards and Paraphernalia: Redefining the Space of Tourism and Travel, Christopher King
 Body World and Time:
Meaningfulness in Portability
Rumiko Handa
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Introduction
Architectural scholars and professionals have long
recognized the erosion of culturally endowed
architectural meaning: technology transfer has
caused the relationship between form and its means,
so evidently reciprocal in indigenous construction, to
crumble.1 Natives and tourists alike now deprecate
traditional architecture while applauding the pseudo-
authentic. 2 If the irreversible universalization of
technology and of man constitutes ‘a sort of subtle
destruction, not only of traditional culture…but also
of what I shall call for the time being the creative
nucleus of great cultures, that nucleus on the basis of
which we interpret life’, is architecture doomed to lose
its meaningfulness?3
Portable architecture allows us to contemplate how
architecture may still be meaningful in the absence of
cultural imprimatur. It may be compared to the temporal
and spatial adaptation of a literary work, say, Macbeth
performed by Kabuki actors in London and Tokyo.
While translation and reinterpretation make the
original literary piece portable, architecture, in order
to make sense in a foreign land, needs to achieve
portability of meaning through use of its own elements,
such as color, form, and texture.
This paper will examine two portable theaters: Aldo
Rossi’s ‘Teatro del Mondo’ and Tadao Ando’s ‘Karaza’.
Wherever they are set, they succeed in being
meaningful architecture. Through their inherent
properties, pure to the point of abstraction and
8
rudiment, they ground themselves in the basic
references of humanity: body, world, and time.
An insistence on the rudiments is clear in Ando and
Rossi. Ando stated:
I believe three elements are necessary to
crystallize architecture. One is authentic
materials, or to put it another way, materials that
possess substantiality. The material can be, for
example, unadorned concrete or unpainted
wood. The second element is a pure geometry,
which provides the foundation or framework
that enables a work of architecture to have
presence. It might be a mass in the form of a
Platonic solid but more often is a three-
dimensional frame. The last element is ‘nature’.
By this I do not mean nature in the raw but
instead a—manmade nature—chaotic nature
that has been given order by man, or order
abstracted from nature. It is light, sky, and water
made abstract. When nature in such guise is
introduced into a building composed of
authentic materials and a pure geometry,
architecture itself is rendered abstract by nature.
Architecture acquires power and becomes
radiant only when materials, geometry and
nature are integrated.4
I will examine the discussions of architectural meaning
of the latter half of this century, influenced primarily by
the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure. The issues
raised, especially that of arbitrary versus natural, have
a significant bearing as to how much meaning of a

particular architecture is bound to a specific place. I will
then examine the notion of text, in the tradition of
hermeneutics and especially in the works of Paul
Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Their
understanding of textual interpretation opens up many
more possibilities than the application of linguistics to
architecture.There arises a possibility for appropriating
a piece of architecture at various locations, with such
an interpretation that is supported in a nonarbitrary
manner by its inherent properties as a text and can
stand a rigorous examination. To contrast with the
linguistically driven concept of meaning, I will propose
to consider meaningfulness in architecture. Finally, the
notion of culture will be redefined.This analysis will lead
to a conclusion that culture which assigns a meaning
to a form deserves less attention than culture that keeps
a form alive and inherited as meaningful.
Culturally endowed meaning of
architecture
In consideration of the culturally endowed meaning of
architecture on the one hand and meaningfulness of
portable architecture on the other, the first theoretical
question to be reviewed is of the relationship between
a form and its content. Form here addresses the
physical properties of architecture while content, or
meaning, should be considered the metaphysical
counterpart of a form. Some critics of architecture, such
as Umberto Eco, Charles Jencks, and Alan Colquhoun,
have argued that the meaning of an architectural form
is assigned in an arbitrary manner, with the relationship
being made possible solely by a societal agreement.
One recognizes a certain influence of the Swiss linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure. Toilet bowls used for cleaning
olives by the population in Southern Italy has become
a favourite example used to illuminate the arbitrary
nature of form-meaning relationships.5
Alan Colquhoun emphasizes the culturally endowed
arbitrary meaning of architecture over what he calls
the ‘expressive content’, in his assertion of typology
Transportable Environments: Theory
over the modern architectural theory. To argue against
the notion of the expressive content in a form,
Colquhoun refers to E.H.Gombrich, in particular to
‘Expression and Communication,’ in Meditations on
a Hobby Horse:6
Gombrich demonstrates that an arrangement
of forms such as is found in a painting by
Kandinsky is, in fact, very low in content, unless
we attribute to these forms some system of
conventional meanings not inherent in the
forms themselves. His thesis is that
physiognomic forms are ambiguous, though
not wholly without expressive value, and that
they can only be interpreted within a particular
cultural ambiance.7
The idea that a form has in its inherent properties very
little to generate a meaning, but a culture endows a
meaning to a form, is similar to the fundamental
argument Ferdinand de Saussure held concerning a
word and its meaning when he introduced his notion
of semiology in linguistics. Colquhoun states:
This attitude toward signification, though related
explicitly in some of Gombrich’s writings to
information theory, has a certain resemblance
to that of structural linguistics based on de
Saussure. According to de Saussure, the
linguistic sign is comprised of a signifier and a
signified, and while these are arbitrarily related,
they form an indissoluble unity.8
Saussure developed an argument that ‘the linguistic
sign is arbitrary’, in which sign is defined as the unity
between signified (a concept) on the one hand and
signifier (a sound-image) on the other.9 Saussure is
aware of possibilities of natural signs, and cites
pantomime as an example. However, he stresses the
arbitrariness by stating that the main concern of
semiology as a new science ‘will still be the whole
group of systems grounded on the arbitrariness of the
9
Rumiko Handa
sign’. Saussure stresses that any sign, or ‘every means
of expression’ for that matter, as long as it is ‘used in
society’, ‘is based, in principle, on collective behavior’
or ‘on convention’:10
The term [arbitrary] should not imply that the
choice of the signifier is left entirely to the
speaker (we shall see…that the individual does
not have the power to change a sign in any way
once it has become established in the linguistic
community).11
Saussure’s argument is buttressed by the refutations
he offers against the anticipated counter-arguments
concerning interjections and onomatopoeia.12
If we accept that a sign is arbitrary and that ‘every means
of expression used in society is based, in principle,
on collective behavior or on convention’, as Saussure
stresses, then we need to ask if architectural meaning
is also based on the assignment by the collective
behavior or on convention.13
Dialectically opposed, at least seemingly so, are those
who claim to have found certain inherent properties in
architectural forms the basis for their meanings.
Geoffrey Broadbent and others have argued for
architecture as iconic sign, while Juan Pablo Bonta
indicated that architecture is, at least to a certain extent,
‘systems of indication which need not be codified’.14
These studies are based on Peirce’s semiotics rather
than Saussure’s semiology. To compare with
Saussure’s, Peirce’s definition of sign covers many
more subject matters than words in a language, for,
according to Peirce, a sign is ‘something which stands
to somebody for something in some respect or
capacity’.15 As a result, Peirce gives the same degree
of attention to what Saussure would call natural or
motivated signs, which in Peirce’s terminology are
icons and indexes, as he does to symbols, or
Saussure’s arbitrary signs. 16 In comparison,
Saussure’s strong insistence in arbitrariness of sign is
10
at least justified when we recognize that his study is
focused strictly on languages as used, without attention
to the origin of word formation.
A careful examination of these studies reveals that
Saussurian architectural critics did not mean the two
positions to be exclusive. Even Jencks, a strong
believer in preponderance of arbitrary meaning in
architecture, did not ignore the peculiar nature of
architectural meaning: ‘In comparison with spoken
language, the architectural language is more
“motivated” and less “arbitrary” which is to say that it
has a higher ratio of indexical and iconic signs’.17
It is possible for a single piece of architecture to have
both aspects simultaneously, or the weight may shift
between the two in the course of time. However, when
presented in contrast, these two positions seem to
detach culturally granted architectural meaning from
portable architecture. For portability includes a move
from one culture to another. Portable architecture’s
meaning, then, may be limited to that which is iconic,
and arbitrary meaning will presumably be lost in the
course of a shift to another culture.
Saussure’s exclusion of, or disinterest in the making
of a word when he rejected onomatopoeia and
interjections as natural signs, and insisted the focus
of attention be on the usage of a word is a crucial flaw,
at least from an architectural point of view. The
understanding of arbitrariness in word-meaning
relationships in linguistics, when applied
simplistically, gives too much authority to the culture
as a meaning giver to an architectural form, while
regarding form as having very little to do with the
meaning in itself. Under this assumption, the meaning
of architecture is fixed, and a viewer without the culture
of origination has no possibility of making sense out
of the form. Architectural communication then is limited
to what is considered right by the original cultural
community. They become responsible for the
transmission of the correct meaning.

Eco is not unaware of the possibility in which an artist
tries to embed a self-referential code in an object of
art. To compare with Saussure’s position, Eco takes
an interest in how an artist makes a sign.
After stating that ‘all the ingenuity of an architect or
designer cannot make a new form functional (and cannot
give form to a new function) without the support of existing
processes of codification’, Eco retrieves the possibility
of making architecture governed by its own code:
This does not mean that the architect is
necessarily confined to old, already known
forms. Here we return to a fundamental semiotic
principle that we have discussed elsewhere,
apropos of artistic messages, a principle quite
well explained in the Poetics of Aristotle: one
can institute moments of high information-
content, but only when they are supported by a
certain amount of redundancy: every flash of the
unlikely rests on articulations of the likely.18
Unfortunately, Eco, in the section immediately
following this quotation, excludes architecture from
the sphere of art, and as a result, gives little thought to
the possibility of self-referential code in a piece of
architecture. For Eco, architecture is a ‘type of design
producing three-dimensional constructions destined
to permit the fulfillment of some function connected
with life in society’, but not as the production of three-
dimensional objects destined primarily to be
contemplated rather than utilized in society, such as
works of art.’19 Can we say, however, that portable
architecture, without much reliance on culturally
endowed meaning, has this type of self-referential
code? When Jencks translates this semiotic notion of
aesthetic code into a prescription for architectural
practice, the discussion takes a peculiar turn:
The tendency is for architecture to dramatize
its aesthetic codes, its secondary and tertiary
levels, in five major ways.
Transportable Environments: Theory
1. Fetishism and the self-reflection of the
aesthetic code. Since architecture is a
connotative system it can focus on the
expressive plane of meaning with such
obsession that the expression becomes
the content.
2. Distortion and disruption in the aesthetic
code. A favorite device of Robert Venturi
for calling attention to the scale of his
architecture is the ornamental
stringcourse or molding, which is often
placed where it shouldn’t be….
3. Redundancy and miniaturization in the
aesthetic text. Another reason reading
architecture takes more time than
reading building is the redundancy of
messages that refer to themselves and
even to small messages within the
whole….
4. …another aspect of the aesthetic text,
is that it is hermeneutic, esoteric and, even
at its limits, completely private…. The
difficulty in decoding these texts, the
aesthetic effort and time expended in
making up plausible meanings as you
look at an unfamiliar architecture, are
obviously all part of the aesthetic game.
5. …it is continuously open to new
interpretation, multivalent and plural in
its range of meanings….Yet there is a far
more important aspect of multivalence
than this: the ability of the aesthetic text to
articulate radically different experiences,
emotions and values as a whole.20
[Italics added by author]
Obviously Jencks has postmodern, ironic
architecture in mind, and this fact is revealed by the
words I have italicized above. One might say that
Jencks’s strong interest in postmodern architecture
has limited his consideration of the self-referential
code in a piece of architecture to those of irony and
11
Rumiko Handa
superficiality. Having lost, as modernists such as Adolf
Loos have pointed out, the root of tradition, does it
follow that postmoder n irony, succeeded by
deconstruction’s express denial of meaning, is the
only possible way for architecture?21
Architecture as meaningful text
There is another way of looking at architectural
meaning, which requires a piece of architecture to be
a text, the organization of related parts, which gives
rise to a certain meaningfulness.22 Text here goes
beyond ‘any discourse fixed by writing’,23 but retains
a semantic autonomy in the sense that a gap ‘inserts
itself between saying and what is said’. 24 The
responsibility of author can be considered, and the
relevance of an interpretation discussed in a
nonarbitrary manner. Here, architectural
communication, then, is more like an appreciation,
and sharedness of culture is based on the possibility
of an architectural piece making sense in different
settings. Culture then will be given a possibility of
expanding communication in the world, instead of
being an alienating influence.
Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation, whose
original inquiry can be found in the work of Aristotle,
and developed as the study of Biblical scriptures.25
Much closer to our time, Immanuel Kant’s statement
regarding the interpretation of Plato drew the attention
of, for example, Friedrich D.E.Schleiermacher (1768–
1834), William Dilthey (1833–1911), and Martin
Heidegger (1889–1976). 26 In Critique of Pure
Reason, the second edition of which came out in 1787,
Kant stated:
I need only remark that it is by no means
unusual, upon comparing the thoughts which
an author has expressed in regard to his
subject, whether in ordinary conversation or in
writing, to find that we understand him better
than he has understood himself. As he has not
12
sufficiently determined his concept, he has
sometimes spoken, or even thought, in
opposition to his own intention.27
The contemporary development of hermeneutics
may be seen in the works of Paul Ricoeur and Hans-
Georg Gadamer, with the philosophical foundation
of phenomenology.
The significance of phenomenological hermeneutics
is two-fold: appropriation and distanciation. First, the
significance of interpretation of a text lies not so much
in arriving at the subjective intention of the author but
rather in the appropriation of the text. Here, to
appropriate a text through interpretation should be
considered as, with the word’s etymological root in
the Latin appropriare —‘to make one’s own.’
Appropriation of text is then ‘to make one’s own’ what
was initially ‘alien,’ so that ‘interpretation brings
together, equalises, renders contemporary and
similar.’ Through the act of appropriation, the interpreter
‘does not seek to rejoin the original intentions of the
author, but rather to expand the conscious horizons’
by ‘actualising the meaning of the text’.28
Armed with this notion of appropriation, one might draw
a distinction between hermeneutic meaning and
linguistic meaning.29 In particular, I would rather extend
the former term to ‘hermeneutic meaningfulness’. To
understand the distinction between these two notions,
it may be helpful to imagine something which has a
meaning, yet is not meaningful—a stop sign might be
an example—and a case in which something’s
meaning is unknown, and yet it is acknowledged as
meaningful, as, for example, the famous stone heads
of Easter Island.30
Here I would draw attention to Rossi’s interests in the
Sardinian monument.
Sometimes I regard time as a plastic object, in
which elements whose original meaning we

have forgotten, are preserved, alongside the
fragments of a beautiful building.… We cannot,
however, always put together what has been
broken and therefore take little interest in
understanding what has been forgotten.…
There is a Nuraghian monument in Sardinia that
I have always attempted both to understand and
to imitate. It leads down into the earth and is
nothing but a stairway leading to a point, lit from
above.… It always seems to me unbelievable
that this great architectural work of art should
not belong to the realm of architecture as such.
I find it unfortunate that its ancient meaning, if it
ever had one, remains a secret.31
Secondly, seen as a text, one can study the
relationship between parts and between a part and
the whole when evaluating an interpretation, by which
an interpretation can be explained in a nonarbitrary
fashion.32 ‘The meaningfulness of a text…arises from
its organization, the relationship among its parts and
between the part and the whole. As such it can be
explained by an interpreter in a nonarbitrary fashion
that can be understood by another person…the
organization of the text can be submitted for rational
argument away from the subjective realm of the author
or the interprete’.33
In order to understand the notion of distanciation, it
might be useful to refer to Gadamer’s discussion on
memento, as a contrast to text. An example may be a
pebble I picked up in the courtyard of the Louvre five
years ago. Gadamer states:
Of all signs, the memento most seems to have a
reality of its own. It refers to the past and so is
effectively a sign, but it is also precious in itself
since, as a bit of the past that has not
disappeared, it keeps the past present for us.
But it is clear that this characteristic is not
grounded in the being of the object itself. A
memento has value as a memento only for
Transportable Environments: Theory
someone who already—i.e., still—recalls the
past. Mementos lose their value when the past
of which they remind one no longer has any
meaning. Furthermore, someone who not only
uses mementos to remind him but makes a cult
of them and lives in the past as if it were the
present has a disturbed relation to reality.34
The meaningfulness of a text in comparison arises
from its organization, the relationship among its parts
and between the part and the whole. As such it can be
explained by an interpreter in a nonarbitrary fashion
that can be understood by another person.35
Based on appropriation and distanciation, the role of
the author can be argued. The author plays a crucial
role in purposefully organizing the work so that it may
later be interpreted in a nonarbitrary way. The
organization of the text, which had embodied the
author’s meaning to the author, persists even after
being detached from the author. This organization
Kara-za, Tadao Ando, Tokyo
allows the interpreter to come up with his/her own
appropriated interpretation, but also anchors the
interpretation.36
As if for the purpose of ascertaining the body of text,
Rossi placed his theater on a boat, which keeps its
world wherever it travels, while for Ando, the notion of
bridge as both connection and separation between
the two worlds is important. Ando stated, in reference
to his Japan Pavilion for Expo. ’92, ‘The bridge in this
pavilion takes visitors to a fictional world, a world of
dreams. Then again, it is a bridge spanning East and
West’.37
The making of a world, so to speak, of its own, supported
by its organization as a text, works especially well in the
case of theater. Theater, after all, is a place of
representation created by the playwright and actors.
Supporting this notion of theater as a temporary creation
of an illusory world is, in addition to the bridge of Ando
and the boat of Rossi, the use of scaffolding as the
13
Rumiko Handa

Geometry for theatre, Vitruvius, De Architecture, Giovanni
Giocondo, 1513
Plan of Roman theatre, Claude Perrault,
Les dix libres d’architecture de Vitruve, 1637
buildings’ structure made visible at the eye level as well
as at the underside of the roof of both theaters.
Hermeneutic meaningfulness requires much more time
than the linguistic meaning does from an interpreter. It is
usually important, when a language is being used, for
the people involved to decipher the meaning
instantaneously. We can think about the frustration and
ineffectiveness when one has not quite learned the
specific language being used, or the case of
simultaneous translation. However, architecture is
something that is there for a long time. Even with
temporary construction, the scale of time span that is
attached to a circus tent is drastically different from
speech. One does not have to have a simultaneous
deciphering of meaningfulness out of architecture. Not
only can one take time, approaching, going through a
doorway, through a hall and stairs, but one can also
come back to the same building again and again and
enrich the experience of interpretation. It is more
important for a piece of architecture that people take time
to appreciate it.This requirement of time for hermeneutic
interpretation in return gives the reason why that piece
stands for the time it stands.38
Commenting on Ando’s buildings, Jackie Kestenbaum
points to the time required for interpretation:
To visit an Ando building is to relinquish all
presuppositions about architecture and take on
Ando’s Weltanschauung…to negotiate an Ando
building is an arduous task, alternating exertion
with contemplation, a process whereby the spatial
phenomenon imprints itself upon the mind and
body and resonates for days.… It is the resonance
one feels in holy places, where personal memory
is not a prerequisite, where the place itself bears
the weight.39
As a demonstration of applicability and relevance of this
distinction, one might compare postmodern architecture
and pseudo-authentic as based on pseudo-linguistic
meaning on the one hand and Rossi and Ando based
on hermeneutic meaningfulness on the other.
Postmodern architecture and pseudo-authentic are both
signage, while Rossi and Ando produced text.
Ando is sensitive of the problem of the pseudo-authentic,
and instead longs for materials, such as concrete, and
pure geometry, which are devoid of past meaning that is
no longer shared:
By trying to reproduce in modern materials
(concrete and steel) and their suitable techniques,
forms that came into being in relation to Japan’s
traditional building material (wood) amounted to
ignoring the inevitable and fundamental
connections between material and form. For this
reason buildings making this attempt sustained
many difficulties and before long, ceased to
emerge.The contradiction between the unaltered
forms of the past and today’s living style, which
differs sharply from the living style of the past, is
too great…the concrete I employ does not have
plastic rigidity or weight. Instead, it must be
homogeneous and light and must create surfaces.
When they agree with my aesthetic image, walls
become abstract, are negated, and approach the
ultimate limit of space. Their actuality is lost, and
only the space they enclose gives a sense of really
existing. Under these conditions, volume and
projected light alone float into prominence as
hints of the spatial composition. And this is what
gives meaning to a geometric composition.40
One may say that meaning is to communication as
meaningfulness is to interpretation. That is, the former
deals with the understanding of the author, in the setting
of a dialog, whereas the latter deals with the
understanding of the text.41 Architecture as appreciated
is not so much architecture as communicating. If
architecture has physical and spatial qualities in such a
way that a person, not necessarily with the same cultural
background as that held by the architect in designing, can

14

approach it to appreciate, making sense out of as many
parts, the whole, and the relationship between parts and
the whole as possible, then this architecture is meaningful.
Role of culture and precedents
Now the question arises: what is the role of cultures and
precedents? Specifically, if culture has something to do
with sharing among a certain group of people, what is it
that is shared? Here, Colquhoun’s discussion on the
exchange value is illuminating in the sense that for
Colquhoun, what is exchanged is not meaning of a form,
but rather, an ideal of the form, that is another kind of
metaphysical counterpart to which the artifact is a close
physical approximation:
…artifacts have not only a ‘use’ value in the crudest
sense but also an ‘exchange’ value.The craftsman
had an image of the object in his mind’s eye when
starting to make it. Whether this object was a cult
image (say, a sculpture) or a kitchen utensil, it was
an object of cultural exchange, and it formed part
of a system of communication within society. Its
‘message’ value was precisely the image of the
final form which the craftsman held in his mind’s
eye as he was making it and to which his artifact
corresponded as closely as possible.42
The implication of hermeneutic meaningfulness is this.
Pressing the distinction, I might state that cultural
sharedness does not so much fix meaning into form—it
rather lies in a form which has a capability of staying
meaningful.
Both Rossi’s and Ando’s theaters can be considered
as attempts to keep the form which humanity has
carried throughout the history. Vitruvius describes the
ideal theater as based on a circle and four equilateral
triangles.43 Palladio’s design for Teatro Olimpico was
a result of the Renaissance appreciation of Vitruvius,
and the wooden tiers are arranged in half an ellipse. It
is convincing that the Shakespearean Globe Theater
Transportable Environments: Theory
of Elizabethan London also had a reference back to a
Vitruvian description.44 As for the theaters by Rossi and
Ando, it is not at all difficult to derive from the Vitruvian
arrangement of equilateral triangles, a square, a
rectangle, and an octagon, three of which make up
Teatro del Mondo, while Ando’s dodecagon is
immediately derived from the twelve points of Vitruvian
triangles. Ando’s explanation includes a reference to
an Eastern view of the world:
Olympic Theatre, Andrea Palladio, Vincenza
I think a dodecagon represents the world. The
number twelve is symbolic of the cosmos. In
Japan, there are twelve animals corresponding
to the twelve-year cycle of the calendar. In the West
there are twelve months to a year and so forth.45
Rossi, being ‘superficially annoyed by the frequent
accusation that there is a young architectural movement
that imitates me and builds like Rossi all over the world’,
comments on Palladio:
Let us take an example that means much to me.
Palladio, as we know, created a style of
architecture that is closely linked to the spirit of a
place, to the ‘genius loci’.Therefore, one finds the
Venetian Palladio of villas and palaces, as well
as the Palladio visible throughout the world —from
Louisiana to Russia, from England to France—
where a wonderful form of Palladian architecture
has developed. I believe that certain English
Palladian architects, such as the Adam brothers,
have sometimes reached greater perfection than
Palladio himself. They raised Palladian
architecture to its peak, and yet there is still a
difference between this perfection and the
Palladio in Vicenza, or the Palladianism of his
Italian imitators who tend to be much more
Baroque. I cite this example to show that the basic
principles of an architectural style, once they have
been created, exist over long periods of time and
are capable of development Modernism has
already partially attempted to do this, although I The New Globe, Pentagram Design, London
15
Rumiko Handa
believe that its notorious failures result from the
fact that it created a caesura, not something
continuous.46
Consider two cases: Victorian houses on the one
hand and the portable theaters by Rossi and Ando
on the other. Victorian style, surviving the journey
over the Atlantic once, has ended up as kitsch-
postmodernism and pseudo-authentic. The two
architects’ theaters, on the contrary, keep alive the
1 This paper is a part of the author’s on-going research on
meaningfulness in architecture. Grants from Texas Tech
University and University of Nebraska Lincoln, have supported
the effort thus far.
2 Kimberly Dovey, ‘The Quest for Authenticity and the
Replication of Environmental Meaning,’ in Dwelling, Place and
Environment:Towards a Phenomenology of Person and World,
ed. David Seamon and Robert Mugerauer (Dordrecht: Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers, 1985), pp.33–49.
3 Paul Ricoeur, ‘Universal Civilization and National Cultures,’ in
History and Truth, trans. Chas. A.Kelbley (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1965), p.276.
4 Tadao Ando, ‘Spatial Composition and Nature,’ in Tadao Ando
1983–1992, (Madrid: EI Croquis, 1994) p.348.
5 Umberto Eco, ‘Function and Sign: The Semiotics of
Architecture,’ in Signs, Symbols, and Architecture, ed. by
Geoffrey Broadbent, Richard Bunt, and Charles Jencks (New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1980), p.22; Charles Jencks, ‘The
Architectural Sign’, ibid., p.83. For the original discussion of this
case by Giovanni Klaus Koenig, see Eco’s endnote no. 6, p.62,
of the above article.
6 E.H.Gombrich, ‘Expression and Communication,’ in
Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory
of Art (London: Phaidon Press, 1963), p.56.
7 Alan Colquhoun, ‘Typology and Design Method,’ in Essays in
Architectural Criticism: Modern Architecture and Historical
Change (New York: MIT Press, 1981), pp.42–50, p.48.
8 Colquhoun, ‘E.H.Gombrich and the Hegelian Tradition,’
Essays in Architectural Criticism: Modern Architecture and
Historical Change, pp.152–158. For Colguhoun’s reference to
Ferdinand de Saussure, see, for example, his discussion on
‘onomatopoeic’ relationship between forms and their content
in Colquhoun, p.49, where he makes a parallel comparison
between works of art and language.
16
fundamental human appreciation of geometry,
which had already been expressed two millennia
ago by Vitruvius. A form that is merely supported by
a culture’s fixation for its meaning will have little
chance of surviving through time and space, while
a form that grows out of universally discernible
properties will continue to be meaningful. In the
harsh light of contrast it seems plain to me that
architecture should pursue meaningfulness rather
than mere meaning.
9 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, p.67,
trans. by Wade Baskin (NewYork Philosophical Library, 1959).
10 Saussure, p.68.
11 Saussure, pp.68–69.
12 Saussure, pp.69–70.
13 Saussure, p.68.
14 Geoffrey Broadbent, ‘Building Design as an Iconic Sign
System,’ in Signs, Symbols and Architecture (NewsYork: John
Wiley and Sons, 1980), pp.311–331, originally published in the
Proceedings of the First Congress of the International
Association for Semiotic Studies (The Hague: Mouton, 1979).
Umberto Eco, ‘Introduction to a Semiotics of Iconic Sign,’ in
Versus 2/1, 1972, pp.1–16. Juan Pablo Bonta, Architecture and
Its Interpretation (London: Lund Humphries, 1979). Jencks,
p.79.Ugo Volli, ‘Some Possible Developments of the Concept of
Iconism,’ in Versus 3/2 1972, pp.14–30.
15 Charles S.Peirce, manuscript c. 1897, in Philosophical
Writings of Peirce, ed. by Justus Buchler (New York: Dover
Publications, 1955), unabridged and unaltered republication of
the first publication in 1940, p.99.
16 Peirce defines an icon as ‘a sign which refers to the Object
that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and
which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object
actually exists or not,’ an index ‘a sign which refers to the Object
that it denotes by virtue of being really affected by that Object,’
and a symbol ‘a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by
virtue of law, usually an association of general ideas, which
operates to cause the Symbol to be interpreted as referring to
that Object,’ in manuscript c. 1903, in Buchler, p.102.
17 Jencks, p.80.
18 Eco, pp.22–23.
19 Eco, pp.11–12.
20 Jencks, pp.86–94.
21 Adolf Loos, ‘Ornament and Crime,’ (1908) in Adolf Loos:

Pioneer of Modern Architecture , ed. by Ludwig Münz and
Gustav Künstler (New York: Praeger, 1966), pp.226–231.
22 Here, the author is aware of the need to compare the
number of notions and definitions offered, for example, Roland
Barthes, ‘From Work to Text,’ (1971) in Image Music Text (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp.155–164, whose notion of text is
the basis for Hal Foster, ‘(Post) Modern Polemics,’ in Perspecta
21; or Jean-François Lyotard, ‘What is Postmodernism?’ in The
Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1984).
23 Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed.
and trans. John B.Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981), pp.210–211.
24 Ricoeur, ‘Explanation and Understanding: On Some
Remarkable Connections among the Theory of the Text,
Theory of Action, and Theory of History,’ in The Philosophy of
Paul Ricoeur: An Anthology of His Work, ed. Charles E.Reagan
and David Stewart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978), p.153.
25 Aristotle, Poetics.
26 Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics,
trans. James S.Churchill (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1962), pp.206–7.
27 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman
Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan & Co., 1958), p.310. This
translation is based on the second edition of the original.
28 John B.Thompson, ‘Editor’s Introduction,’ in Paul Ricoeur,
Hermeneutics:a Study in theThought of Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen
Habermas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981),
p.18.
29 ‘Meaning’ itself is a word that requires a great deal of
consideration. See, for example, Ogden and Richards, Meaning
of Meaning, and Edmund Husserl’s distinction between formal
and transcendental meanings.
30 The distinction between linguistic meaning and hermeneutic
meaningfulness may be further clarified by referring to the
concept of artistic representation compared with the notions of
indication and substitution by Gadamer. See Gadamer, Truth
and Method, pp.152–155.
31 Aldo Rossi, ’Berlin: Words of Thanks and a Sardinian
Monument, in Aldo Rossi Architect . (London: Academy
Editions, 1994). First published in German in 1993 as the
catalogue for the exhibition Aldo Rossi—Architekt, p.9.
32 Rumiko Handa, ‘Beyond Meaning: In Search of
Meaningfulness in Architecture,’ in the Proceedings of 84th
ACSA(Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture) Annual
Transportable Environments: Theory
Meeting (1996), pp.610– 614. See also the contrast between
Michel Foucault’s and Jacques Derrida’s positions on this
matter, discussed by Edward Said, in ‘Criticism between Culture
and System,’ in The World, the Text, and the Critic (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 184.
33 Handa, pp.612–3.
34 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. revised by
Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G.Marshall (New York:
Crossroad, 1989), originally published as Wahrheit und
Methode, 1960, pp.152–3.
35 Eco talks about it now. distinguishing meaning according to
author, interpreter, and text. Eco, Interpretation and
Overinterpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
36 Handa, p.613.
37 Ando, ‘Japan Pavilion, EXPO ‘92,’ in Tadao Ando 1983–1992,
(Madrid: EI Croquis, 1994), p.294.
38 Rudolf Wittkower’s notion of ‘art as a living heritage’ needs
mentioning here. See Wittkower, ‘Interpretation of Visual
Symbols,’ in Allegory and The Migration of Symbols, (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1997).
39 Jackie Kestenbaum, ‘Tadao Ando: Modernism and its
Descontents,’ in Tadao Ando 1983–1992, (Madrid: EI Croquis,
1994), pp.17–20.
40 Ando, ‘From Self-Enclosed Modern Architecture Towards
Universality,’ in Tadao Ando: Buildings Projects Writings (New
York Rizzoli, 1984), originally published in Japan Architect 301
(May 1982), pp.138–144.
41 One can refer to the difference between Erwin Panofsky and
Rudolf Wittkower in their treatment of ‘meaning’ on the one hand
and ‘visual interpretation’ on the other.Panofsky, on Iconology,
based on context, place/time.Wittkower, on art as living heritage,
Wittkower’s emotional response to the art, when the piece is
detached from the code system which it relied on.
42 Alan Colquhoun, ‘Typology and Design Method,’ in Essays
in Architectural Criticism: Modern Architecture and Historical
Change (New York MIT Press, 1981), p.43.
43 Vitruvius, On Architecture, trans. Frank Granger
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931), Bk.V, Ch.VI.
44 Frances A.Yates, Theatre of the World (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1969).
45 Tadao Ando, ‘Kara-za, A Movable Theater: an interview with
Tadao Ando,’ in Perspecta 26, p.175.
46 ‘A Conversation:Aldo Rossi and Bernard Huet,’ in Aldo Rossi
Architect. (London: Academy Editions, 1994).
17
 An open horizon of the seascape—a Norwegian fjord

18
Following the Trace-Spirits in the Landscape
Ada Kwiatkowska
Technical University of Wroclaw
To call our sight Vision
implies, that, to us,
all objects are subjects…
Instructive it may be to peer through lenses:
each time we do, though, we should apologise
to the remote or the small for intruding
upon their quiddities.
W.H.Auden, ‘I Am Not a Camera’.
The idea of trace-spirit expressed in Scandinavian
mythology is based on the belief that the deep place
of a footmark keeps something from a human being’s
spirit. It means the features of man’s spirit are settled
in space.1 But trace-spirit is not only a matter of belief.
In a sense it exists in reality. Trace is real deformation
of space-matter by someone or something, therefore
it contains the information about the features of a
person or thing that has been present in the space.
Trace is a witness to being. It expresses the relationship
between man, his activities and space-time. The idea
of trace-spirit reflects the real and symbolic dimensions
of man’s concept of ‘being on the Earth’. All individuals
spread out the traces of themselves.
Man, behaviourally defined, marks his territory and
traces his routes according to ecological competition,
territorial confirmation, dominance testing, inter-and
intra-species defence and aggression, motor
satisfactions, social control and role testing.2 The
human being’s traces are the remains of his mobility
and activity and a way of land assignment and
possession.
Man, culturally defined, aspires to exceed the limit of
individual experience and to trace his own route on
the symbolic map of community, memory and heritage.
In culture, the expression of man’s existence is deeply
attached to the idea of trace, not only in the figurative
but also in the literal sense of this word. Such traces
as handmarks printed on caves’ walls in the
Palaeolithic age, footmarks of newborn children
sculptured in marble in ancient Greece, and the
handmarks of film stars printed on a Hollywood
promenade are signs of human beings’ identification
and immortality.
The idea of trace-spirit expresses also the hidden
connection between the form of trace and its contents.
Form, in the meaning of ‘informed matter’,3 contains
information about the origin of form, about the power
and circumstances of ‘giving information to matter’.
This hidden language of traces is well known to
hunters, detectives, archaeologists, anthropolo-gists
and other investigators, as it reconstructs the course
of events on the basis of remaining traces.
‘Trace’ marks and determines the space-time. ‘Vestige’
focuses the space-time on a place as evidence of
one’s existence. ‘Track’ directs the space-time to a
certain goal and extends it between the place of
departure and place of arriving, between the past/
backward moving and the future/forward moving.
Footmarks, vestiges and tracks of nomadic cultures
and the nomadic way of living contain information
about behavioural, cultural and space-time
determinants, about mutual interactions of natural,
19
Ada Kwiatkowska
socio-cul-tural and technological processes. Traces
of Nomads express a certain hierarchy of values and
concepts of landscape, paths, halting-places and
spatial settings of man’s activities.The interesting thing
is to read the meaning of trace-spirits and to compare
the traces of different old and present nomadic
civilisations, such as sailors, wanderers and
conquerors. Following trace-spirits in the landscape
shows the extreme tension between man and
environment, between finite archetypal forms and the
infinity of the surroundings.
The trace-spirits of sailors
The horizon of the sea is a challenge for a human
being’s imagination, inspiring the wish to cross and
to explore the space beyond invisibility. ‘The
emptiness’ seems to excite the hunger for information
and to be the origin of sea-expeditions by the Vikings,
Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama or sailors of
the Pacific Ocean.
Viking rovers lived on the coasts of Northern Europe
between the eighth and tenth centuries. Their world
was contiguous to the sea, therefore it differed from
the world of Pacific Ocean sailors, who lived on the
islands surrounded by the sea. The Viking expeditions
aimed at territorial expansion and the gain of new
resources, while the expeditions of Pacific Ocean
sailors were the result of daily-life mobility, connected
with social consolidation, exchange of goods and
news, looking for a mate, fishing and gathering of
seafood, or to help during a weather-cataclysm.4
Though the Northern world is ruled more by the law of
the Universe defined by the Earth’s rotation (darkness
in wintertime and long light days in the summer) than
by the Southern world’s law of nature, elements,
growth, there are many similarities between the
Vikings and Pacific Ocean islanders’ concept of the
world, their methods of crossing the sea-space, and
mental maps of their surroundings. The sailors’ world
20
is expressed as the world between the sky and the
sea. In Viking mythology, mankind’s world is created
around the tree at the centre of the earth, joining the
earth to the sky through its branches and to the sea
through its roots5 and in the Pacific Ocean islanders’
mythology the world is created around the mountain,
emerging from a pre-existence in the ocean depths.6
The sea and the sky meet together at the horizon, and
both hide vital and destructive forces inside. They
create a sphere defined by the configuration of places
and paths. In opposition to a land man’s view of the
sea, regarded as the indeterminate, infinite space or
the abyss, the sailors’ concept expresses the sea-
space as a set of reference points, such as islands,
reefs, shoals, icebergs etc. The landmarks and paths
between them are correlated with a configuration of
stars on the vault of heaven. 7 This astronomical
concept of space enables sailors to know precisely
their position in relation to other places, while the land
men usually lose their way in sea-space.
The space-time of a sailor’s world is orientated to the
cardinal points and determined by the ‘circulation’ of
the sun, moon and stars. In sailors’ mental maps, the
cardinal points signify certain features of space.8 East
means the happy land of sunrise and spring,
possessing creative power. South is a land of fire and
glow. West means the unhappy land of sunset and
announcement of the coming darkness, drifts and
storms. West as leaving and North as darkness
symbolise the realm of the dead.The same symbolism
can be found in other mythical concepts of the world
in primitive cultures. However, the sailors’ abstract
representation of the world differs from other concepts
first of all in scale.
The mental maps of sailors reflect all the places, real
and mythical, and all the ways of reaching these places
in a wide range of 2,000 sea miles (about 10,000 km).9
The interesting thing is that the abstract spatial
representation of places and paths of the sea-space

contains information about never-seen places, with
no regard to the sailor’s presence there. The images
of the sea and sky are therefore similar. The concept
of the sea-space is a reflection of the macrocosm of
the starry vault. But the way between the place of
departure and the place of arrival is not the shortest
way joining two points on the map. The sea-space is
intersected by invisible ‘roads’, which reflect the
distance from journey’s end. The way of crossing the
sea-space is determined by the streams, tidal waves,
winds and whirlpools. The changes of ground or
heaven-colours, configuration of waves, fauna and
flora etc. convey information about favourable events
or menaces.
The sailors’ concept of space is based not only on
visual information but on hearing, smell, touch and
other sensations. Voice plays an important role in this
space-exploration. ‘The empty sea-space’ intensifies
the scream of the solitary man—the scream seems to
deform the space. The importance of voice expresses
the idea of the ‘Echoing Bridge’ in Viking mythology.
‘Echoing Bridge’ is a gangway, which connects the
living with the realm of the dead because of the sound
moving to and fro.10 In the Pacific Ocean islanders’
mythology which relates to the genesis of the Earth,
there is an interesting sequence of pre-existence:
Nothingness—Smell— Dust—Perceptible—
Tangible—Rock,11 which expresses the priority of one
sense over the other one in the sailors’ world.
In situations where there is a lack of sensual
information, the sailors have to be able to interpret
the boat’s movement and the configuration of the
waves to find their way home. All these abilities,
needed to survive in confrontation with the sea’s
strength, as well as knowledge about navigation in
the ‘indeter minate sea-space’ or proper
interpretation of different signs, do not come naturally
to human beings. They can be gained only by
education and training, such as when knowledge
and skills are handed down to a young generation
Transportable Environments: Theory
from the old one. Therefore the sailors represent
specialised societies as professional groups of
seamen.
The sailors’ world is expressed in Thor Heyerdahl’s
reports from his expeditions to Pacific and Atlantic
Ocean islands in the Kon-Tiki and Ra expeditions. He
reconstructed the vessels and rafts of these first sea
voyages. On the basis of ‘traces’ of old sailors’
civilisations which remain in legends, myths and
images, he built ‘copies’ of their ships and followed
their routes of exploration.
What we can learn from Thor Heyerdahl’s experience
is that the timeless dimension of the sailors’ world,
which causes the relation between sailor and
seascape, seems to be constant. As he wrote during
the Kon-Tiki expedition:
The world was simple, stars in the darkness.
Whether it was 1947 BC or AD suddenly became
of no significance. We lived, and that we felt with
alert intensity…Time and evolution somehow
ceased to exist; all that was real and all that
mattered were the same today as they had
always been and would always be; we were
swallowed up in the absolute common
measure of history, endless unbroken darkness
under a swarm of stars.12
In this constancy, only wind, waves, ocean currents
and the elements are important. They influence the
ship’s structure, which is designed according to
certain displacement, turning ability, steadiness and
steering qualities etc. Because the influential factors
are always the same, so the principles of shaping and
building the vessels are immutable. The ship’s
structure is rather improving than changing in the
course of time.
The endless sea identified with the world of sailors has
a metaphorical meaning. In reality, the world of sailors
21
Ada Kwiatkowska
is reduced to the vessel, which becomes their ‘whole
world’, a month of Sundays; and which can be seen as
a trap without a gate to escape. The vessel, a piece of
artificial land, is characterised by an incredible density
of population, causing high mental and emotional
tensions.Therefore the ship’s crew is mostly a one-sex
group, maintaining the traditional sexual roles of men
as sailors and women as ‘land people’. This division of
roles comes also from the old ship’s structure based
on the physical power of muscles.
The Kon-Tiki, a balsa-wood raft, was a copy of Indian
vessels. It was made of nine balsa logs, lashed together
with a mast and square-sail. The size of the deck was
18×45 feet (about 5.5×14 metres) and the size of the
shaky bamboo cabin was 8×14 feet (about 2.5×4
metres).The raft was ‘the whole world’ for six men during
a three-month voyage. In statistical meaning, it was
equal to using 13 sq.m. of land area at a density of 800
persons per sq.km. and 1.7 sq.m. of dwelling area for
one person.
The Ra, a boat made of papyrus, was similar in size to
Kon-Tiki but different in shape. Its ends were bent up,
therefore it had a semicircular silhouette. The ship’s
crew consisted of 7 men.13 The Ra was reconstructed
on the basis of images drawn on the walls of ancient
Egyptian graves, which sailed along the Nile and
maybe across the Atlantic Ocean.
The relationship between sailors and the seascape
cannot be seen only in regard to the elements,
menaces or natural enemies.The sea is first of all friendly
to man because it is rich in food.Therefore food supplies
limited by the boat’s size and displacement can easily
be completed during the expedition. The sea seems to
be ‘a soup full of proteins’.The problem of drinking water
is usually solved by collecting rainwater, distillation of
sea-water or reclamation of liquids from the sea-food,
limited by the size of the water storage tank. Unlike the
Kon-Tiki or Ra expeditions, sailing is usually in a ‘fan
flotilla’ of a group of vessels to increase the chances of
22
finding land and to help each other in case of
catastrophe. It means, that sailing is connected with
social co-operation in many fields, for instance in ship
building, group sailing of many vessels, sea rescue or
visual signalling between ships and land (fires,
lighthouses) to find the way home. It means that though
ships are seemingly suspended in the sea-space, they
exist in a shipping network, in visual or radio
communication. However their solitude is still very real
and there are many tragedies during stormy weather.
Sailing not only results in the adaptation of man to the
sea-environment, generating new concepts and
spatial structures, but it also changes the way man lives
on land. Sailors’ societies use specific materials and
tools, and they develop certain abilities in building the
vessels. These tools and abilities influence spatial
structures such as houses, temples, bridges etc. For
instance, the houses were made of stone and wood in
Norway before the Viking period. The golden age of
Viking civilisation, based on sailing and therefore
carpentry, caused the displacement of stone buildings
by those made of wood.
As Thor Heyerdahl proved by following the traces of
sailors, trace-spirits can be found in myths, legends and
images of old and present civilisations. Though the
tracks of sailors are invisible, they can be reconstructed
on the basis of memorial stones, figures of stone giants
or lighthouses which remain along the coasts of the
land, and the appearance of similar myths and
languages on opposite sides of the sea. Such invisible
tracks can be also drawn after discovering the vestiges
of sailors’ presence hidden in the depth of the sea,
objects lost or disposed of during seam expeditions.
The trace-spirits of wanderers
The chaotic, aimless traces of wanderers can
sometimes be misleading, because the causes of
wandering are invisible, hidden or absent. The life of
Nomads has more determinants than can be read from

their traces. Nomadic groups wander over the
countryside more from expediency than from
principle, though realising the purpose, connected
with going from place to place, it becomes a principle.
The primeval concept of wanderers’ space is expressed
in Aboriginal mythology and their way of living. Aborigines
live in a mythical space of archetypal paths and sacred
places in which remain traces of those who were passing
through a country before, as well as the signs of those
who are crossing now.14 Following the tracks of mythical
progenitors is a symbolic journey, searching for the
Nomads’ identity. Wandering along archetypal paths is a
period of spiritual transition between ancestors and
descendants. The archetypal paths are marked by
landscape and topographical monuments which are
treated as if they were created by the progenitors, therefore
keeping the memory of past events. Sacred places,
disseminated along the paths, are often invisible to the
passer-by; they are well known only to initiate members
of the nomadic group.15 Knowledge of the mysteries and
secrets within a tribe is handed down from the old to the
younger generation. Aborigines repeat their journeys
in directed and circular time (forward moving). Following
the traces of mythical ancestors, they look forward to the
brightness of a mythical journey’s end.
Arabic Nomads’ wandering, though it is connected with
some myths and beliefs in supernatural forces, such as
genies, passes according to the rhythm and rituals of
the Islamic commandments found in the Koran. The life
of Arabic Nomads focuses on the five pillars of Islam:
profession of belief, prayer, alms, fasting and
pilgrimage.16 They precisely define the daily time routine,
measured by the muezzin’s proclamation of the hours
of prayer or by the change of the sun’s position at dawn,
forenoon, noon, afternoon and in the evening.17
The Arabic society is organised in hierarchical order
within the settled or nomadic tribes. For instance in
Iran Nomadic groups form about 8–25% of the
population,18 and are generally organised as follows:
Transportable Environments: Theory
The smallest component unit of the socio-
economic and political organisms is a ‘tent’ or a
nomadic ‘extended household’. A combination
of several tents or households constitutes one
‘mal’ or camp; several camps make a ‘tireh’ or
sect; several sects constitute one ‘tayefeh’ or
clan; and the combination of several ‘tayefeh’
constitutes one ‘eyel’ or tribe.19
Nomadic groups differ between countries and tribes
in their structure, but only a little. The hierarchical
order is also expressed in the Arabic concept of
Earth’s genesis, according to which the Universe
was created from local condensation of space in a
place that is the present Mecca. Seven spheres of
the Earth and seven spheres of the Heaven came
into existence from this place. The structure of the
Universe was represented by a ‘pyramid’ of tents,
stretched and laid in layers.20
Arabic Nomads’ concept of landscape and way of
crossing space is directed towards economic and
commercial purposes, on which they are dependent.
Nomadic activities usually connect pastoral life with
trade. Nomads wander with animal herds, which
supply them with food, leather and wood used for
clothes and tents, with dung used for fuel etc. Part of
the herds are the means of conveyance, carrying the
people and goods. Herds make Nomads dependent
on eco-climatic conditions, because herds need grass
to survive and on Arabic steppe or desert, grass is only
seasonal, so staying longer in one place leads to
depletion. Nomads with herds therefore have to move
and change the place of living. They follow the rain,
which causes the grass to grow. It means that a
necessary condition for Nomads to survive is freedom
for crossing space. Because of the ecological and
trade competition between tribes living in the same
countryside, the freedom of crossing the space is
usually regulated and limited by rules which are
negotiated by leaders of tribes during an annual
meeting.
23
Ada Kwiatkowska

An open horizon of the desert landscape—Cappadocia

24

The size of the countryside needed for herds to survive
depends on the sort of livestock, annual rainfall, soil
type and quality of grass. As Hossein Golabian
described, one livestock unit (one cow and seven
sheep) requires an area of 50 hectares with an annual
rainfall of 50–200 mm. 21 Because of the mutual
dependence of people upon animals and the size of
grassland, human population density is very low in
Nomadic areas, for instance in Iran it is just 0.5 person
per sq.km.
Nomadic groups usually stay in one place for about
2–4 months during the summer, and the winter. It
means they are in transit for about 4–8 months each
year, wandering 2–4 hours per day. To avoid the
concentration of camps on one pasture, they have to
plan the routes and make a time-schedule of
movement for each clan, sect or family within a tribe.
The groups usually wander in parallel spatial
corridors, to which they have territorial rights, coming
near or keeping at a distance from each other,
depending on vegetation density in the pastures.
Nomads play an important role in trade, because they
take part in exchange of goods, transporting the goods,
selling and also producing them (wool, butter, oil,
white cheese etc). They co-operate with villages and
cities, selling what is needed and buying the goods
produced by local communities. Their activity makes
the settlements liveable. The villages and cities
become the market centres when Nomadic groups
pass through them. The schedule of market-days is
adapted to the movement of Nomads; therefore the
market-places are organised on different days of the
week in different localities.
Small Nomadic groups camp together. They choose
the camping place on a steppe or desert according to
natural determinants, such as access to water (camps
close to oases, well-centres or rivers), protection
against the desert winds (camps in the topographical
niches) and protection from solar radiation (camps in
Transportable Environments: Theory
the shade of bushes or trees or camps on high ground
to catch the breeze).Though the concentration of tents
is changeable (for instance the tents can cover an area
from 0.5 to 16 km in radius),22 depending on the number
of well-centres, the pattern of each camping cluster is
repeated from camp to camp throughout the Nomads’
movement. This pattern reflects the hierarchical order
and social relationship within a group. The tents are
arranged linearly, with fronts facing east. Each tent
relates to the other one according to family and social
structure.
The tent as the ‘smallest component unit’ of a Nomadic
group (meaning in this sense ‘extended household’)
has an archetypal form and structure which has not
changed for hundreds of years. Tent is characterised
by microclimatic-structural optimisation and
minimisation, resulting from the necessity for
dismantlement and transportation. The inside open
space, covered by the tent, is multi-functional but not
flexible. Every Nomadic group establishes its pattern
of division of the tent’s interior.
The black tents of Middle East Bedouins are made of
woven goat hair. The frame consists of central and
auxiliary poles. The back of the tent is orientated
towards the wind direction. The side walls, in the form
of curtains, can be positioned up or down as a
protection against cold or heat, wind or rain etc. The
interior is divided by curtains for the storage of bags
containing food, clothing and rolls of bedding.The tent
is divided into two domains: the left side for women
and the right for men and their guests.23
The tents of the Kababish Arabs from Sudan are made
of woven strips of goat hair crossed by tension bands.
The interior can be extended by raising the side
curtains and tying them with ropes. The interior is
divided into public; front, and private; back, zones.The
back of the tent consists of a family’s dismantled bed,
bags for storage, and the woman’s camel-litter frame.
25
Ada Kwiatkowska
The back side, behind the litter frame, becomes a
female domain when male guests visit the tent.24
The tents of the Tuareg, who live in the Sahara are
made of between 35 and 150 goat skins which rest on
pole supports.The side walls are made from one metre
high grass-mats which can be rolled or extended to
enclose the courtyard.25
The size of an average tent for about 5–6 persons is
3–5 metres wide, 2–3 metres deep and 1.5 metres
high, which provides 2.5 sq.m. of dwelling area per
person.The most important feature of the tent is its light
weight, because it has to be carried by one animal,
usually a camel, after dismantling. The weight of the
tent made of goat skins is therefore only about 25 kg.26
The wandering Nomads are adapted to extreme
weather and environmental conditions. They have
good orientation in the steppe or the desert thanks to
their ability to interpret their position by the position of
the stars and sun in the sky.Their life is in danger mostly
from aggressive robbers, which means that some of
the groups have their own armed escorts, especially
caravans that carry the valuable goods.
The same purposes and rules guide the Gypsy
caravans. Counter to the existing stereotype of Gypsy
life, treated as romantic wanderers singing and
dancing around the campfire, their life is orientated
by economic and commercial purposes. Gypsies take
part in the trade of horses; they collect scrap material
and make kitchen utensils, such as baskets, frying-
pans, pots etc. Passing through villages and small
cities men work as blacksmiths and women as fortune-
tellers. Because of their close co-operation and
dependence on the needs of existing human
settlements, they move around, visiting all the places
on their roads, camping at the edges of the villages
and cities in the woods. To make their visits beneficial,
Gypsies usually return to the same place once in every
two years.The differences between Arabic and Gypsy
26
nomadic societies in the means of conveyance (Arabic
caravans consist of camels carrying people and
goods whilst the Gypsies use wagons pulled by
horses) and in the camping patterns (Arabic linear
pattern versus the Gypsies circular pattern around the
bonfire).
The Gypsies’ wagon is used for travelling, carrying
people and goods, and for living. The Gypsies’ wagon
is their ‘whole mobile world’.
Present-day caravanning is based on the idea of
Nomadic wandering and the Gypsy wagon form, but
the similarities between them are misleading.
Caravanning means moving along channelled tracks
from place to place, where camping is specifically
permitted. The fundamental principle of Nomadic
wandering, however, is the freedom of passing
through space and staying in any place at all.
Caravanning is regulated according to the settlers’
hierarchy of values. Space has definite economic value
in settlers’ societies, therefore its concept is based on
partition and marking the borders, on property and
speculation of land and its natural resources, on control
and profits of land ownership. This is the reason why
settlers’ societies try to prohibit Nomadic groups from
wandering and to command them to settle in a certain
place. Many Nomadic groups are therefore pushed to
abandon inhospitable land (for instance; Aborigines
and Arabic Nomads in the desert and Gypsies who use
scrap-heaps and refuse tips).
Nomads’ wandering and camping is outside settlers’
perceptions, because Nomads pass through ‘alien
land’, which is not marked by a network of roads or
traffic signs and therefore appears inaccessible.
Staying at the edge of a desert or steppe, we can see
some fugitive traces in the sands, traces of those who
wandered beyond the horizon and became a myth or
those who return, and appearing on the horizon seem
to be a phantasm.

The trace-spirits of conquerors
The statement “Veni, Vidi, Vici”, expressed by Julius
Caesar in the senate of the Roman Empire,
announced the victory and conquest of new territory.
Territorial expansions resulting from the needs for
‘living space’ Lebensraum, are an important part of
mankind’s civilisation. Though the purposes and
motives of expansion are different, conquests have
often hidden tragic dimensions expressed in the
history of the losers. We can see the traces of
conquerors everywhere, on statues, columns or
triumphal archs, in the grid of the cities or style of the
buildings, in flags waving in the wind on the
monuments’ masts or peaks.
The conquerors use the space dimension to supply
the fulfilment of the ‘Promised Land’, information and
profits. ‘Promised Land’ announces a future
happiness, therefore it results in a never-ending
search for it. It seems to be a symptom of being
unsatisfied by existing circumstances, caused by a
lack of possibilities for self-realisation, leading to a
loss of hope. Dreams of the new land, new beginnings
or new chances generate conquerors’ expeditions.
Information hunger and curiosity are also causes for
making journeys to distant places.
‘Being there’ —seeing, touching, experiencing or
exploring—is always an intrusion into a distant land.
There is no reason to think that ‘there’, contrasted with
‘here’ as possessive confirmation, belongs to
anybody. ‘Being there’ means taking possession of a
distant land by egoistic force of intellect or wish.
Journeys of exploration are therefore conquests of
the space.
Real or expected profit is the most common motive
force for conquering a new territory. Even if the
expedition is connected with the risk of loss of health
or life, a man usually takes such risk to win a fortune.
Transportable Environments: Theory
In opposition to wandering as a changing of place
without a final destination, the conquerors’ way of
crossing space is directed to a certain goal. It means
that every aspect of the expedition is planned
according to its purpose. The road leading to the goal
is chosen using such criteria as the shortest, the
quickest or the safest way, which means minimising
the loss of energy and maximising effectiveness.
Selection and choice of people, means of conveyance
and requirements for the journey are based on
precise calculation, because the journey itself is not
the goal of the conquering expedition; its costs have
to be minimised in order to maximise the profit. The
strategy of conquest is connected with establishing
colonies in a new territory, keeping them dependent,
exploiting their natural resources, and the peoples’
labour, and transferring the profits from the colonies
to the mother country. It requires the creation of a
network of control, and for transportation of people
and goods to and fro.
The spatial and social structures of colonies are
influenced by the pur poses of conquest. The
interesting thing is to discover the mutual interactions
between mother countries and their colonies. We can
find the best examples in Latin America—the New
World that was colonised by Spanish and Portuguese
Conquistadors in the sixteenth century.
The purpose of Spanish colonisation was to establish
and extend Christian civilisation, while the Portuguese
colonisation focused on commercial aims.27 Spanish
Conquistadors conquered the new territory by military
forces—they were beneficiaries of the conquest as
was the Spanish Kingdom and the Church. In
Portuguese colonisation, the beneficiaries of the
conquest were the commercial sponsors of the
expeditions.
The Spanish spatial model for colonies was based
on establishing centres which colonised their
27
Ada Kwiatkowska
surroundings. These centres were unified by a rigid
structure. They had functions of administration,
commerce and evangelization—for example, the
Governor’s House, City Hall and Church concentrated
around the main plaza in Buenos Aires, Argentina.28
This model of rigid structure for cities was not common
in Spain at this time. It was, however, a model of military
camps, which would later influence Spanish cities.
The Portuguese spatial model for colonies was based
on establishing centres on the coast for the exchange
of goods between the mother country and its colonies.
Coastal centres consisted of two parts, commercial
ports in the lower town, and a fortified area in the upper
town which protected the trade.The coastal cities were
open to the sea for the port activities (terreiro) and
communal square (rossio) but their life passed along
broad streets (largo) with commercial functions and
market (for example as in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil).29
This model exactly reflected the structure of
Portuguese cities at this time.
We can learn from the experience of the Conquistadors
that conquering new territory influenced both the new
colonies and the mother land.This should be a warning
to our civilisation, which is planning to colonise the
Universe. The military missions into the Cosmos will
have effects on patterns of living on Earth. Commercial
expeditions will exploit cosmic resources according
to an earthly hierarchy of values and will establish the
earthly order on other planets, which could lead to
disorder and loss of balance in the Universe.
The colonisation of the Universe—its purposes,
directions, selection and choice of people, means of
28
conveyance, journey requirements, patterns of
colonies etc. —has to be calculated and planned
precisely, because this process has its reverse side.
The challenge of future exploration expeditions to the
Cosmos is to become independent of matter and
energy supplies from the Earth. The structure of the
cosmic means of conveyance should be created
according to the principle of closed and renewable
matter-energy circulation.
However, it is the long-distance journeys measured in
millions of light years that put the most important
question of breaking the time-barrier of human life
finiteness.
Conclusion
Trace-spirits of sailors, wanderers, or conquerors
express the world’s enclosure in small circles of mutual
interactions, and the extreme dependence of people
on social, technological and natural processes. The
world of Nomads, in spite of the infinity of the
surrounding space—the sea, desert or Universe—is
minimised in spatial dimensions and reduced to basic
human needs such as shelter and defence.Their world
is based on stability and the reliability of social and
technological systems because of environmental
changes and menaces. The portable architecture of
Nomads consists of mobile, multifunctional forms of
exchange, which can be folded or dismantled and
rebuilt according to archetypal patterns. It is the
architecture of containers, which become ‘the whole
world’ of Nomads during long journeys to the point of
no return.

1 Sigrdrifumal, The Poetic Edda, 1996. p.276.
2 Mayer Spivak, ‘Archetypal Place’ in Architectural Forum,
1973, No. 10, p.48.
3 Joel Rosnay, Makroskop, 1982, p.274.
4 Yi-Fu Tua,. Przestrzen I miejsce. Warsaw: PIW Publ., 1987,
p.108. (Transl. into Polish from: Space and Place. The
Perspective and Experience. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1977.)
5 Ellis H.R.Davidson. Scandinavian Mythology, London, New
York, Sydney, Toronto: The Hamlyn Publ. Group Ltd, 1969,
pp.110–112.
6 Tadeusz Zbikowski,. ‘Religie archipelagu malajskiego.
Religie Australii I Oceanii’ (Religions of Malay Archipelago.
Religions of Australia and Pacific Ocean Islands) in Religie
Azji, Afryki, Ameryki, Australii I Oceanii (Religions of Asia,
Africa, America, Australia and Pacific Ocean Islands,
Warsaw: Iskry Publ, 1980, pp.203–232.
7 Tuan, p.110.
8 Reginsmal, The Poetic Edda, 1986, p.258.
9 Tuan, p.107.
10 Davidson, p.113.
11 Zbikowski, p.231.
12 Thor Heyerdahl, The Kon-Tiki Expedition. By Raft Across
the South Seas, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books
Ltd,. 1969, pp.130–131.
13 Thor Heyerdahl, Ekspedycja Ra. Warsaw: Iskry Publ.,
1974, pp.180–187. (Transl. into Polish from Ra Ekspedisjone,
Oslo, 1970.
14 Tuan, p.169.
15 Douglas Lockwood, Ja, Australijczyk. Warsaw: Isky Publ.,
1969, pp.156–158. (Transl. into Polish from: I, the Aboriginal,
Darwin, N.T. 1960).
16 Edward Szymanski, ‘Islam pierwotny’ (‘Primeval Islam’),
in Religie uniwersalistyczne (Universal Religions, Warsaw:
Transportable Environments: Theory
Iskry Publ., 1982, p.390.
17 Abdelmajid Meziane, ‘Empiryczne postrzeganie czasu u
ludzi Maghrebinskich’ (L’aperception empirique du temps
chez les peuples du Maghreb. Empirical Perception of Time
Among the Peoples of he Maghreb’) in Czas w kulturze,
Warsaw: PIW Publ., 1988, p183. (Transl. into Polish from: Les
cultures et le temps. Cultures and Time, Paris: UNESCO,
1975.)
18 Hossein Golabian, An Analysis of the Underdeveloped
Rural and Nomadic Areas of Iran. A Theoretical Approach to
the Problems of Social and Economic Development of Rural
and Nomadic Communities in Iran, Stockholm: The Royal
Institute of Technology, School of Architecture, 1977, p.236.
19 Ibid.
20 Ryszard Piwinski, Mitologia Arabow (Mythology of the
Arabs), Warsaw: Art and Film Publ., 1989, p.89.
21 Golabian, p.233.
22 Lee Horne, ‘Rural Habitats and Habitations. A Survey of
Dwellings in the Rural Islamic World’, in The Changing Rural
Habitat Proceedings of Seminars in the Series, Architectural
Transformations in the Islamic World. Beijing: The Aga Khan
Award for Architecture, vol 2, 1982, p.36.
23 Ibid, p.40.
24 Ibid, p.36.
25 Ibid, p.32.
26 Ibid.
27 Kenneth N.Clark, Elisa Del Bono and Antonio Luna Garcia,
‘The Geography of Power in South America: Divergent
Patterns of Domination in Spanish and Portugese Colonies’,
in: Defining the Urban Condition. Accelerating Change in the
Geography of Powerr, Proceedings of the ACSA, European
Conference, Lisbon, Washington: ACSA Press, 1995, p.112.
28 Ibid, p.113.
29 Ibid, p.115.
29
 Gion Festival float construction, Kyoto

30
Constructing The Ephemeral: The Notions of
Binding and Portability in Japanese Architecture
Vladimir Krstic
Kansas State University
Though ephemerality could be seen as primarily a
conceptual architectural proposition, the condition of
being ephemeral resides in the technique of
construction and the concept of materiality that is
embedded in it.
In Japanese Shinto rites the act of tying a rope—the
sacred rope ‘Shimenawa’ —around an object or a
place demarcates a location at which a divine spirit
(Kami) will descend and temporarily inhabit the world
of the living. The tying, or more precisely the act of
binding, embodies simultaneously a couple of
different conceptual notions: it inscribes and makes
the territory, implies its occupation, and generates
meaning by signifying the existence of the sacred
spirit. The Japanese word ‘Shime’ (verb shime-ru: to
close [tie]) from which the word ‘Shimenawa’ (the tying
[sacred] rope) is inferred has, according to Gunter
Nitschke, its etymological roots in three words: ‘a)
SHIMERU (Old Japanese: SHIMARU): to bind, to
close, to sum up; b) SHIMERU (Old Japanese:
SHIMU): to occupy; c) SHIMESU (Old Japanese:
same): to signify.’1 He further asserts, following the
premise of ergological etymology according to which
objects in archaic times were named after the way in
which they were made, that the idea of ‘Shime’ denotes
a cosmogonic structure whose meaning originates
in the process of its making: ‘What was made was a
bound (a) artifact which signified (b) an occupation
(c) of land. What was made was a SHIME; and in
ancient and in modern Japanese, up to recent times,
that was exactly the term for an occupation mark. In
our opinion it could only receive this name from the
way it was made, namely by binding’.2 Hence the act
of binding denotes an archetypal mode of
construction, an instance of willed human action by
way of which an undifferentiated natural condition is
transformed into a state of cosmogonic order.
Furthermore, it could be argued that binding
understood as a construction constitutes a primordial
act of making architecture which, informed by and
born out of a very specific idea of cosmogony, inscribes
a peculiar form of architectural conceptualisation.
In order to explore further the architectural analogous
of the idea of ‘Shime’ it is necessary to consider the
concepts that underlie the act of binding. According
to the cosmogonic view of Shinto religion the gods
(Kami-divine [ancestral] spirits) reside in the invisible
and inaccessible depths of the sea or the mountains
and they manifest themselves, make themselves
present, only for a brief period of time when they, on a
cyclical time basis, come to visit particular locations
in the world of the living. The tying of the sacred rope
Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto
‘Shimenawa’ not only inscribes the territory and
signifies its occupation (by a divine spirit) but, more
importantly, denotes the impermanence of the event
that takes place within the inscribed territory—in Shinto
terminology ‘Yorishiro’ or a temporary divine visiting
place. The temporariness here appears as a double
‘theme’ of the construction technique. On the one hand
the purpose of the construction is to signify and allow
for the temporariness (of the event of divine
appearance) to be materialised through the symbolic
function of its structure, and, on the other hand, the
construction itself, having its origin in the signification
of the temporariness, is conceived as a physical
analogue of that which it signifies and is executed as
31
Vladimir Krstic
a temporary thing, whether in regards to the technique
(being demountable [untied]) materiality (rope, grass
and other perishable natural materials) or
destructibility (propensity for burning in straw).
Ultimately, it could be argued that the purpose of the
act of binding of a sacred rope is to construct
temporariness.
The constructed temporariness incorporates two
permanent elements that partake in its making (it
actually unfolds as a function of their mutual relation):
the place and the construction technique. The place
constitutes a constant in terms of its idea, or the
ideology of seeing that informs its discrimination, a
characteristic natural condition sought out and
received as a potential (an idiosyncratic configuration
of an animate or inanimate object, or a locale, like a
tree trunk or a rock that in its extraordinariness bears
a sign of divinity and has a capacity to be inhabited by
the divine spirit) which invites perpetual acts of
construction. The place, its per manence, is
Kurama Mountain Shrine
consequently recognised more in terms of latent
capacities rather than as an actuality. It is solely through
the mediation of the ‘construction’, the tying of the
rope, that the place is truly actualised, though, as
discussed above, only on a temporary basis. Parallel
to this peculiar idea of the permanence of place, the
construction technique—the tying of the rope—
emerges as a second constant. It is conceived as such
solely in terms of the precision and the exactness of
the binding method which in the fixity of its principle
transcends all circumstantial conditions, including
topological idiosyncrasies, and imposes itself in a
form of applied universality of a construction
technique. So the impermanence here appears as a
difference in the constancy of the method of ‘reading’
of a place and the constancy of the application of the
‘science’ of a universalised construction method.
Herein lies the particular architectural epitome: on the
one hand the place and placing of architecture is
conceived as a critical reference point but only in a
32
temporary sense, as a location within which an
architectural construction unfolds (in terms of
demarcation, occupation and signification) strictly for
a limited period of time. On the other hand, the
technique and the means of the construction of
architecture are entirely divorced from the conditions
of any individual place, they are never site specific
and embody minimum necessary elements (binding
of a rope) that allow an architectural structure to
produce its meaning generation effect in all
conceivable locations. Hence the idea of portability
emerges as an arguably constituting element of the
archetypal condition of Japanese architecture. This
idea, however, does not inscribe a literal condition of
architecture as being necessarily physically portable
(though that always remains an open and inherent
possibility); rather it denotes a conceptual notion that
informs the process of phenomenal constitution of an
architectural object.
The analogies between the concept of ‘Shime’ and
the archetypal idea of Japanese architecture could
be argued on a number of points. Probably the most
relevant one is the notion of ‘Shared Space’ proposed
by Mitsuo Inoue.3 According to him the interior space
in Japanese architecture was traditionally conceived
as a realm not only reserved for, and occupied by,
humans but, also, deities and ancestral spirits. (Their
existence was acknowledged in annual rituals
through the demarcation of the physical invisibility of
a sacred spirit.) In this respect the house represents a
sacred as much as a secular structure. Consequently
the act of making architecture could be regarded as a
conceptual parallel of the process of demarcation,
occupation and signification found in the practice of
‘Shimenawa’ since it in part fulfils the same purpose
of inscribing the ground (creating the world) where
sacred spirit can manifest itself. Moreover, it could be
argued that the traditional post and beam structure
with the pronounced absence of walls, bears, in a
material and physical sense, a conceptual semblance
to the effect of the binding with a rope: as in

‘Shimenawa’ the resulting structure is physically
minimal and remains permeable; its purpose is not to
hold within by enclosing and disconnecting but by
signifying and demarcating, whereby creation of an
opaque architectural structure is rendered
inconceivable.The motive of the construction process
appears to be a pursuit of physical dissolution, a
continuous attempt and a desire to unmake
architecture in its physical presentness in order to
exchange it for and replace it with its experiential
effects. To that extent architecture is realised as a
tenuous entity—a transparent frame and a shadowy
stage ground wherein the transience of things (deities)
and events is seduced into marking its passage.
However, that which is actually signified and made by
architectural construction is the site itself. Architecture
conceived as a frame, an instrument of signification that
operates through topological demarcation, allows for
that which is inherent and latent in a particular location
to disclose itself, or make the idea of itself tangible. It binds
the site into being by giving measure to the intangibility
of things that underlie it—the site is made real in
reference to that which is thought to reside in it, literally in
the depths of the ground.4 Yet, paradoxically, it is the
location (place) that endures rather than the architecture:
Japanese are very reluctant to give up a piece of land
but they have very little concern for the eventual removal
of an architectural structure that might be sitting on it.This
can be hypothetically understood as a further indication
of the conceptual analogy that exists between acts of
tying (‘Shimenawa’) and constructing (architecture.) In
the most abstract conceptual terms, both of these
constructs perform identical functions and have identical
meanings relative to the idea of site. They are signs (its
denotative structures) and in that they are identical and
qualitatively indifferentiable from each other, and thus
exchangeable. There appears to be no conceptual
difference between binding of a sacred rope and
constructing a building on a particular site regarding the
meaning they produce.
Transportable Environments: Theory
Since their purpose resides in the interposing function
of a sign their material permanence is of little relevance.
They are materially grounded in neither the duration
of time nor the persistence of their objecthood, but in
the state of their own presentness—they simply are in
an atemporal (temporary) fashion by being signs of that
which is physically invisible. Consequently, in spite of
their physical difference, architecture is not seen to be
any more permanent than a simple structure of bound
(sacred) rope. What remains constant is the idea of
Katsura Villa, Kyoto
place pregnant with its undiscernible spiritual depths
against which architecture is measured as a transient
sign (or the sign of transience).
The phenomenon of temporality around which
Japanese traditional architecture is constituted is
inseparable from the conceptualisation of the structural
assembly of its body.The idea of impermanence in this
instance is embedded in the notion of construction
technique. In other words, the part of the physical
makeup of something that is temporary is a dimension
and a potential for its own undoing, it actually
represents its defining characteristic. Traditionally in
Japanese architecture the connections between major
structural elements, beams and post, were executed
through tensile and pressure joints without any use of
nails. When necessary, wooden pegs and wedges
were used to secure connections and proper
distribution of forces. It could be argued that such a
conceptualisation of the structural assembly has its
origin in the pragmatics of the earthquake-prone
conditions of Japan where flexible joints would allow
for maximum resistance or, in the case of collapse,
preservation of structural elements. Nevertheless,
seen from another perspective, it could also be
postulated that the idea of binding (‘Shime’)
conceptually underlies such a construction method.
The idea of binding implies a notion that something is
put together by a knot(s) tied around it. In case of tying
the constituting elements of a constructed assembly
are never altered in their original forms, they are simply
brought together by the mediation of a rope, so any Dai Kokuji Temple, Kyoto
33
Vladimir Krstic
such produced structure is always provisional rather
then absolute. More importantly, tying (the making of
a knot) denotes and opens up the possibility of its own
unmaking (untying) without material destruction and
alteration of either binding or bound material. Here
resides a critical distinction of binding and building,
or understanding a particular form of construction as
binding. Whatever is bound is only temporary, until it
fulfils its function and then it can be unbound,
disassembled and erased, or made (bound) into
something else. It is not only ‘Shimenawa’ that is
removed after the deity is gone; quite often traditional
houses in Japan are moved from one location to
another by being systematically disassembled and
assembled. This suggests an understanding of
architecture as a system of abstractly universal
structural and meaning-generating elements which
are in flux and dependent upon the precision of the
assembly principle to produce their effect. It is within
this conceptual framework that the idea of portability
in Japanese architecture resides.
Royanji Temple, Kyoto
Phenomenally, in the context of the idea of ‘Shime’ as
its underlying conceptual referent, Japanese trad-
itional architecture has been constituted into a
paradoxical structure. The notion of architecture as
an analogue of the bound artifact which signifies the
occupation of land cannot be separated from the
phenomenal nature of that which such an artifact is
supposed to signify.The material origin of architecture
resides in the fact that the act of binding, framing
through construction, is supposed to bring within the
realm of the visible something that by its nature is
invisible—the sacred spirit that has no
anthropomorphic configuration. Consequently the
whole building process unfolds as a speculative
undertaking of making a stage, inscribing a territory,
wherein the invisible will manifest itself. The paradox
of this situation resides in the fact that in attempting to
bring forth something that exists outside the spectrum
of the real (visible), and in doing so becoming an
instrument of its disclosure, architecture itself has
34
grown more indeterminable in its presence and
material veracity. In other words architecture has come
to approximate in its own physical makeup the
character of that which it was trying to contain.
Ultimately architecture resolves into a state in which
the stage cannot be separated from the event, where
matter dissolves into shadow and movement of air into
anticipation of something happening—a place where
there is no known form to things and where time
translates into apprehension—a moment when
something fleeting is caught by the corner of the eye.
The material reality of architecture in Japanese
tradition is, hence, conceived only in relative terms,
as a counter-instance, but not more relevant, to that
which is absent of matte. Its body circumscribes a place
of intersection and exchange between the real and
the unreal and is literally made out of it—the tenuous
construction of transience (‘Shimenawa’).
The question remains to what extent the above
discussed ideas of conceptual and material
configurations of architecture are relevant today when
the terms of architectural practice, production and
ideology have drastically changed. If it is understood
that these ideas are grounded in a particular world
view and denote a specific sensibility for
apprehending and relating to the larger-order
circumstances, then it could be argued that the
resulting architectural archetype has preserved its
relevance as a matrix for the reconstitution of material
and conceptual bearings of architecture. The idea of
temporariness curiously started to (re)emerge in the
works and writings of contemporary Japanese
architect Toyo Ito in the mid-1980s and continue into
the present. Such thinking has taken place at a critical
juncture for Japanese architects when the realisation
of the futility of extending the ideology of ‘Urban
Guerrilla’ (propagated by Tadao Ando) became
painfully tangible. Its promise of a prolonged stand-
off situation between architecture and the city was
threatening a conceptual cul-de-sac where
architecture was once again to become its own

purpose. In refocusing the question of the city and
reinterpreting it as a metaphor of Nature—‘The Urban
Forest’ as a manmade technological Nature—Ito was
able to conceptually reframe his own architectural
explorations. The city was no longer a condition and a
context to be resisted; rather, it was accepted in its
inevitable ‘natural’ presence as a place of architecture.
As such it circumscribed the ground on which
architecture had to be conceptually and materially
reconfigured in order to come to terms with the
ideological shift in its contextual parameters—the idea
of ‘second’ nature and the ‘naturalness’ of technology
and electronics in constituting the body of the city. Ito
himself wrote: ‘Architecture has always had an
existence easily visible by architects. However, if the
forest we are currently living in is an invisible space
and houses we are dwelling in cannot be clearly
objectivized, we are destined to be thrown out again
into the wild forests and fields which are cities.’ 5
Analogously, the idea of ‘primitive’ architecture (hut)
has surfaced here as a next logical question and the
matrix for the thinking of the new.
The idea of primitive architecture was approached by
Ito as a question of the reductive essence of an
architectural structure: the state in which what is
constructed and conceived bears no material
difference from its context, the only distinction being
the deliberate manner of organising (assembling) the
material in order to produce a meaning-generating
condition. The paradigm delineated by this question
has implied consideration of two parallel conditions.
On the one hand, architecture had to dispense with
the protective formal shell embedded in its ordering
systems in order to make a liberating recourse in
confronting the issue of its origin. On the other hand,
the metaphorical idea of ‘nature’ was based in an
understanding of technology, the high technology of
electronics, as a new fibre which was necessitating
material and conceptual reconstitution of architecture
and, at the same time, allowing for the question of
‘primitive’ to be framed anew. Together with this the
Transportable Environments: Theory
city as a ‘forest’ was understood to be analogous to
Abbe Laugier’s idea, as a repository of building
material from where, or from whose technological
body, architecture was to be gathered.
What is of interest to this argument is the fact that the
concept of construction of architecture in Ito’s work
incarnates notions of territorial demarcation and
signification of occupation reflective of the idea of
‘Shime.’ One could postulate that the essence of Ito’s
Toyo ito: T Building, Tokyo, 1990
architecture resides in the study of matter. The form
never exists outside the realm of the material that
produces it and, in a certain sense, it is the material
that dominates form and renders it abstract. However,
that dominance is not contained in the tangibility of
the presence of the material but in the art of
transforming it into an ephemeral state in which it is
revealed as its own negation, it neither is nor it is not.
The walls in Ito’s architecture are painstakingly
constructed feeble structures whose permeable
substance has no capacity neither to hold things in or
to keep them out—it is the event of the transmission of
things through their substance that makes them real.
Similar to the act of binding a sacred rope, the meaning
of architecture is revealed in the demarcation of the
transparency of its locus, it is made by that which
fleetingly transpires and leaves its quickly fading
residue in the folds of the building matter. Ito himself
has argued that: ‘…architecture is an extremely
transient existence like a piece of film wrapping a
human body. It does not have a substance nor implies
weight. Designing an architecture is an act of
generating vortexes in the currents of air, wind, light
and sound. It is not constructing a dam against flow
nor resigning oneself to the current.’6
The attempt to construct transience, to make a stage
for something temporary to unfold in this case is not
based in the quest for the revelation of a divine
presence. It seeks something equally elusive and
invisible—the etherealised effects of technology and
nature. However what matters here is the idea of Toyo ito: T Building, Tokyo, 1990
35
Vladimir Krstic

Toyo Ito, Ueda Gallery, Yokyo, 1991
anticipation, the desiring and sensing of that which is
not defined in advance and has no known form nor is
measurable, this is what connects in spirit and
sensibility Ito’s work with the tradition of Japanese
architecture, and the idea of ‘Shime.’
The idea of transience in Ito’s work extends beyond
phenomenal configurations of architecture and
carries over into larger questions of sociopolitical
conscience of architectural production, which stem
from his contemplation of the condition of the
Japanese city. This in the first place relates to the
concept of ‘urban nomad’ as a fictitious and archetypal
inhabitant of his work. The concept implies the
condition of placelessness and the life of wandering
to which the inhabitants of the contemporary
metropolis are subjugated today. The corollary of
this situation is the loss of place of architecture, or
the problematisation of the idea of the fixed site.
What is postulated here is not the idea of the doom
of sitelessness but, rather, the notion of architecture
sited in the city (its condition) as a whole where
individual physical place becomes a thing of a lesser
consequence for the construction of architecture.
Such a realisation, though still hypothetical,
resonates tangibly in the manner in which Ito’s
buildings have been put together. They appear only
tenuously connected to the site. The air caught in
the strained concaves of the vaulted roof shells
gives a stronger sense of grounding to the buildings
than the soil itself creating a sense of an architecture
that virtually glides in the place. Simultaneously the
very idiosyncrasy of the formal topography of these
structures inscribes its own uncertainty—the form
occurs as an almost circumstantial configuration of
the prefabricated structural system that underlies
it. Within the outline of the prefabricated body of the
form-generating skeleton lurks the possibility of
continuous and boundless transformation—a
chance for undoing and reassembling, making
anew and moving to another place where form
materialises only as an interlude between two
states of transformation. And no matter what
transformation, the material always remains
unaltered, an instrument of open possibilities of
construction, of making of the world irrespective of
location. This is where the idea of making in Ito’s
architecture becomes analogous to binding of a
sacred rope, and this is where the circle is
completed, or started anew.7

1 Gunter Nitschke, ‘Shime, Binding/Unbinding’, Architectural
Design 12/1974.
2 Ibid.
3 Mitsuo Inoue, Space in Japanese Architecture, New York:
Weatherhill, 1985.
4 Most of the new building construction in Japan is preceded
by the ‘Tokoro Shizume Matsuri’, the Land Quietening Ritual,
the purpose of which is to seek redemption with the residing
deities for disturbing the land.
5 Toyo Ito, ‘Architecture Sought After by Android’, Japan
Architect 06/1998.
6 Toyo Ito, ‘Vor tex and Current-An Architecture of
Phenomenalism’.
7 This essay was also published in ‘Ephemeral/Portable
Architecture’ themed issue of Architectural Design,
September/October 1998.

36
The Suitcase: (Postcards and Paraphernalia)
Redefining the Space of Tourism and Travel
Christopher M.King
Cornell University
To some people civilization appears to be
evolving in a way that systematically reduces any
chance for privacy. With the rapid increase in
human population and with the automobile
being so much a part of our lives, one is hard put
to find a secluded and private spot. We would
like to believe that we can retreat into the sanctity
of our own homes. But new and improved
technologies bring the outside world into the
privacy of our domain. We install a telephone,
which…can interrupt even the most intimate of
moments. We bring television sets into our living
rooms and bedrooms….The sense of seclusion
is the feeling of privacy and we find our privacy
by withdrawing, screening out, by attempting to
exclude others. As the population has expanded
and modern living thrown us more and more
together, we have also evolved behaviors that
yield some modicum of privacy, even in the most
public of places.1
Norman Ashcroft and Albert E.Sheflen
The space of the traveling body, addressing both
necessity of function and necessity of the desirable,
is becoming infinitely more important in today’s culture
and is significant for the communities of tomorrow. With
the ever-quickening pace of construction and
commercial expansions, the navigation of the body
through these environments is becoming
uncomfortable for both the estranged tourist and the
corporate executive on Wall Street. In the
technologically dominated age of ‘the web’, the threat
of losing the visceral experience of travel, social
interaction, and cultural exchange to the virtual space
of the internet calls forth a more informed means for
the corporeal body to move through space as flaneur,
justifying one’s own meanderings. It is the importance
of cultural interaction as well as in the spatial definition
of one’s personal habitation that leads to an inquiry of
what role portable and transformable architecture will
assume in the overcrowded society of tomorrow.
As poignantly rendered by Ashcroft and Scheflen, the
variance that exists between the congested urban
climate in which we are forced to navigate daily and
our own private habitat to which we return, is quickly
losing its presence. The occupation of the city space
is adopting an ambivalent role. One can now choose
either to engage physically in the urban fabric or to
surf the virtual city webbing which now penetrates the
interior comforts of the home. Home serves the
individual as a place to ‘withdraw,’ to ‘screen’ out, or to
‘exclude’ others. Similarly, the screen has historically
been deemed an agent which conceals the body and
offers a sense of privacy and protection, allowing the
individual a sense of place and, therefore, home. The
screen has typically served as partition or boundary,
where now, faced with the antithesis in terms of the
computer, the interconnectedness of ‘the web’ forces
the individual to surrender that definition, allowing
screen to become a mechanism to reveal, creating a
more multi-faceted, occupied space. Here the
individual experiences a sense of safe public
interaction, where the fear of (eye-to-eye)
conversation is eliminated.
Several concerns arise which complicate this
discussion, including individual identity, the
37
Christopher M.King
implications of safety, and the collapse of both public
and private space. With the current location of ‘the web’
and the internet, many important issues have been
raised architecturally speaking, centering primarily
on communication, information, and political
jurisdiction.The new expanded cities of tomorrow offer
immediacy, which is desirable to the individual,
allowing access to public amenities from the safety of
home. Unlike current urban scapes, the cybercity
involves a different habitational procedure, always
ensuring safe interaction without the increasing
possibility for dangerous confrontation. The need or
desire to meander the public streets of the cities in
which we live is becoming a perilous act. Aside from
the threat of physical harm, the increase in the density
of the built environment and human population and
demographics tends to repel the person who is in
constant search for a sense of one’s self in the larger
community, an identity the internet provides in the
comfort of one’s living room.
Another issue is the lack of person. Name is never in
direct association with body. Therefore, the individual
never bears an identity as defined by physical
characteristics or moralistic values on the internet,
breaking the tie between the individual’s action and a
resulting consequence. He or she is in disregard of
physical space, objects, and consequently memory,
since it tends to be induced by familiarity of the object.
The transformation of identity or person then allows
the denial of physical environment, limiting any spatial
awareness to the room from which the individual
logged onto ‘Cybercity’. Navigating cyberspace is not
spatial but rather extends its organization to the
location of place or pages, better known as ‘sites.’
Residents of Cybercity are located by an address,
therefore eliminating the individual’s sense of self by
simply replacing his or her name. Given the lack of
object value and object location, all sense of cultural
adaptation to place as we currently understand it
becomes altered. Denis Wood and Robert J. Beck, in
their book Home Rules, talk about this notion of space
38
being altered by the value of the object.2 They discuss
space as being a culmination of objects and souvenirs
that are embedded in notions of memory, inherently
gaining importance over time, deeming them
valuables. Their location within a space assigns
unwritten guidelines, implanting rules within each
room, extending value further than the utilitarian
function. Consequently, rules are written
simultaneously with the acquiescence of the previous
protocol, constantly altering the physical space, the
value space, and the rule space. As the navigation of
Cyberspace becomes increasingly elementary, the
rule space which applies to our physical environment
is eliminated, facilitating the mitigation of physical
public activity. As Christine Boyer writes in Cybercities,
…the postmodern body is surrounded and
bombarded with incoherent fragments of space
and time, for in Cybercity we seem to be
continuously in motion—be it driving the
highways, shopping at the malls, or pushing
carts through supermarket aisles. It has been
argued that electronic telecommunications
have reformulated our perceptions of space and
time, so that we experience a loss of spatial
boundaries or distinctions, so that all spaces
begin to look alike and explode into a
continuum…. The result is an inability to map
our contemporary terrain, to envision space
and representational forms, and thus to weave
things together, to conclude, to be able to act.3
The implications of these developments are leading
to the collapse not only of public space, due to the
increased use and convenience of the net, but also of
private space as the invasion of our homes by the
electronic superhighway diminishes the possibility
for personal privacy. As the use of the net increases
specifically within our homes, the boundaries which
serve to maintain different spatial conditions are
transcended, opening up the possibility for a
complete reversal of public and private domains. The

house will become a plug-in to the public body and,
there-fore, the individual will no longer be gauged in
relation to the immediate space and environment as
formed by the collected objects and the value space
they project. (Note: The computer in this case does not
inherently operate as an object.)
The conventional house is no longer a viable mode
of habitation in the dense and intertangled
environments in which we live. An inquiry into the
innate nature of house has led to discussion of a
traveling habitat which could allow for the navigation
of public space while still maintaining the boundaries
which secure the personal space of an individual.
Cybercity is growing at a rate threatening both the
desire, and even the possibilities for physical
interaction within an urban context. The mobile body
requires a kinetic home. The possibility of a traveling
unit has to participate as an elastic container for the
body which is interactive, stretching and altering its
form in direct response to its use, i.e. what is collected
and what is removed. Much like the typical suitcase
which reveals its journeys with airport destination tags,
rips and tears, and changes in its contents, a portable
unit should be able to do the same, depicting not only
the personal space of the individual but also the
boundaries of such a space. Objects which become
part of the emblematic collection and authentication
of a journey alter the definition of personal space in a
manner which gives a technical invention new
meaning.
The artificial relevance of these objects in direct
association with memory becomes important to the
tourist much in the same way as valuables do to a
homeless person, for example. The prescribed value
of memory, as it lies embedded within the things an
individual procures, constantly oscillates between
utilitarian function and the manifestation of rule space
as defined by an item’s value. Because there is no
permanent construction which allows for the
simultaneous use and storage of objects, there is a
Transportable Environments: Theory
coagulating transition inherent to a process oscillating
between these stages of storage and stages of use.
Choosing the contents of luggage for a journey
becomes equally important as what is picked up along
the way, therefore invariably redefining an
individual’s personal habitation within a public
environment.
Several precedent studies have been reviewed in
terms of the thematic re-evaluation of personal
habitation. It is necessary to open a line of inquiry
concerning this typology in its current existence,
registering the homeless as urban resident tourists.
Homeless housing and methods developed for
survival in the urban environment have been
innovative and relevant to an investigation of tourist
travel. The crucial band of discussion covers a range
from appropriation of object to the construction of a
shelter to a location of personal space, all on a portable
basis. We see how the shopping cart serves as the
source of mobility for the collapsed inhabitants of the
resident tourist. This acquired vehicle allows this
individual the qualities of a room within an urban
climate without the permanance of occupying a ‘real
site’. The cart becomes the boundaries of this
individual’s space, or shall I say the container of his/ Habitation of a shopping cart, the space for (and of) objects
her objects. Here we can start to assess the power
behind the notion of journey representable by things
collected, clearly marking the object as a tool which
provokes memory and therefore value. Personal
space in this case is constituted solely by the storing,
use, and daily routine of each item that accompanies
this person on his or her daily meandering. Surely the
choice of what items are inclusive in this portable unit
are not decided solely on utilitarian value, although
this is of importance.
One example, published under the title, ‘Living Out Of
A Suitcase’ in a 1976 edition of the RIBA Journal,
depicted a similar project where all utilitarian functions
and functions of daily routine were, in fact, accounted
for within this construction.4 However, the ideas of The Maintainer—interior, exterior and suitcase form
39
Christopher M.King
‘value space’ were not present. The case was not
adaptable to contents specific to the inhabitant.
Another case study example which constructed
similar issues was published in October Journal,
entitled, ‘Homeless Vehicle Project’, which depicted
an innovation where the typical shopping cart was
redesigned and modified so that the utilitarian design
was now more suitable for the body. 5 While the
intention is to better these mobile functions, the
original shopping cart adequately conforms to the
utilitarian needs. The construction is lacking in the
ability to allow for personal ‘value space’. Individuality
develops after the cart has been acquired, in relation
to use value, the objects which are part of the container
mark that particular cart as someone’s cart, and, when
in accompaniment with the body, demarcate a space.
Private space has to be, in this case, in constant
negotiation with its immediate environment, since the
location is within a public fabric.To make the shopping
cart anything more than a cart would be evading the
issue of creating greater comfort for an individual, and
it is the lack of a personal environment that becomes
the issue of importance. With that said, this argument
would not allow for a renovation of the cart in terms of
its basic function. This project manifests itself in the
ability to act as container, therefore allowing an
analysis and reconstruction of object space
specifically. For purposes of investigation, this project
developed in two stages, the first and second case
study construction.
The intent of the constructions were to (re)construct
the typical suitcase through unconventional means,
with regards to form, function, paying close attention
to the theory and understandings that created the
original suitcase, thereby redefining its own place both
as an object of travel and simultaneously creating a
new understanding of its function in relation to the
traveling body, the tourist. Initially it was intended that
the case should define its own journey by clearly
defining where it started, where it ended up, and how
its contents change during this process. The suitcase
Magazine ad for Zero Halliburton suitcases
40
begins the journey as a miniature traveling edition of
one’s home, housing items of clothing, maps, and
other essentials. Throughout the journey it has acted
as a container, collecting not only found objects, but
also objects created, such as drawings and sketches
as well as the infamous postcards which are key to
the trip’s authentication. These objects are ‘artificially
imparting meaning and relevance to otherwise banal
circumstances and occurrences’.6
It became key to investigating the ability of the new
constructions to record their actions and reactions
with the tourist, not as a suitcase as it was formerly
defined, but as a companion to the traveller. The
process involved a re-conception of the original
design so as to allow it to become what it is inherently,
a receptacle for objects which tend to induce memory,
such as postcards, souvenirs and other
paraphernalia, allowing for a more developed
prescription of personal space definition.
The ‘evolved behaviors’ which Ashcroft and Scheflen
mentioned are a point of discussion for the thesis of
this investigation. The need for such adaptations to
enable the re-negotiation of public space, trying to sift
out instances of privacy, is representational of the
need for the re-negotiation of the home. Although the
earlier investigations tend to be manifested in an
argument surrounding academic meandering, it is
inevitable for this evolution to evidence itself within
the scrutiny of this topic. Suitcase 1 served to elaborate
these conditions, as a container which analyzed and
documented its own contents; the possibilities of
analysis and further thematic research became not
only evident but intriguing. Suitcase 1, then,
questioned not only the state of the object in transition,
the suitcase itself located in different sites, but also
the form of the case in relation to its construction of
physical boundaries. It served to question the state of
the contained objects and recording devices, both in
transit and their location within and construction of the
newly unfolded boundaries. The first case, which took

the crude form of a trunk, was able to record its journey
in many ways in open and closed format. It dealt with
sound recording devices, photographic instruments,
as well as diagrammatic recordings. The idea was to
assign this device with the appropriate senses to
make a postcard of its own trip, in addition to that of the
tourist. In relationship to the object, the case left
practically empty and returned with just these
analytical studies, not trying to acquire objects but
rather trying to establish the possible tie which exists
between the postcard and the event. I questioned
whether or not then the possibility existed for a device
not only to assess the surrounding environment and
in a sense take a photo of the missed portion of a journey
(making an instant postcard), but also to create the
rest of the picture surrounding the advertisement or
picture-perfect photograph. This study was crucial for
understanding the role of memories and value objects
in the creation and livability of a private sector. This
was by no means a functioning enclosure but instead
a construct which enabled me to understand the role
of the postcard, as destination and as memory in
relation to the actuality of a site.
After the completion of the first case study, Suitcase 1,
which clearly identified the importance of the affinity
held between object and subject and consequently
memories as induced by the object, Suitcase 2
emerged, engaging yet another component of design.
The second case study precisely examined the body
in relationship to the case in terms of a prosthetic unit.
It accurately gauged the human dimension with
respect to the comfortable interaction and
maneuverability of the unit. Furthermore, it served to
become another body in space where the interaction
between subject and object was so closely rendered,
a sense of personal space or private coding could be
translated into specific chair heights, foot rests, and
body encapsulation. It was adapted to be more ‘user
friendly’, where the issue of mobility and
transformability were key topics, promoting the ability
for it to navigate many different climates. Physical
Transportable Environments: Theory
properties became very important in that the creation,
collection, and storage of objects was part of the
design, in direct association with the body operating
the unit. While the issue of enclosure and physical
habitation was not dealt with completely, Suitcase 2
served as a very precise measure of boundary and
became a mediator of interactions between body and
environment and also, body and body. The physical
construction actually mimicked the joints of a human
body in many ways.The chair unit which was designed
and milled, operated much like a leg, locating the
structure (bone), the rods of movement (tendons) as
well as pivot-and-ball joints. The outer dimensions of
the unfolded case were also closely related,
measuring six feet high by two feet wide.These moves Homeless Vehicle Project, David Lurie, Krzysztof Wodiczko
were made in conjunction with the creation of a
personal habitat, a space for one in an environment
of many. It is to be used as a functioning unit which is in
dialogue with the body, maintaining the boundaries
of exactly that, ‘space for one.’
The intent, to investigate and experiment with the
notions of objectivity as a direct link to memory, was
specifically to question memory as experience. A line
of query is opened up as to whether or not memory is
necessarily tied to a place or time or whether the
postcard can contain the entire journey as experience
where the picture on the front is merely a symbolic
reference (an object), amplifying its role as postcard
to that of a transportable container, becoming a
microcosm of the suitcase and its spatial capabilities.
As quoted in Flesh, Susan Stewart writes that the
postcard is ‘an instrument for converting the public
event into a private appropriation’.7 The inherent role
of the suitcase is reinserted with spatial boundaries.
Also quoted in this source is an excerpt from the movie,
Total Recall:
With Recall incorporated, you can buy the
memory of your ideal trip, cheaper, safer, and
better than the real thing. What’s more, the
package offers options to travel in alternate
41
Christopher M.King

Suitcase 2

42

identities. We call it the ego trip…. The Recall
(Rekal) client will emerge from sedation implan
ted with extra-factual memories of a travel
adventure…provided with tangible evidence
such as souvenirs, ticket stubs, a stamped
passport, and proof of immunization.8
This completes two points: that of the object to contain
the potency of a journey in the negotiation and
shaping of a private domain; and the desire to obtain
the artifact or evidence without ever having gone on
the trip. These are the issues that are key in the
development of the two suitcases. At the time that this
film was produced, the scale of Cybercity was still in
development. However, the topic presented in this film
relates closely to this discussion and more specifically
questions what travel will entail in the cities of the
future, be it virtual or visceral.
Questioning the social role of ‘place’ vs. ‘space’ in
ordinance with the body politic as well as
questioning the range of possible programs a small-
scale vernacular device could occupy will lead to
an informed method of thinking when designing the
home of tomorrow. I am continuing this discussion,
trying to investigate habitation for more than one
and also develop complete enclosure systems
which are still at a transpor table scale. The
relationship between personal and private space
1 Norman Ashcroft and Albert E.Sheflen, People Space: The
Making and Breaking of Human Boundaries, Garden City:
Anchor Books, 1976.
2 Denis Wood and Robert J Beck, Home Rules, Baltimore:
The John Hopkins University Press, 1994.
3 Christine M.Boyer. Cyber Cities: Visual Perception in the
Age of Electronic Communication, New York, 1996, p.19.
4 T.Gwilliam, ‘Living out of a Suitcase’, RIBA Journal, 84, 83:
p.291, July 1976.
Transportable Environments: Theory
is starting to transform itself from a more private
embodiment of place, of house and apartment, to a
more public embodiment, specifically the space of
the subjectified and objectified body—who is the
meanderer. The role of Cybercity is of growing
impor tance in tomorrow’s wor ld, where the
possibility for immobility will also trigger the
collapse of public and private space. The need for
new investigations in terms of travel and modern
housing is key for the survival of the visceral
experience. A close approximation of the thinking
mind and the acting body has to be kept in order to
maintain the physical environment in which we live.
The discussion, bringing up multiple issues of
functionality, maneuverability and scale is in relation
to the event of the acting unit where the issues of
cyberspace, virtual reality, and the internet remove
this physical construction, allowing the computer to
replace the visceral body with a virtual one.
The case studies were the first stages of an ongoing
physical and thematic investigation of this multi-
faceted topic, centering around the traveling body, be
it tourist or homeless in reaction and interaction with
differing environments and destinations. Here the
issue of portable architecture centers around the
mobility of the body in a highly congested
environment, allowing the suitcase as companion, the
chance to amplify its possible new role as ‘home.’
5 David V Lurie and Wodiczko, ‘Homeless Vehicle Project’,
October 47, (1988) pp.53–67.
6 Hani Rashic and Lise Anne Couture, Asymptote:
Architecture at the Interval, New York, 1995, p.12.
7 Susan Stewart in Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio
(eds), Flesh: Architectural Probes, New York: 1994, p.218.
8 Ibid., p.199.
43
Context

Present-day concerns for single objects will be replaced by concern for relationships. Shelters
will no longer be static objects but dynamic objects sheltering and enhancing human events.
Accommodation will be responsive, ever-changing and ever-adjusting. Cities of the future will no
longer be zoned as today in isolated ghettos of like activities; rather organisationally they will
resemble the more richly layered cities of the past, living, work, shopping, learning and leisure will
be housed in continuous, varied, and changing structures..
Richard Rogers, postscript in Chris Wilkinson, Supersheds, 1991

Kyoto city: aerial view

Kyoto Machiya: The ideas of Spatial Layering, Ritual Disclosure and Portability in the Form of Japanese Traditional City Dwelling Marina Pecar
 ‘The Tiger Act’, Our Domestic Resurrection Circus, Glover, Vermont, 1983

46
From Learned Pigs to the Burning Man:
Itinerant Amusement in America
Nicholas Tobier
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
If the circus is coming to town, why should we really
care? On any given night in the privacy of our own
homes, we have various small screens brimming with
entertainment options but these are mere viewing
possibilities. Examining the circus side show or the
situation comedy, each reduced to its content, is
equally uneven. Consider rather the experiential
difference, and the live show’s sensory and
dimensional realities surpass the glowing box’s
illusory distractions.
Before the convenience of individual home ment and
amusement, itinerant entertainment offered not only
distraction, but an entry to places beyond or aside from
the everyday. Intrepid showmen and performers set
up built structures that occupied and transformed
otherwise undistinguished tracts of land into
temporary territories of often surprising events. These
ephemeral places embodied a willingness to engage
desire and fantasy before it was expected as a civic
right. The evolving traveling shows prefigured
typologies of the American landscape from country
fairs to billboards and ‘Lollapalooza’, as well as
stimulating an appetite for their offerings. The impact
of these entertainments as memorable events with
form and dimension offered an afterglow beyond the
show. For however brief the life expectancy of the
actual structure, the event and gathering around it lives
on in individual memory and collective experience.
From puppet shows to Ringling Bros, to the Burning
Man, hit-and-run entertainment has facilitated
innovative building strategies, elements of communal
focus and sites for subversion. Today’s readily
available two-dimensional images, reduced in scale,
and stripped of sensory and olfactory peculiarities,
are but shorthand for the collective spectacle of a
circus.
Collective experiences in 17th- and 18th-century
America were dominated by religious observance.
This society continually reaffirmed its structure and
socio-spatial arrangements through Puritan ethics,
extracting corresponding social performance roles
from its inhabitants. Over time, the repeated enactment
of learned behavior circumscribed movement. The
setting of these spatial ballets in which individuals
followed the routes of their role through class or public
standing, led to a sedimentation of cultural landscape
in which the same routes repeatedly taken defined
the stage of community life. 1 In contrast to the
monotony of this early colonial life, substantial interest
was generated by a passing entertainment, which
intervened in the set scene, either playing roles
previously not cast or deemed inappropriate.Traveling
by any manner available, itinerant showmen brought
relief with their infusions of activity to otherwise insular
communities.
Long before the temporary utopias of World Fairs or
distopias of carnival midways, the smallest of traveling
amusements supplied a focus around which some
group of people could participate and associate
outside of work or worship. Evidence of these small-
scale ‘happenings’ with large-scale repercussions is
found only in part through their promotional handbills,
the rest resides in the sermons and edicts that
condemned them.
47
Nicholas Tobier
With roots in the market fairs of the Middle Ages,
traveling fairs and their predecessors created
temporary towns that allowed an alternate order in
an otherwise rigidly ordered society. The other
circumstances which called for special rules were
sacred. Sacred rituals and these secular rituals bear
striking resemblances from time to time—both
occured infrequently, were rarely of purely local origin
or interest, and both brought strangers together in one
place. ‘In a word’, Daniel Defoe wrote, ‘the Fair is like
a well-governed city, and there is the least disorder
and confusion (I believe) that can be seen anywhere
with so great a concourse of people.’ 2 These
ephemeral structures built a utopian vision, in which
oppression and daily responsibility were momentarily
lifted for well-behaved intrigue.
That the show was just passing through town, rather
than a permanant fixture, allowed a brief aberration
to exist. Socially defined as a special case, what would
be typically persecuted as marginal behavior, was
tolerated within the spatially distinct entertainment
zone. Hardly an integral component of communal life,
each entertainment that presented itself had to find
its own ground, each time creating an ephemeral
place. Announcing their presence by temporary
constructions, entertainers marked these places as
distinct while adhering to the status they had been
granted—neither central nor monumental, the
structures they employed trumpeted their marginality.
From their earliest appearances in New England to
the present, itinerancy has punctuated mainstream
American social fabric with healthy elements of
discontinuity.
The Barbary Lion and other small
menageries
Single menageries that brought exotic, rare, or oddly
skilled animals for viewing begin the course of plotting
entertainment’s interruptions. The minimal overhead
of a single cart that was both showplace and transport
48
afforded a degree of mobility that allowed access to
different audiences, and a means of escape from a
less than receptive host. Their itinerary was limited by
physical endurance, as these ‘flat foots’ could only
travel as far as the day would take them. The added
burden of their beast of fortune further limited their
travel range, dictating multiple stops and temporary
displays in towns of all sizes.
The easiest traveling show animal probably provided
the most startling sight, having no close native
relations. Elephants, capable of walking long
distances, did not need to travel by wagon and could
be led overland. Thus, the rare animal was sighted
not only at its show places, but en route. So popular
had the elephant become as entertainment, that one
showman was forced to lead his from town to town at
night. 3 Even then, on hearing of the animal’s
approach, farmers would light bonfires by the roads’
edge, hoping to get a glimpse of the passing creature.
Their actions indicate the popularity of these displays.
Such a simple show, where an animal stands still,
offering merely its corporeal presence describes what
constituted event potential in rural America.
Dependent on traveling shows of any description to
provide entertainment, this appetite was exploited in
rural areas through self-generated promotion that
tended to inflate claims in an appeal to what was
believed to be a more gullible rural public. Public
response to patronizing ranged from adulation to
clerical admonitions. Some led to even more
pugnacious pronouncements such as an 1816
incident in Alfred, Maine, in which a resident shot a
traveling elephant, apparently outraged at the money
this outsider and his animal were extracting.4 Clearly,
traveling entertainment posed as much a threat to
order as a distraction from it.
Animals with mysterious powers and abilities counted
among the passing bevy of beasts. Preying in part on
a certain credulity afforded to novelty, acts such as ‘the
Philospohical Fish’, or William Frederick Pinchbeck’s

‘Learned Pig’, made the rounds in the late 18th century.
Pinchbeck’s pig, according to a handbill, ‘reads print
or writing, spells, tells the time of day both the hours
and the minutes by any persons watch in the company,
the date of the year, the day of the month, distinguishes
colors and how many persons are present.’5
Menagerie shows used their traveling wagon and
perhaps a canvas awning display as a stage, their
audience clustered around the animal by a clearing
in the road. As the popularity of these shows expanded,
they needed increasingly elaborate constructions to
house both audience and entertainment. What they
came up with was at first a cloth-draped arena. This
basic structure, quick to set up and take down, served
as a simple delineation of an entertainment zone.
Growing in scale to accommodate larger shows and
greater audiences, these early enclosures claimed
space with the assistance of suggestive architecture.
Growing in response to public demand these early
arenas form the basis of today’s circus.6 The evolution
of the event is accompanied by a similarly evolving
architecture.
Human spectacles: acrobats,
apothecarians and their acts
Doctor Anthony Yeldal set up a stage, and on it
2 lads entertained spectators by walking on
their hands and by various feats of activity. The
Doctor harrangued on what he can do, the
terms on which he doth anything, the way he
goes on in.7
Much as tumbling is a professional accomplishment
in its own right, acrobats prior to the 19th century circus
were used as ballyhoos or attention getters.
‘Mountebanks’ were frequently hired by physicians
to attract crowds. Using the popular American covered
wagon as the armature for their display, medicine men
used the spectacle of their acrobats along with painted
sign boards to entice viewers into their elaborate
Transportable Environments: Context
arena on wheels. Once hooked by the feats of those
unbridled by gravity, the good doctors had an attentive
audience to which they could promote their tonics.This
marketing strategy, which could substitute magicians
or fortune tellers, introduced the potential sleight of
hand that prefigured the come-ons of swindlers who
presented experiments with optics, ventriloquy,
acoustics or early nitrous oxide demonstrations,
caging sales pitches for near worthless products in
faux-science. Legislation in Connecticut forbade
peddlers of medicine from;
…publicly advertising and giving notice of their
skill and ability to cure diseases, and the
erecting publick stages and places from
whence to declaim and harangue the people
on the virtue and efficacy of their medicines, or
to exhibit by themselves or their dependents any
plays, tricks, juggling or unprofitable feats of
uncommon dexterity and agility of body, [which]
tends to draw together great numbers of people,
to the corruption of manners, promoting of
idleness, and the determinant of good order
and religion.8
Peepshows and Panoramas
Eighteenth-century peepshows, less risqué than
today’s pornography parlors bearing their name,
consisted of a round box supported by a folding trestle.
Carried from place to place on the back of the
showman (hence the distinction of this small
production as a ‘backshow’), peepshows announced
themselves with sleigh bells mounted to the roof of
the diminutive theater. Once installed, viewing the
show was a simple one at a time affair, as one simply
peered through the small hole, through a miniature
proscenium surrounded by drapery, that ensconced
the hand-colored prints constituting the scenes.
These vistas of London, Florence, or other
cosmopolitan settings could be raised or lowered by
strings held to small hooks at the top of the box.
49
Nicholas Tobier
As an outgrowth of peepshows, perspective theater
made an appearance in American entertainment, with
its increasingly elaborate boxes with views of Paris
or Amsterdam expanding into progressively more
kinetic displays, city scenes engulfed by the apparent
effects of seas, storms and lightning. The audience
for perspective theater grew increasingly obsessed
with fake pyrotechnics. By the end of the 18th century,
content mattered little as long as the technics of the
production dazzled. The effect—glimmers of light
passing in and out of lights and darks —seemed to
please the crowd, content with a contained view of
natural phenomena.9 Mechanical panoramas in the
early 18th century traveled outwards from the cities.
Prominently promoted on their handbills as ‘direct
from’ New York and Boston, the top billing of an urban
origin in the advertisement suggested the allure of the
cities to people in the countryside. This 18th-century
view paints a portrait of cities as sources of promise
and of possibility, as well as places of cosmopolitain
density that could be briefly experienced through the
gathering at these displays. This peek afforded urban
delights without any urban responsibilities, allowing
country folk an impression that they could live quite
well without the city. The city, dressed up in a miniature
theater came to them, displaying its mechanical
visions and then going away.
Puppet shows and shade theaters
These portable stages are of infinite advantage
to most country towns where playhouses
cannot be maintained and, in my mind, superior
to any company of storytellers.The amusement
is innocent, instructive, the expense is
moderate and the whole equippage easily
carried about. The plans of their little pieces do
not aim at mortality but enforce even religion.10
Shade theater, or ‘Chinese Shadow puppets’ offered
an efficient means of conveying drama through
minimal equipment.11 The shades were silhouetted
50
figures mounted on sticks or suspended from wires lit
from behind to cast shadows against a screen of paper.
These paper dramas could be easily carried in a flat
folder and were lightweight enough that a large
repertoire was possible. A performer need only
assemble a simple frame of sticks that could be found
on site, stretch across it a piece of paper or linen
(folded for travel) and dangle his cardboard figures
suspended from wires or strings.12
From the puppet to the player
This acceptance of pieces performed by human form
did not extend to life-scale. Special contempt was
reserved for actors. With particular vehemence, the
Virginia colony affirmed a strict closed-door policy on
the dramatically inclined individual. This particular
hostility indicates a level of threat that a puppet or
painted scene could never equal. Real people coming
into town and dressing up in fanciful costumes to enact
a pantomime on a clearing set off by trees and a sheet
of canvas—that they were complete strangers and their
means of sustenance hard to discern or classify only
exacerbated the transgression.
Whatever the forum, whether they were performed
behind canvas fencing held up by poles or in
increasingly ornate tents the small road theater
provided a little Shakespeare, or later, Uncle Tom’s
Cabin to communities of all sizes through inserting the
irregular shape of their makeshift theater into the spatial
order of a town.13 A one night performance that drew
an entire small town could become part of a shared
vocabulary, staking in a reference point for local memory.
The performance’s merits may have been willingly
overlooked, outweighed by the socially unifying
experience of individuals gathered in a liminal world
of permissibility.
As the number of companies grew, competition and
professionalism mounted, demanding more appealing
structures. Tents as standard equipment could be

embellished as their proprietors saw fit. Improvements
ranged from fancy painted marquees to seating options
which, for a premium, offered either cushioning or a
wood floor beneath your feet instead of earth.The stage,
generally a straightforward affair of flatboards mounted
on a wooden frame, could be adorned with scenic
backdrops, and, later, spotlit by electricity.14 With these
continual ad hoc innovations, entertainment
structures shaped the possibilities of architecture as a
responsive verb rather than the permanent edifice of a
noun. Their changing forms reflected the progression
of their own role and the growing expectations they were
to meet, as production and setting grew mutually
supportive.
Entertainment without sin: lectures and
Chattaquas
For those who thought it was sinful to use leisure solely
for enjoyment, there were other options. Typically
associated with the church, lectures on confoundingly
obtuse subjects were held before large audiences of
people looking for a diversion from hard and often
solitary labor.15 Amplifying the scale of the lecture later
in the century, Chattaquas facilitated proto-symposia
with a tent outing and community picnic. These
gatherings, their roots in a New York State tradition of
literary societies, had an enormous draw where
population centers were few and far between. Stated
topics were perfunctorily received by the audience
which must have been far more affected by unmediated
encounters between men and women and among
members of varying classes. Momentarily stripped of
social status and the familiarity of recognizable
landmarks, the temporary communtiy of the Chattaqua
allowed invented behavior under the guise of
structured outings.
By the end of the 19th century, Chattaquas assisted and
witnessed a transformation of rural mores. Their
programs were typically combinations of the
educational and spiritual, held characteristically in
Transportable Environments: Context
brown tents to differentiate them from the white tents of
the circus (it was also felt that brown represented
cultural inspiration, the tents a signal to those interested
in improving mind and spirit).16
Chattaquas evolved to answer an increasing demand
for escape from the day’s work, by presenting dramatic
readings and elocution demonstrations.These dramas
gradually became one of the Chattaquas’ most popular
components, evolving into full-scale theatrical pieces.
With the sanctions and promotions of the local
organizations that sponsored Chattaquas, a lessening
of authoritarian control allowed an opening in a belief
system that saw entertainment as perhaps not so evil.
The pulpit left the spotlight of centerstage, at least
temporarily.
Animals, acrobats, and entertainment under
the big top: the circus comes to town
The modern circus combined earlier entertainments,
single animal displays, or other attractions that could
be presented in a small enclosure, usually a piece of
canvas stretched between trees.17 A loathing for the
circus, viewed by some as immoral, saw the expansion
beyond a simple one-act production as a particular
threat. Raising objections among even those who may
have been willing to overlook a juggler or passing pig
of knowledge, the presence of a more imposing
structure along with a group of performers who
seemingly had no home was too much to sanction:
Despite the opposition, the American circus thrived.
John Bill Ricketts’ circus first performed in Philadelphia
in 1793 and later toured with a small band of performers
by boat, building a wooden arena of seats and stage
for their stay in each town.18 Early circus tents measured
anywhere from 50 to 90 feet in diameter, with a single
center pole to define the height. Through the
refinements of this demountable showcase, the circus
revolution developed alongside its defining
characteristic tent as a theater. Taking this foldable
51
Nicholas Tobier
house from place to place lowered costs and pre-
production time, eliminating the necessity of erecting
a wooden stage and seating arena.
The best-known circus belonged to the Ringling
Brothers, and began in May 1884 in Baraboo,
Wisconsin. After several seasons of playing in existing
facilities, from town halls to opera houses, the Ringling
Circus erected its first tent. Measuring 90 feet by 45 feet
(27 metres by 13.5 metres), the canvas big top was
capable of seating 600 spectators anywhere they
chose to set up.19 As the popularity of the circus grew,
so did its tent. Both Ringling Brothers and P.T.Barnum
could boast of tent shows that covered several acres,
erecting encampments the size of many small town
main streets, providing a larger than life show.20
Much as the tent and rapid travel through railroad and
later truck use became more efficient, allowing a run to
be cut short if business was not keeping pace with
expectations, the new mobility created a defining notion
of the circus as the classic itinerant American show,
sometimes tragically rootless and sometimes blissfully
free of constraint.The nomadic life the circus embodied
held a particular appeal for Americans, whose pioneer
mentality valued the possibility of mobility. As the
frontier grew ever nearer with the settlement of the west,
the circus architecture brought viewing bodies into
contact with a traveling band of builders whose
nomadic life resisted the stasis of settlement, and held
out the possibility of adventure and new discovery.
Carnivals
From a traveling show under a big tent, to a traveling
collection, by the 19th century the carnival was the most
all-encompassing itinerant entertainment. Whereas
the circus began at a given time and ended after a
determined interval, the carnival was ongoing—each
moment was a showtime. This nonstop activity, a
conglomeration of single performers whose
organization consisted of a number of shows, riding
52
devices, free acts, exhibitions, gaming and catering
concessions, had a size and layout resembling towns,
though with a peculiar protocol. Less discrete as an
event, the carnival surrounded its visitors to a degree
that spectators became part of the spectacle, creating
a social arrangement of its own, that was at least
temporarily fluid.
Proto-carnivals trundled along routes defined by
annual town picnics or local celebrations. As the sheer
size of the carnival grew, so did its prominence in the
locale, undergoing a metamorphosis from an attraction
during a local event to the event itself. As was the case
with the circus, carnivals utilized the railroads, either
by packing themselves into containers or attaching their
own wagons. The sheer array of activities the carnival
presented was a dizzying alternative to the limited
options of the everyday. The music, the smells, the
socially marginal people working the booths—the
carnival brought these all together and created a level
of excess, a volume of activity that was a temporary city
in the country. Inside the grounds of this temporary city,
the carnival provided a fantasy land whose
impermanence made the fantasy even more alluring.
The railroad-carnival connection also allowed a new
type of city creator to spread fantasy to the country.
Stepping off the train, unlike the carnival or the parade
that preceded it, the showman arrived in town with no
equipment whatsoever and mounted an extravaganza
Smooth-talking besuited street fair promoters
represented a new breed of entrepreneurs capable of
convincing a community that they could transform
themselves through a well-orchestrated pageant.
Promising to bring in assorted exotic attractions, street
fair promoters earned money by convincing business
owners to rent stall space outside their properties or to
rent a flat-bed-wagon to festoon in order to display their
wares. One such enterprise in Canton, Ohio, was
advertised in the town paper of July 13, 1896 as the
‘Elks Mid-Summer Street Carnival Art & Industrial
Exhibition’.

The event promised ‘Wallace’s Man-Eating lion and
London Zoo’ along with a parade of 150 business
wagons. 21 The business wagons essentially
reconfigured existing town commerce through a
display of quantity, the excitement of the event
convincing proprietors to showcase their wares in
parade fashion. In the Canton Street Carnival of 1896,
one float arranged a pile of cattle feed, another posed
a mannequin amongst the bleached whites of a steam
laundry, a giant facsimile of a Singer sewing machine,
and several cartloads of tomatoes from the town
greengrocer’s also passed along the route.22
Otto Schmidt, a Chicago theater promoter, seized on
the success of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair Midway
and attempted to organize these amusements to travel
as a cooperative itinerant unit, a main street of
attractions that could set up anywhere. The size of the
production was as unwieldy as the efforts necessary
to erect its temporary scenarios. Armies of carpenters
were sought in each town to assemble rows of wooden
planks into an alley of banners and framework for
painted scenic backdrops. The canvas scenes were
wrapped around the timbers at the end of the show,
forming massive bundles to carry onwards. The
offerings of the assembled vendors were impressively
varied, including:
…3 bands of muscians, 8 or 10 sales
concessions, long-range shooting gallery,
streets of Cairo, Persian Theatre, Irish villages,
living pictures/posing show, one-ring circus,
Bostock’s trained animal arena, 3 illusion shows,
Old Plantation minstrels, Bosco’s pit show,
Smith’s Operatic & Beauty Show and Lee’s
Congres of Wonders.23
The sheer abundance of possible diversions at a
carnival offered a world of unrestrained hugeness,
something so vast that it had to set up its own perimeter.
Instead of walking into a tent to see a show, these
carnivals occupied a spatial experience more like
Transportable Environments: Context
everyday, but populated with features that were far from
commonplace. Approaching the perimeter one was
filled with anticipation of what might lie within the walls
of this new city. As expectations grew, the boundary and
its contents would have to be extended.
Insta-Place: World’s Fairs and the
temporary place
Carnivals and street fairs lent visible form and
legitimacy to an American culture of abundance.Those
who had had to endure the austere edicts of Puritanism
sought relief through simple amusements in the early
days. By the 20th century, with religious restrictions now
largely voluntary, those who sought relief wanted
something different from simple amusements.
Self-fulfillment ruled entertainment by the end of the
19th century, and the exposition grounds proved an
ideal site for demonstrating new ideas and reaching a
huge audience.To realize its multiple goals of education,
entertainment, civics, and salesmanship, the World’s
Fair took what was often an unremarkable place and
turned it into a remarkable one by setting up a perimeter
and building an ideal fantasy within. Like the carnivals
in which their roots can be seen, World’s Fairs created
an ideal space separate from the surrounding culture.
The need for this was palpable at the end of the 19th
century, as industrialization had turned cities into what
were perceived as places of immorality, smoke-
belching organisms full of immigrants and transients,
vice and greed.The resulting consumer manipulations
in this altered situation are too vast a topic to address
here.
As the rapidity of production increased, new material
possibilities were made available and with them a new
kind of temporary architecture based on the frame
rather than the solid wall.24 These new materials and
construction techniques combined the increasing
demand for new products and technologies and
shaped the way the World’s Fair looked.
53
Nicholas Tobier

‘Procession of Worlds, The Pageant’, Our Domestic Resurrection Circus, Glover, Vermont, 1989

54

The impact of the World’s Fair follows in the path first
worn by the traveling showman and small circusess.
Extending the ambition of these events, World’s Fairs
became self-conscious place-makers whose
interests were defined by the desires of commerce
over the will of the church.25
The temporary presence of these events had an
impact comparable to other earlier ones, although on
a larger scale.World’s Fairs not only created landmark
permanent structures in the 19th and 20th centuries
(such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Centennial Hall in
Philadelphia and the Perisphere in New York) but
provided thousands with lasting experiences inside
the walls of structures and places that vanished soon
after they appeared.
Appearance, after all, was everything. Like the circus
tent before it, the pavilion was shaped and decorated
in the greatest way possible to catch an eye. Eye-
catching, however, was a skill that belonged to
something other than architecture in the 20th century.
A few minutes before the appointed hour, the
bulk of electric lighting along the paths and
within the buildings diminishes until they
become tiny specs of flames which soon die
away…there is a deep silence and all eyes are
intent on the Electric Tower. This deepens from
pink to red, and then grows into a luminous
yellow, and the exposition has vanished and in
its place is a wondrous vision of dazzling
wonders and minarets, domes and pinnacles
set in the midst of scintillating gardens—the
triumph not of Alladin’s lamp, but of the masters
of modern science over the nature-god
electricity.26
More than a structure, a new illusion created a new
place. The marvel of electricity appeared in full force
at fairs while it only illuminated isolated patches of the
larger landscape. From the pyrotechnics of the 18th-
Transportable Environments: Context
century mechanical panoramas to the white magic of
electricity, effects first seen by many people at a
passing event left lasting impressions, and an awe
once reserved for a deity was now associated with
science and technology.
With electricity, night time became festival time, the
architecture visible by day only an armature from
which the evening’s event projected. The effect
became the symbol that replaced the landmark
structure, a structure physically insubstantial until it
was made vibrant by the possibilities of an intangible
technology. In the 18th century, the structure of the
entertainment was extremely insubstantial—merely
a suggested construction to denote the event.That the
shows’ impressions could be strong testifies to their
importance as a point of focus, no matter how
lightweight their frames might be.
Flashy fair displays began to prefigure the 20th-
century American landscape. Designed to appeal to
passing whimsy, these structures could only be
temporary in order to keep up with the vicissitudes of
popular taste, describing what Reyner Banham has
termed a pop architecture, not to be treasured, but
thrown away.27 Throw-away temporary construction
no longer signifies marginal status. Consumed by
consumption, planned obsolescence and sham
construction is de rigeur in the late 20th century, a
condition that effectively co-opts the itinerant claim to
fluidity. But the collective visceral experience of sitting
in a make-shift arena on the edge of town or elsewhere
in the margins of established order cannot be seized.
Television can devise countless engineered
scenarios for mass consumption. Virtual reality and
internet claims of transformative entertainment and
community networking exist only as remotely
participatory mental constructions, all buoyed in part
by the residual memory of actual experience. With the
increasing influence of all of these competitors,
backed by the omnipotence of a corporate culture as
invasive as Puritan morals, itinerant entertainment
55
Nicholas Tobier
necessarily continues to assert itself, bringing its now
centuries-old fissures into an order that attempts to
silence dissent and create uniformity.
Using relatively simple conversion kits, rock concerts
set up their stages, changing the use of space on a
large scale and turning wastelands into transitory
theaters.28 North of Reno, Nevada, the Burning Man
Festival has taken place each Labor Day. This past
year, 10–12,000 people created an instant city,
bringing their own food and water, building shelters,
staging performances, creating sculptures, and the
icon of the festival, the Burning Man. There are no
spectators, only participants, who define this
temporarily appropriated autonomous zone as the
festival progresses. When its 3-day life is over, the
Burning Man lives up to its name. There is no visible
trace that it ever was.29
World’s Fair historian Robert Rydell suggests that
today we have an ever-changing exposition before
our eyes all the time.30 Through electronic media and
rapid travel, multiple contacts with images and ideas
1 A.Giddens The Constitution of Society, London, 1964.
2 Daniel Defoe, A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain,
London, 1753, as cited in John Stilgoe, Common Landscape
of America, New Haven, Yale, 1984, p.75.
3 Rhea Foster Dulle,. America Learns to Play: A History of
Popular Recreation, p.279.
4 Peter Benes, ‘Itinerant Entertainers in New York and New
England, 1687–1830,’ The Dublin Seminar for American
Folklife, Annual proceedings, Boston University, 1984,
p.129, notes from the Reverend William Bentley that in July
1816, ‘the elephant exhibited as a curiosity in this town, was
shot in open day by a villain in Alfred, Maine.’
5 Benes, p. 117.
6 Richard, W.E.Flint, ‘Entrepreneurial and Cultural Aspects
of the Early Nineteenth-Century Circus and Mengaerie
Business,’ Dublin Seminar, p.146. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
description of one such menagerie under a pavilion of sail
cloth in his American Notebooks: ‘Crowded—row above row
of women, on an amphitheater of seats, on one side. In an
56
are exchanged among individuals daily. Along the
continuum of this chronology late 20th-century
transient entertainments and temporary scenarios are
now anachronisms. True, images of the circus, tents,
or countless acts are available elsewhere—a tribute
in part to their collective impact on enduring national
and local memory. How possible is it that the appetite
for spectacle and its constructions can play out literally
on another plane and fulfill visceral expectations? By
atomizing individuals rather than bringing them
together through consumption of after-images, these
virtual entertainments are continually supplemented
by the persistence of their predecessors. Given these
options, the persistence of itinerant entertainment
cannot be simply attributed to mere nostalgia.
Look on the edges of town, under the freeway
overpasses, in distant fields or parking lots for the
signs of dissent. Our contemporary spatial behavior
is as at risk of passive adoption of conventions as were
the New England colonists. Itinerant entertainment
presents alternative spatial practices, which, if only
for a brief while, offer an opening in the social fabric
and a temporary order to consider.
inner pavillion, an exhibition of anacondas, four, which the
showman took one by one from a large box, under some
blankets, and hung round his shoulders. He gave a
descriptive and historical account of them, and some fanciful
prose etc. A man put his arm and head into the lion’s mouth—
all the spectators looking on, so attentively that a breath could
not be heard.’
7 Benes, p.119.
8 Benes, p.122. Following suit, Massachusetts forbade using
any ‘subtle craft or feigning knowledge on physiognomy,
palmistry or pretending that they can tell destinies, fortunes
or discourse where lost or stolen goods could be found’.
9 Paul McPharlin, The Puppet Theatre in America, 1524–
1948, Plays, Inc., Boston, 1969, p.52. Fireworks and their
like were simulated by a prototypical special-effects device.
Standing vertically, a flat oblong box was lined with white metal
foil on the inside to intensify the light from a candle placed in
it. On the face of the box, over an opening, an opaque paper
disc with transparent arcs radiated around a center hub.

Through these, the light of the candle shone in front of the
disc turned by a hand crank or the weight of falling sand. A
showman could insert a variety of paper slides into the box,
translucent sections of which were cut into a pattern of
sparks and rays.
10 James Ralph, The Touchstone, 1778, as cited in
McPharlin, p.32.
11 McPharlin, p.67.
12. Ibid, p.48.
13 William Slout, Theater in a Tent: The Development of a
Provincial Entertainment, Bowling Green Press, 1972, p.37.
14 Slout, p.43. In its germinal stages, the 19th-century theater
tent had to contend with a center pole as a means of support,
its obstructions alleviated to a degree by variations on an A-
frame construction. In the early 20th century, travelling tent
shows had spawned support industries such as The United
States Awning and Tent Company who adapted a
‘commodious tent’ which promised ‘something new in canvas
homes for theatrical performanc’.
15 Dulles, p.93.
16 Slout, p.40.
17. An English antecedent to the American circus can be
drawn from R.Philip Astley’s circus, established in 1768.This
former cavalry officer began his production with trick riding
demonstrations, and later added performances by clowns
and acrobats, which were ultimately ensconsed in an
ampitheatre. (Flint, p. 131).
18 Slout, p. 43.
19 Dean Jensen, The Biggest, the Smallest, the Longest and
the Shortest: A Chronicle of the American Circus from its
Transportable Environments: Context
Heartland, Straus, Madison, WI, 1975, p.74.
20 Ibid, p.74.
21 Ibid, p.49.
22 Joseph McKenon, History of the American Collective
Entertaiment Industry, unpublished manuscript, 1976, p. 164.
23 Ibid, p.43.
24 This frame construction at the fair site also came to
dominate residential buildings in the stick and shingle style.
25 Situated in a then under-used portion of Hyde Park, the
short-lived Crystal Palace’s presence transformed the
section of London that it bordered. The city of Philadelphia
recognized this incorporation of civic space when it planned
the 1876 Centennial Exposition in what was then a projected
city park. The fairgrounds became Fairmount Park (see
Benjamin Portis in Ideal Cities, Canadian Center for
Architecture, 1993, p.25). The 1939–40 New York World’s
Fair, on the site of a former ash dump, besides being one of
former NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses’ triumphs,
annexed a previously overlooked tract of land for first a
temporary event and then a permanant park.
26 David Nye, Electrifying America, MIT Press, 1991, p.47.
27 Reyner Banham, ‘Towards a Pop Architecture’ in Design
by Choice, Academy, 1981.
28 Mark Fisher, ‘Some Thoughts on Pop & Permenant
Architecture’, in Architecture & Design, November 1993,
p.108.
29 Bruce Stirling, ‘Greetings From The Burning Man’, in Wired
Magazine, November, 1996.
30. Robert Rydell, World of Fairs: The Century of Progress
Expositions, University of Chicago Press, 1993, p.5.
57
 Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion House project from Shelter, May 1932

58
Fuller’s DDU project (1941–44)
Instrument, Art or Architecture?
(Heroic design versus ad hoc pragmatism)
Yunn Chii Wong
National University of Singapore
DDU, what it is and the context of its
emergence
The Dymaxion Deployment Unit (DDU) marked a
significant turning point in Richard Buckminster
Fuller’s research agenda on the industrialized house
since the hiatus to his 4D-Dymaxion House project in
the mid-thirties.1 By Fuller’s account, it was a ‘phase’
in the evolution of the Dymaxion House. 2 The
beginnings of the DDU are now a common legend for
those familiar with Fuller’s work. Passing through
Hannibal, Missouri, in the lazy summer of ‘39, Fuller
recounted that the sight of the ubiquitous ‘bins of
delight’ in the prairie wheat fields had fired his
imagination to adapt them as his ‘second Dymaxion’.3
Christopher Morley, a writer, confidant and patron of
his first book Nine Chains to the Moon (1938), had
accompanied Fuller on this trip and supported his
impulse for ‘the house of the future’. Using the sales of
his successful novel, Kitty Foyle, Morley paid for
Fuller’s exploratory trip to the Butler Manufacturing
Co., the manufacturers of the galvanized steel grain-
bins. There in Wichita, Kansas, Fuller persuaded
Butler to undertake this unusual readaptation of their
proprietary farm contraption into a dwelling.
Several aspects of the DDU make it worthwhile of
critical examination. In the light of contemporary public
identification of Fuller with futuristic systems and
design, the ‘ad hoc’ appearance of the DDU remains
a problematic, if not a historical aberration. In the larger
context of Fuller’s humanitarian project of a ‘house for
every one’, the military patronage that enabled the
DDU poses outstanding questions with respect to the
issue of opportunism, necessity and complicity.
Finally, its place in the history of architecture is equally
problematic—its ambivalence as an object at the time
when it was initiated into the sculpture garden of MoMA
(Museum of Modern Art) in the fall of October 1941;
and in a recent retrospective on Fuller’s life-work,
where an effort has been made to canonize the DDU
as a type of Duchamp ‘ready-made’.4 This act of
transforming the DDU to an art practice is an implicit
effort, in a wider context, to rehabilitate Fuller’s position
from outside the margins of modernist discourse on DDU at Hayes Point, Washington DC
and historiography of American modern architecture.
Impetus for defense housing
Prior to and during the DDU undertaking, Fuller was
attached as Special Assistant to the Deputy Director
of the Foreign Economic Administration, Washington
DC. From this position in war-time bureaucracy, Fuller
was aware of the mounting public pressure on the
State to redress the housing situation of defense
workers.5
In November 1940, while perusing the housing
statistics of the war years and projecting the
implications of these figures, Fuller was convinced
that there were two potential markets for his proposed
‘industrialized shelter’ one, immediately as ‘defense
housing’ for workers who were increasingly mobilized
into aircraft and war industries to augment the Allies’
war efforts in Europe. 6 The other area, in the
forseeable future, was as replacement housing,
resettlement and protection of affected civil
populations in war-torn Europe. In this way, the DDU, Butler Manufacturing steel grain bin from the 1940 catalog
59
Yunn Chii Wong
like his earlier 4D-Dymaxion project, was presented
as a panacea for social woe, previously caused by
economic depressions, now exacerbated by war.7
Between November 1940 and February 1941, Fuller
managed to line up the interests of Robert Colgate
(an investment banker from New York) to finance the
prototyping, and Victor Norquist of Butler to undertake
the conversion project. The cost was minimal, given
that Butler used only existing dies and required no
retooling. Shortly thereafter, Fuller’s entrepreneurial
hunch was affirmed by official prognosis on the
urgency of the defense housing shortage.8 At this
juncture, the war in Europe still appeared far away.
DDU, publicity and the architectural
community
As fast as Fuller identified his financial backers and
made preparations for production, he also initiated a
battery of publicity. He enlisted the help of Edward
Durrell Stone and several New York-based architects
as critics; most noteworthy was Ruth Goodhue
(publisher of Architectural Forum) to serve as head of
a steering committee for the project, with Walter
Sanders providing the interior design.9 According to
the publicity plan both the Architectural Forum and
Fortune magazine would feature the Dymaxion-
Butler project in their respective issues.
In May 1941, three months into production, the DDU
was put on view at Haynes Point in Washington DC.
On this occasion, Fuller was cited in Architectural
Forum as its ‘Man of the Month’ for his bold solution to
the standing issue of defense housing. 10 Fuller’s
iconoclasm aside, Forum variously characterized him
as a ‘prophet of civilization’, ‘arch-theorist of housing’
and a ‘genius in a business suit’. Though Fuller was
not an architect, the Architectural Forum counted him
as one of their own for tactical reasons.11 Fuller had
indirectly demonstrated this alliance by lambasting
Federal control over building materials. The problems
of building that Fuller identified were inefficiency and
60
waste; thus the Federal strategic material substitution
program was a cover-up.
The issue of rapid provision of housing for defense
workers directly engendered concerns over the role,
status, and identity of the architect with respect to the
war efforts and the implication of the eventual post-
war situation on professional activities. Building as a
‘happy conspiracy of factors’, Architectural Forum
predicted, ‘may be destined to assume the major role
of cushioning the aftermath of the war by resolving
social, political and economic dislocations.’
Immediately, the urgency of the ‘defense housing’
project required the enlistment of methods of factory
prefabrication long resisted by architects. This was,
Architectural Forum argued, the tangible strategy to
ameliorate the ‘avoidable waste of technical skills and
instruments’. Fuller himself enumerated the DDU
advantages in this way to argue that it should be given
effective priority to manufacture the house for public
sale. It had proven it could meet ‘overall economy and
efficiency in National Defense viewpoint’ in terms of
weight ratios, man-hour production in both the field
and factory.12
Looking further ahead into the post-war period,
Architectural Forum projected that deployment
housing might be one of many solutions for the
aggravated situations of cities, towns and housing.13
Though aware that the success of Fuller’s
‘prefabricated house’ might consume the prestige of
the architects’ future participation in this area—Fuller’s
DDU-project as a trial run nevertheless would either
lay to rest criticisms of prefabrication or satisfy the
desires its discourse had engendered. Thus, the
Architectural Forum was prepared to stake its
reputation by endorsing the claim of DDU as ‘100%
“demountable”, [costing] less than $3000/-’ and
challenging the mogul of defense construction, John
M.Carmody at the Federal Works Administration, to
support the project. Further, the success of Fuller’s
DDU would also cushion the criticism leveled against

architectural practice as hoarding critical war
materials for non-defense housing.
Between August and December 1941, the Battle of
Britain and Pearl Harbor changed the fate of the DDU
and its perception in public eyes. The possibility of a
home-front war became real, and the national control
of strategic war materials such as steel, the primary
constituent of the DDU, became more focused and
urgent.
DDU at the Museum of Modern Art
The transformations engendered by these factors
were partly demonstrated in October 1941 when the
DDU opened as MoMA’s first modern house exhibit
in its new sculptural garden under the auspices of its
Department of Architecture and Industrial Design.14
In the hallowed grounds of MoMA, the DDU was
double-billed in the press release as ‘portable
defense housing and bomb shelter’. 15 This
characterization signaled an initial phase of the
house as an ordnance of war, albeit a defensive one.
The dawn of American direct entry into the war dashed
immediate hopes of Dymaxion-Butler directing the
DDU towards ‘defense housing’ or the civilian
housing market.
The war also stirred MoMA into examining its patriotic
duty in a search to link art to life beyond mere
appreciation. While this was probably the impetus for
Alfred Barr (then MoMA’s director) to consider the DDU
as the first house exhibit, it also became an opportunity
for Fuller. DDU gained immediate new status (beyond
a mere contraption), setting the stage for public
recognition and familiarity in order to shape post-war
civilian housing.16
However, Beatriz Colomina points out that in MoMA’s
retrospective history, The Museum of Modern Art: The
History and the Collection (1984), that not only was
the DDU omitted, but the attribution of the ‘first
Transportable Environments: Context
architectural structure built for public exhibition in the
Museum’s first sculpture garden’ was the Breuer
House (1949).17 One could interpret this discrepancy
in MoMA’s self-history as selective amnesia or that it
had merely viewed the DDU as a reluctant exhibit; and
the museum had some leeway to reevaluate its role
and that of art in times of war.18 Referring to the MoMA
Garden House Exhibition series in his memoirs, Peter
Blake, one of MoMA’s former insiders, recounted that
Fuller’s design ‘would have (been) accused of being
(as usual) out of touch with reality’.19
Blake explained that it was out of ‘political and
practical expediency’ that the ‘fantasies of a
Buckminster Fuller’ had to give way to ‘the eminently
realistic solutions of a Marcel Breue’.
While the elitism and narrow definition of architecture
as art held by Alfred Barr and the trustees of the
museum rendered the DDU a difficult object in their
eyes, Lewis Mumford’s reason for favoring the Breuer
House over the DDU as a preview of things to come
was distinctly different. From his humanist angle,
Mumford explained that in contradiction to Fuller’s
DDU, the Breuer House was more than a ‘cozy bit of
prefabricated domesticity’.
The whole concept of what is modern has been
changing. A few years ago, this same back
yard contained the latest version of
Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House,
conceived in single-minded fashion, strictly as
a machine for living, with the accent on the
mechanical equipment, the possibility of mass
production, the notions of portability and self-
sufficiency. The Breuer house does not carry
on this Jules Verne-Buck Rogers idea. Instead
of being more standardized, more mechanical,
more scientific, brittle and metallic, more free
of any kind of sentiment, it returns very
definitely to the humanist tradition of William
Morris and HH Richardson, with which the
61
Yunn Chii Wong
modern movement in domestic building
began almost a century ago.20
DDU and the military—opportunism,
necessity or complicity?
The DDU did not fulfill its primary objective as an
emergency civilian shelter; rather it was finally
installed as a ‘steel igloo’ for the Air & Signal Corps in
Africa and for other tactical purposes. Again, this was
more than a chance readapation but one that Fuller
had predicted. The DDU had been shaped as much
by the ‘flyable’ agenda of the 4D-Dymaxion project as
it had been informed by Fuller’s intimate knowledge
of the new military logistics.21 In an attempt to redirect
the destiny of the DDU, Fuller tried to ascertain the
viability of his structural adaptation to the construction
of air base facilities. He sounded out Hal Watson, a
relative who was then a young career Air Corps
Intelligence officer stationed at Wright Field in Dayton,
Ohio. Watson provided some of the Air Corps working
premises which would constitute the pragmatic
guidelines for Fuller’s DDU, his eventual DDM
(Dymaxion Dwelling Machine) and subsequent
geodesic research.22
Air Corps units are constantly on the move from
one place to another, one of their prime
requisites for all their equipment being their
agility to air transportation.You can imagine two
of the questions they will ask you will be, ‘How
much does it weigh?’ and ‘Can we transport it
by air?’ In view of the fact that they have been
interested for some time in mobile shelters, and
from all reports, they have not found a suitable
type to date.
Seizing upon the obvious coincidence of his shelter
research program and that of the Air Corps,
requirement Fuller drafted a letter, presumably to
interest military authorities, in which he described
features of his ‘Dymaxion round-house’ that would be
62
‘of great importance at air base’. These qualities, he
described, included being fireproof, insulated and
termite-proof, demountable, concussion resistant,
bullet resistant, mass producible, camouflageable,
easily ventilated and heated, and economical in
material and cost. Primarily, Fuller argued that despite
its apparent setback, namely the use of steel sheets,
a war-controlled material, the DDU design readily
compensated by gains in savings of other more
significant war materials.23
It is my opinion that in building our air bases,
Dymaxion Houses could be erected on the job
and thereby conserving rubber, gasoline, etc.
in transportation. After the air base is completed
they could be used for housing the air base
personnel…. After the War, the re-use of these
houses by underprivileged civilian population
is an important consideration.
In other words not only was DDU a significant tactical
object, it also had a strategic advantage in the larger
picture of the war as far as the issue of ‘strategic
materials’ was concerned. Fuller would suggest later,
in a secret document prepared for the O.S.S., that ‘by
proper design there is ample of every material for every
problem in the whole economy’.24 Therefore, the DDU-
project was neither, as Pawley claimed, a ‘New Deal
effort to reactivate the agricultural life in the Mid-west’
nor was it innocently ‘side-tracked’ for military use by
World War II.25 Rather, what might have started of as
an ad hoc adaptation was quickly realigned for
emerging opportunities engendered by the war. This
is neither to suggest that Fuller was driven by militarism
nor the commercial opportunism of war; rather, the war
created an opportunity to field test his contraption as
a logistics ordnance. In any event, since the thirties,
Fuller had in public discourses demonstrated general
ambivalence towards wars. On the one hand, war was
the highest form of waste, contrary to his technocratic
sensibility; on the other hand, it was also a
regenerative and creative moment of ‘emergence by

emergency’. In his ‘realistic liberalism’, as Cort had
characterized Fuller’s philosophy,26 Fuller maintained
a lineage of middle-class American liberal thought,
which he had partly inherited from Henry Ford.
DDU at all fronts
The potential significance of the DDU as a tactical
object was preceded by the strategy of air warfare,
then enacted in the Battle of Britain. With the
intensification of air warfare, the definition of fronts
became increasingly problematic. Particularly with
growing parity in air power, home fronts graduated
into the new battle fronts, such that civil defense and
deployment were viewed as new offensive strategies.
Air warfare annulled obstacles of physical
boundaries, making even the suburbs, fair game in
the spoils of war. Furthermore, air warfare demanded
new strategies concerned with speed and quick
replacements. The qualities of portability and easy
assembly positioned the DDU into an effective tactical
ordnance for speedy replacement of affected
airbases, military installations or the redeployment
of new ones.27 While Fuller might have conceived DDU
firstly as a recuperative contraption, the new
conditions now encouraged its defensive and
retaliatory roles.
Why DDU canonization as a ‘ready-made’
is problematic
In these accounts of the fate of the DDU, the notion of
both Fuller and his design operating in the margin are
not matters of historical fabrication. As a contraption
for military use, DDU straddled defense and offense;
and as an exhibit in the museum, it straddled the
gallery definition of art and everyday life. Clearly for
MoMA, the DDU was a cumbersome proposition,
despite the museum’s own display of ‘designed’
everyday objects. But the DDU was neither an
everyday object (of industrial design) nor a sited object
(like architecture) nor an aesthetic art proposition.
Transportable Environments: Context
Small wonder that it was treated as a reluctant exhibit
and had no claimant from any specific department
within MoMA. The limited qualities of DDU recall yet
another of Fuller’s earlier artifactual productions, the
DTU (the three-wheeled Dymaxion Transport Unit) of
the thirties—a personal omni-medium transporter
capable of traversing land, sea and air. MoMA’s failure
to account for DDU historically was not a fault of DDU;
rather, the museum was shackled by the categorical
fixity of its art discourses, hegemonic aesthetic
canons and conventions which determined what
constituted art, architecture and industrial design.
In the sixties, Calvin Tomkins characterized Fuller as
a quintessential outsider whose creative energy
stemmed from working in an ‘outlaw area’.28 Operating
along a similar premise of marginality, Colomina
recently attempted a reassessment of the DDU, by
categorizing ‘Fuller’s installation’ into the realm of a
Duchamp ‘ready-made’.29
Indeed, on cursory inspection, there are formal
features of the DDU which would have immediately
fulfilled Duchamp’s prescription of a ‘ready-made’.
First, its progenitor was a humble grain-bin, an
everyday object in the American farm landscape.
Second, its implicit serialization as an object of mass
production, Third, as Ed Applewhite observed, the
leanness of the DDU as an ‘abstract’ object is in what
it is, a ‘unit’ that is ‘clinical and devoid of association
with the home and hearth.30 Both its appearance and
use were radically sublimated, prompting
Architectural Forum to suggest that the DDU had
‘alter[ed] sacredly traditional forms’.31 Finally, there is DDU in the Persian Gulf
Fuller’s publicly professed indifference to the visual
characteristics of the DDU.
While Fuller had more than a cursory acquaintance
with Duchamp and would certainly have been
sympathetic to his radical and ideological art
practices,32 it is doubtful if the polemical category of
‘readymade’ was on his mind when he embarked on
63
Yunn Chii Wong

the DDU project. The project, conceived more as a
matter of urgent survival rather than an opportunity
for contemplation, was also for Fuller, an opportunity
to revivify his aborted 4D-Dymaxion project. In other
words, the DDU was hardly an object of ‘disinterest’.
More significantly, however, the criteria of ‘inscription’
and ‘rendezvous’ that Colomina extrapolated from
Duchamp, to qualify the DDU as ‘ready-made’ are
problematic.
concrete granary-silo complex. Where the latter
represented ‘monument’, the former was an
‘instrument’.34 Accounted in this inter-textual way, the
Butler grain-bin was a carefully appointed polemical
object which was imageable and ideological. This is
contrary to Duchamp’s prescription of ‘visual
indifference’ or ‘complete anesthesia’.
The DDU from 1942–1944

Dymaxion Transport Unit (DTU)

First, the pragmatic business tussle, at the start of the
Butler-Dymaxion venture, over patent and ownership
of rights to parts and production processes of the DDU,
already constituted the primary issues of originality
and invention.33 This productive relationship between
Fuller and Butler Manufacturing, even if taken narrowly
in an artistic-creative sense, renders the notion of
mere ‘inscription’ and ‘unembellish(ment)’
problematic. Second, Fuller’s use of his neologism
‘Dymaxion’ to demarcate his deployment housing
contraption belied a continued search for a unifying
industrial trade-mark. In this respect, it is substantially
different from Duchamp’s notational inscription and
serialization. ‘Dymaxion’ as a signature was a
significant and obsessive mark of Fuller’s life works;
and in this respect, it is a similar intention to that of the
corporate-industrial identities that Herbert Bayer
attempted in his typographical-graphics project.
The DDU as ‘defense housing’ remained in limbo for
over two years, but Fuller continued to develop larger
versions of DDU.35 During this time Fuller also
systematically gathered knowledge of aircraft and
ancillary industries to embark on the next phase of
his work, which entailed a reconceptualization of
shell-structure construction based on aircraft
technology. His confidence was boosted by his
success in securing proprietary patents on the DDU
project and the direct experience he had gained at
Butler Manufacturing Company on the mass
production of its frame and shell. Convinced that he
was on the brink of another breakthrough, the Butler-
Dymaxion venture was dissolved. In November 1944,
the DDM (Dymaxion Dwelling Machine) project at
Beech Aircraft was publicly announced. He was, at
this point, less eager to advance his project due to the
strictures of the Army Air Corps requirements or Butler.

Monument versus Implement from Shelter, May 1932
Lastly, the ubiquitous grain-bin was more than a
‘rendezvous’ object. As Colomina pointed out, Walter
Gropius’ and Le Corbusier’s doctored platonic objects
which they had used to inform their respective
aesthetic projects were grain silos. Immediately
apparent, the rootedness of these concrete silos, their
sheer mass (or appearance of mass) contrast with the
lightness and portability of the Butler grain-bin. Fuller
probably saw more than glistening grain-bins
scattered in the wheat-fields. He saw a landscape of
old-style decentralized farming, remnants of the early
pioneering spirit, in contrast to the centralized
corporate-industrial type farming implied in the
Fuller’s works and programme in the
light of the DDU experience
The liminal quality of DDU will continue to frustrate
any effort to categorize it. It is riddled with distinct
polemical propositions with respect to type and
tradition. As a ‘ready-made’ it is laden with all the
anxieties of an original creation and purposefulness.
As architecture, it denies location and occasion. As a
functional contraption, it was defensive as well as
retaliatory. The liminality of Fuller’s DDU in particular,
and Fuller’s work in general, is complicated by his
ambivalent ‘professional’ standing. Nevertheless, the

64

DDU had offered an extreme marker of what
constituted taboo and allowed MoMA to establish its
ideological art-architectural position and define its
view of what constituted architecture, art or industrial
design.
Whatever the professed abhorrence for military
activities which Fuller would later characterize as
‘killingry’, these early experiences with the military
suggested to Fuller that it was the only patron with a
history of tactical needs, the technological capacity,
and a ‘world-around’ vision to ultimately advance,
albeit indirectly, his research program for a ‘world-
around deliverable shelter service’. While the 4D-
Dymaxion House was premised on a careful
1 All the citations for letters and unpublished manuscripts
bearing the source-initials ‘BFI’ in the footnotes refer to
materials drawn from the Buckminster Fuller Institute-Santa
Barbara, California. The author is indebted to Allegra Synder
Fuller for her kindness in allowing him access to her father’s
archives.
2 In Ltr. 5/20/41 RBF to C.F.Palmer (Defense Housing
Coordinator) in BFI-HEv18, Fuller assessed the significance
of the DDU (Dymaxion-Butler) undertaking as ‘the first actual
mass production housing set-up.’ Intermittently, however,
Fuller had been active in advancing the discourse on the
industrialized house in many capacities: first at Phelps
Dodge in developing the one-piece preassembled bathroom;
followed by his stint as technical editor at Fortune magazine
writing on a broad range of far-reaching technical innovations;
and finally as Chief Mechanical Engineer of BEW (Board of
Economic Warfare) and FEA (Foreign Economic
Administration) espousing among many industrial reforms,
strategies for the conversion of industrial productivity to
housing needs in post-war Europe and America.
3 R.B.Fuller and Louis Morley Cochrane, BFI-MSS 76.12.01
‘A Sense of Significance’, pp.159–144.
4 Beatriz Colomina, ‘DDU at MoMA’ in ANY17 (Architecture-
New York), pp.17.48–17.53.
5 Part of the ambivalence regarding the DDU might have
stemmed from Fuller’s attempt to avert any misreading of
conflicts in self-interest; even if the conditions were ripe to
realize his ‘second’ Dymaxion house. To the Coordinator of
Transportable Environments: Context
integration of the building shell and mechanics, the
austere requirements of ‘defense housing’ and
tactical demands of the military now directed Fuller’s
research agenda on the enclosure-structure. After the
DDU-DDM experience, Fuller was more cognizant
of his own research resources and the phenomenal
improvements in mechanical-electrical packages
(what he would eventually call ‘mechanics’). He made
a strategic choice to focus on the enclosure-structure
technology.36 By mid-1956, with the success of the
geodesic structure as a radome-deployment along
the DEW-line (Distant Early Warning) halfway around
the North Pole, Fuller’s 1928 projection for a portable
trans-continental portable environment system
appeared to be partially fulfilled.
Division of Defense Housing, Fuller’s project was known as
‘Dymaxion Deployment Unit’ (c. Feb 1941); to his patent
lawyer, ‘Dymaxion House Unit’, elsewhere as Dymaxion
Round House, Dymaxion Emergency House (c. July 1941
before being changed to Dymaxion Deployment Unit).These
names were carefully used where confidentiality mattered,
and the choice of name was rather specific to the directed
client.
6 For the scope and effect of the mobilization, see ‘Building
for War, Preparing for Peace: World War II and the Military
Industrial Complex’, in World War II and the American Dream
Joel Davidson and Donald Albrecht, (eds.) Albrecht
documented that from the initial quarter million people, eight
million were finally involved in three distinct areas, namely
the aerospace industry, government-owned arms industry,
defense-academic cooperatives.
7 The housing situation for defense workers was generally
viewed as hampering war effort Eleanor Roosevelt, the First
Lady, herself proclaimed that ‘in the long run, all housing is
defense housing’. (See ‘Let Them Eat Summer Resorts’, Time
2/3/41.)
8 Ltr. 2/5/41 C.F.Palmer (Coordinator, Division of Defense
Housing) to RBF in BFI-CR80; and ‘Let them eat summer
resorts’, Time February 3, 1941, p.59.
9 Ltr. 1/14/41 RBF to Edward D.Stone (New York) in BFI-CR79.
The credibility of Fuller’s proposal was buoyed by his earlier
feature, ‘The Mechanical Wing’, created for Architectural
Forum feature, ‘Design Decade’ (Oct. 1940).The contraption
65
Yunn Chii Wong
consisted of a detachable A-frame that could be used for
luggage, fuel or water carrier; or as a crane for manipulating
heavy objects.
10 ‘Letters’ (Editorial response), Architectural Forum, July
1941, p.22. The response probably written by Douglas
Haskell, one of Fuller’s ardent supporter, to the criticisms of
DDU by Bell Knapp is indicative of the scope of this support.
11 R.B.Fuller, ‘Building for Defense—Raw Material Aplenty—
Fabrication Bottleneck’, Architectural Forum, Jan. 1941. For
the importance of this issue to the architectural profession,
see ‘How total is the blackout for non-defense building?’ in
Architectural Forum, November 1941 and ‘Defense
Housing’, Architectural Forum, July 1941.
12 Ltr. 5/20/41 R.B.Fuller to C.F.Palmer (Defense Housing
Coordinator) in BFI-HEv18.
13 ‘Post-War Pattern’, Architectural Forum, May 1941. Among
the patterns identified were a broad rational standardization
of building and planning, an integration and coordination of
building operations, developing a ‘new favorable concept of
Building to improve public’s opinion of Building’, exposing the
entire building process to intensive, broadminded research,
recognizing technological advances that provide lower cost
and more flexible buildings and redefining the relations of the
building profession with government.
14 In all likelihood, Edward Durell Stone (then Philip Goodwin’s
co-designer for the MoMA) played some part in persuading
MoMA to host the DDU Exhibit.
15 MoMA press release, dated 10/10/41. After reviewing the
DDU at MoMA, Geoffrey Hellman likewise titled his report
‘Dymaxion Bomb Shelter’ (See New Yorker, 10/4/41).
16 Philip Johnson, who had been the Director of MoMA,
Department of Architecture, was on a leave of absence.
Because of his long-standing feud with Fuller from the mid-
thirties over the editorial direction of the Shelter magazine
and Fuller’s anti-International Style polemics, Johnson would
have opposed the admission of DDU. Similarly, the aesthetic
sensibilities of Edgar Kauffman Jr. (Director of Industrial
Design) in arbitrating ‘everyday taste’ would not have been
receptive to the ad hoc, adaptive grain-bin.
17 B.Colomina, ‘DDU at MoMA’, ANY17, Architecture-New
York, p.1750. Fuller had previously exhibited his model of
Dymaxion House at MoMA in 1939, as part of the museum’s
tenth anniversary exhibition. Then, neither built nor installed,
it created no identity crisis.
18 The DDU Exhibit was originally scheduled for July (See
66
MoMA Bulletin, September 1941). In ‘DDU at MoMA’ (Ibid.,
p.1750) Colomina quoted Barr’s basis for reprogramming of
MoMA activities: ‘What good is art in a time of war? What good
are art museums during a national emergency? Why maintain
our cultural interests and activities when air hums with
bombers and news of battle?’
19 Peter Blake, No Place Like Utopia (Modern Architecture
and the Company we kept), p.136.
20 Lewis Mumford, ‘Design for Living (The Skyline)’ in The
New Yorker, June 25, 1949, p.72.
21 Fuller had assumed that his deployment unit, as an
exemplar of ‘prefabricated house for defense workers’, would
add to the recent major improvements to the building process
to address the aggravated housing situation. Now, the general
difficulties to execute the $150 million national program that
President Roosevelt had ear-marked for demountable
housing, necessitated a re-examination (See issues raised
in this context in James Y.Newton, ‘Prefabricated Housing
Brings $150,000,000 Headache’, The Evening Star, April 3,
1942). In a prudent conversion, the sixth model-DDU (c. April
1942), was offered as suitable for defense, evacuation
dwellings, army barracks, guest house etc. in the Museum
of Modern Art Exhibition, October 1941. David Cort reported
that in 1941, prior to Pearl Harbor, he and Fuller had been
part of a secret study group in Washington DC ‘discussing
how the United States should win the war. Among one of
Fuller’s strategies was a new way to fight on the Russian
front. It entailed moving freight across the polar regions using
‘huge towed gliders’ where ‘at the front, [these gliders] could
be converted into logistical warehouses and as the front
moved forward, towed ahead to new positions.’ (See David
Cort, The Sin of Henry R.Luce, p.290).
22 Ltr 4/17/42 Capt. HE Watson to RBF in BFI-CR 86.
23 Ltr c. April ‘41 RBF to Anon. in BFI-CR86. As early as
January 1941, Fuller was already seeking a waiver on steel
from C.F.Palmer, the Chief Coordinator of the Division of
Defense Housing Coordination, who was overseeing the
issues of strategic building material.
24 David Cort and R.B.Fuller, unpubl.-MSS ‘Energy focussed
to Win’ [also as ‘Foot-pound Hitting Power of an Air-borne
Economy], c. May 1942 in BFI, p.7.
25 K.Simon and K.Goodman, Transcript of Interview with
Martin Pawley for a PBS documentary ‘Thinking Out loud’, c.
1996, p.14.
26 David Cort, The Sin of Henry R.Luce, p.15.

27 The British Forces (air rather than army) made orders of
the DDU, partly, I suspect, to replace and rebuild affected
military installations; hence Fuller’s diagram on ballistics and
the Butler’s illustration of DDU on new air-field installations.
28 Calvin Tomkins, ‘Profiles—In Outlaw Area’, The New
Yorker, January 8, 1966.
29 Beatrice Colomina, ‘DDU at MoMA’. Colomina drew upon
Duchamp’s specifications of ready-mades in his ‘Green Box’
(1934) to support her arguments for how the DDU qualifies
as a radical art practice.
30 Author’s transcript of Robert Duchenay’s (uncirculated)
video interview with Ed Applewhite in Washington DC.,
c.1993. Applewhite went on to suggest that Fuller ‘really strive
for an industrial technological aesthetic…to replace reflex-
sentimental ideas, although he was not oblivious of the
essential aesthetic requirements of a place where people
could live.’
31 ‘Building for Defense…1000 Houses a Day at $1200
each’, in Architectural Forum, June 1941.
32 Of the ‘habitué’ of Romany Marie Tavern in Greenwich
Village-New York City (c. 1931–33), Fuller recorded
Duchamp among the ‘significant occasional’ (S.Sharkey,
unpbl. MS, The ‘habitué’ of Romany Marie Tavern’ c. 1976).
33 See ‘Agreement between Butler Manufacturing Co & The
Dymaxion Co’, dated 3/6/41 in BFI-CR81. The document
established definitions of ‘housing’ or ‘shelter units’, ‘grain bin’
or other storage unit to differentiate between the original grain-
bin and the new conversion. See also the transcript of a
telegram, dated 2/6/41 R.B.Fuller to Robert Colgate in BFI-
CR80. The transcript suggests that after the initial tussle over
the issue of ‘patent proprietorship’, Fuller was preparing to
forgo this concern given the ‘superior asset’ that both the
Transportable Environments: Context
name Dymaxion and Butler produced in the public mind.
Recommending the filing of an ‘omnibus’ claim to include
himself, Norquist and Larkin (Butler), Fuller further noted: ‘In
this publicity I have certain goodwill advantages over any
potential competitor.’ The omnibus claims that Fuller-
Norquist/Larkin (of Butler) would eventually file were based
on the examination of prior arts in wall construction;
construction of the hip roof joints; I-beam floor construction
(See also Ltr. 2/8/41 W.Philip Churchill to R.B.Colgate in BFI-
CR80).
34 See Fuller’s polemical photo-comparison, reverring to
Le Corbusier’s categories of industrial objects, in Shelter,
May, 1932, pp.8–9 and pp.18–19.
35 In May 1942, Fuller was already developing a larger 36-
foot diameter DDU from the original 20-footer version. This
consisted of an ‘intermediate wheel’ suspended from a
central mast, thus returning to the earlier structural motif of
the 4D-Dymaxion project. It is this wheel-mast structural
configuration that Fuller brought into the DDM-Fuller House
(1944–46).
36 In evaluating suitable mechanical packages to
accompany his structure-shell construction, Fuller looked
to innovations in the aircraft industry, yet, Fuller had intuited
that an integral quality existed between these two parts, the
shell and mechanics. He gradually rationalized that it was
contained in the dome-like shape of the shell, as it affected
the patterning of local energy circuits, and reducing the
dependence on the mechanics. Finally, in the DDM-Fuller
House, Marks claimed, ‘Fuller’s experiments disclosed that
compound curvature systems provide energy’s No. 1
differentializer’ (See Robert W.Marks, The Dymaxion World
of Buckminster Fuller, p.117).
67
 Earthling Capsule: Autonomous Dwelling Vehicle, St. Louis, by Ted Bakewell III and Mike Jantzen, 1981

68
Gimme Shelter
Short-term Solutions for a Long-term Problem: Temporary Housing
for No-Income and Low-Income People
Sigrun Prahl
Bauhaus University
Physical design, and architecture in particular, are
offensive words to the people who are fighting against
poverty.The most important reason is that ‘good design’
and architecture are generally not identified with
programmes that have helped the urban or rural poor;
in fact, it is the other way around. While the architectural
press praises the fine design of a number of housing
projects as creating a better urban environment (for
the upper-middle class), most social planners have
seen renewal create only worse conditions for low-
income people.
Poverty, wars, destruction, migration, unemployment,
homelessness, to name a few, have developed new
attitudes to permanent residency. More and more
people are no longer living in a stable environment,
they are permanently moving, looking for a better life.
The following examples show four different small-
scale, basic need shelters developed in the United
States for no-income and low-income people:
- the Portable Shelter Cart, a portable plywood and
metal construction to be used by homeless people,
- the Migrant Camp, a lightweight paradome structure
to house Californian field workers during the harvest,
- the Victory House, an emergency, minimal unit,
constructed of laminated wood arches, for temporary
use in war-swollen communites,
- the Mobile Home, a manufactured house as
affordable shelter for low-income people.
The guidelines for these examples are: construction
on inexpensive or free land, built with inexpensive or
free yet durable material, prefabrication, use of
unskilled labour (e.g. the future inhabitants), erection
of small units clustered together, provision of common
facilities. What they also have in common is engaged
and socially aware planners and architects who
recognize the need and who develop in a very creative
way different types of temporary shelter.
The Portable Shelter Cart
This tiny portable, two-person shelter cart was
designed in early 1985 by New York architect
Christopher Egan, as a proposal to house the urban
homeless. It was the most direct of the fifty submissions
to a controversial exhibit entitled ‘The Homeless at
Home’, shown in New York City at Storefront for Art
and Architecture in March 1986.
Egan describes his design problem as an
architectural question: ‘Assuming a person must live
temporarily on the sidewalk, how can we provide
shelter that begins to offer the dignity each member of
society deserves?’ His solution combines the symbols
of an urban community (like the wide, steep entry
steps, intended to create a personal ‘stoop’) with the
minimal function and material (galvanized metal
frame, plywood panelling, galvanized metal roof)
requirements of a portable, all-weather shelter. His
resulting cart design grows from the basic concerns
defined by the homeless themselves: shelter from
climate extremes, safe storage of personal
belongings, personal hygiene facilities, and privacy.
69
Sigrun Prahl
The shelter carts are to be used in emergencies when
the permanent shelters are full. Taken from their
storage buildings, they would be driven in small
caravans to parks, vacant lots, and urban plazas.
Some might be clustered in small cart villages around
city-owned pavilions that have been converted to
clinics or bathhouses where the carts are hooked up
to central utilities. Others could be set alone on wide
sidewalks, where they rely on their own storage tanks
and generators.
The Portable Shelter Cart is one way to address a
social problem that demands discussion and a
solution. It is a tiny home that is a compassionate and
thoughtful response to a most difficult and complex
dilemma.
The Migrant Camp
Highway 99, running the length of the state of
California and lined with farm workers’ shanties, has
been termed ‘the longest slum in the world’. For the 5
to 10 per cent of California’s farm workers, many of
them Mexican, who go on the road, travelling up and
down the state, following the harvest for a living,
housing is worse than substandard. With no shelter
available, many families are forced to camp in ditch-
banks and under bridges, where the most elementary
sanitation and comfort are lacking, and where they
are beyond the reach of such basic services as
schools, day-care centres, clinics. In 1966 there were
approximately 200,000 substandard units in the rural
agricultural areas of California. Growers and local
officials have consistently ignored the plight of the
migrants.
The Office of Economic Opportunity under the
supervision of Paul O’Rourke and with the architects
Sanford Hirshen and Sim Van der Ryn as consultants
envisioned 10 camps—100 units each—of short-
term, temporary housing in 1966. The architects
themselves were struggling against the prevailing
70
apathies, finding themselves among a growing group
of ‘underground’ architects who were discontented
with the inability of the profession to concern itself with
significant social problems.
Hirshen and Van der Ryn began an intensive cross-
country search, for a building system. For $500, such
a unit had to be large enough to house a family and be
adaptable to the needs of a migrant family, be easily
erected by unskilled labour, last three to five seasons,
be suited to the climate and be pleasing in
appearance.
At the University of Michigan they developed a
lightweight floor system. The paradome unit’s
diameter is 12 foot 8 inches (4 metres), it encloses 123
sq.ft., (12 square metres) and folds into a 3×3×9 foot
(0.9×0.9×2.7 metre) package. Each panel is framed
with aluminium and faced with rigid vinyl. The roof is
an insulated, nylon-reinforced vinyl, supported as an
umbrella-like framework of aluminium tubing.
Plydome combines curved surfaces with corrugated
construction to produce an extraordinary rigidity. With
each corrugated ‘beam’ exerting a movement
opposed by an equal force, the structure is in
permanent tension. The polyurethane will last
indefinitely, and has superior resistance to fire, heat,
and impact. The round shape gives the interior
flexibility and variety.
OEO officials looked long and hard for a site near Linden
in California for the first camp. Twenty growers refused
to lease land, before one finally agreed to provide a
10-acre site. The camp is fenced in, with all grass
removed for fire protection. At the centre of the site are
the service elements—laundry machines, showers,
and the day-care facility, with a surplus parachute
supplying much-needed shade. Paradome units for
individual shelter are clustered in groups of three:
several families share a chemical toilet. A large family
is assigned several paradome units. Despite certain
problems with the units, the general reaction to them

was favourable. The Linden camp is a vast
improvement over life in the ditch-bank, although the
conditions in the camp are at best only primitive.
One of the major by-products was to make visible to
the community a problem that it had previously refused
to acknowledge.
The cost of this ‘disposible architecture’ is such that it
can be renewed in five years. According to Hirshen,
this prevents the institutionalization of temporary shelter
for a work force. The camps are thus only a way-station
to a better life for migrant families. By consistently
referring to these units as shelter, not housing, Hirshen
emphasizes that they are not a full solution to the housing
needs of these workers, but only a beginning.
The Victory House
The ‘Victory House’ is an emergency, minimal unit
developed by the John B.Pierce Foundation. It was
designed in 1943 for temporary use in war-swollen
communities in the United States in the Second World
War where acute housing shortage existed.
At that time it could be built and completely furnished
for $1000, and accommodated a family of four.
Construction is of laminated wood arches 4 foot (1.2
metres) apart, covered on both sides with wallboard. A
third layer of wallboard forms the roof. This is coated at
the factory with asphalt roofing, providing a ventilated
air space as insulation and also a shield from wind and
sun at the sloping windows at the sides. The house has
no plumbing or electric wiring; the kitchen sink drains
into a prepared hole.The plan shows how houses might
be arranged in temporary settlements.The blocks in the
middle are communal lavatories, toilets and laundries.
The Mobile Home
Mobile Homes originated in the travel trailers:
lightweight, hightly portable units that could easily be
Transportable Environments: Context
pulled behind the cars of the era. In 1929 a vaccine
manufacturer in Detroit built a small, canvas-covered
wooden structure on wheels for his own recreational
use. Convinced of the marketability of this early trailer,
he began to manufacture many more, and the
demand for them proved his speculation to be correct.
They were very popular among itinerant workers all
through the thirties. It was reported that trailer coach
manufacturing had become the fastest-growing
industry in the United States. With the onset of the Great
Depression the trailer emerged as a form of permanent
shelter. By 1937 a total of two hundred thousand
families were living permanently in trailers.The period
of the Depression therefore had a permanent effect
on the image of the mobile home lifestyle.
After the end of the war the housing shortage became
quite severe. As a result, the federal government
requested manufacturers to increase the production
of trailers, and the industry grew steadily in the late
1940s and early 50s.
In 1954, when Wisconsin lifted the travel ban on trailers
more than 8 foot wide (2.4 metres), trailers soon grew
so large that they had to be moved by trucks.The trailer
home was providing a standard of accommodation
more and more like a conventional house.Trailers with
built-in bathrooms were introduced in 1950. Since the
1960s almost all areas allow 14 foot (4.2 metres) wide
loads under special permit, and some areas are
allowing 16 foot (4.8 metres) wide loads. Sales
jumped 68 per cent for the larger truck-hauled ‘mobile
homes’.
Mobile homes are available in a wide variety of sizes
and interior configurations. They generally have two
or three bedrooms.They also come in single-wide and
double-wide variations. The single wide models vary
in size from 12 foot to 14 foot (3.7 metres to 4.3 metres)
in width, and from 48 foot to 75 foot (14.6 metres to
22.5 metres) in length. The two most popular sizes are
14×67 foot (4.3×20.11 metres) and 14×69 foot
71
Sigrun Prahl
(4.3×20.72 metres). They are made of a steel chassis
with an asphalt board and a plywood floor, timber and
plywood walls, fibreglass insulation, and a galvanized
roof. They arrive at the site in one or more sections, as
a complete full-size house typically over 1000 square
foot (100 square metres), fully furnished with major
appliances, carpets, and draperies, virtually complete
except for connections to the site and to utilities.
People are moving into mobile homes, because they
felt that the mobile home was a better housing
alternative than an apartment, and in comparison to
most conventional houses you get more for your
money. The affordability of mobile homes is so often
heralded as their ultimate success, indeed their cost
is well below that of a comparable conventional
house, but the financing of the purchase of the mobile
unit is so high that it often offsets the low sale cost.
Financial institutions have viewed lending for the
purchase of a mobile home much the same way as
they viewed lending for the purchase of a car and
maintain considerably higher interest rates.
Despite that fact, manufactured housing has always
meant, and still means, affordable shelter. In 1981, the
cost of the house was, per square foot, roughly half
that of conventional housing. The Manufactured
Housing Institute of the US reported that in 1989 the
average square-foot cost of mobile homes was $22.26
($220 per square metre), less than half the cost of on
site-built homes.
The people who live in mobile homes have grown in
numbers, ages, salaries, and family size. Today the
typical mobile home owner no longer represents the
transient population as out-dated stereotypes imply.
A survey sponsored by Owern-Fiberglas suggests that
the fastest-growing market segment, predominantly
in the South and West of the United States, is the 55
and older population. They pay more for their mobile
home, seek clean, spacious parks, and find mobile
home living desirable.
72
Another market segment, predominantly in the Central
and Northern states is the 45 and younger population.
The census shows that most families from this group
are setting up housekeeping for the first time. Some of
them see the mobile home as a low-cost route into the
housing market—‘it beats paying rent’. The residents
are still holding on to the single-family detached home
American dream, but they cannot afford it in the
conventional form and are thus compromising in
achieving their dream in a more ‘mobile’ manifestation.
Over the years, mobile homes have evolved in
accordance with increasing market demands. They
became larger, more luxurious, and closer in
appearance to site-built houses.They come with wood-
burning fire-places, built-in air-conditioners, roman
bathtubs, elaborate kitchens, and other features that
would make any homeowner proud.
It is rare for a mobile home to be moved and it is
common practice for owners to sell the mobile home
on its lot. Many owners remove the axles, wheels, and
hitch. In fact, over 97 per cent of mobile homes are
never moved after the first trip from the plant to the site.
The site planning of mobile homes has, as a
consequence, become increasingly important.
Mobile home parks were usually confined to the
outskirts of towns, and they were often enclosed
communities with a negative image. Like other forms
of vernacular housing, it seems that the image of the
mobile home is negative because it is associated
with poverty, that is with the inhabitants’ lack of
freedom of choice, with a not-yet ‘settled’ life, and
therefore with a supposed irresponsibility of the
dwellers. The rejection of mobile home
developments and their re-location to the outskirts
of the cities thus appears to be not only the product
of land speculation. It is also a form of social
discrimination based on the blind acceptance of the
middle-class values of the house as a social status
symbol and a pretence of stability.

Aesthetically, mobile homes are typically far less
desirable than any other permanent housing type.
Also regional, cultural, topographic, and climatic
requirements are not reflected. The mobile home
industry has been inherently inflexible, reactionary,
and reluctant to change [Editor’s note: the industry
does, however, pride itself on its response to the
professed requirements of its customers]. There has
not been enough diversity amongst the major players
in the industry to create an environment that is
conducive to innovation. Also greater efficiency and
environmental responsibility could be better achieved.
The Autonomous Dwelling Unit
One of the most technically advanced mobile homes
is the so-called ‘Autonomous House’. It was
developed and built in 1979 by the ‘non-architects’
Ted Bakewell III and Michael Jantzen as a mobile
home completely able to support itself, free from utility
connections, with provisions for every domestic
function. The Autonomous House is unique in many
ways but the most profound is in its use of building
components in new ways. For example, silo sections
are used for the roof; they are mounted on a reused
mobile office chassis which fits requirements for
dimensions and strength. Space lamps serve as low-
energy lighting, plastic swimming pool decking as
flooring and wall covering, and ceiling mounted
zippered canvas as storage space pouches.
The unit is heated passively by a small sunspace that
doubles as an entry air lock. This system is backed up
by an incinerator, which uses junk mail among its fuels,
and a small woodburning stove. Insulation is primarily
3.5 inches (80 mm) of urea-formaldehyde foam
covered with a 1 inch (25 mm) interior layer of
cellulose-based fireproofing/sound absorbing
Transportable Environments: Context
material. Electrical power is dependent upon
photovoltaics and battery storage. Food preparation
begins with a super-insulated refrigerator and ends
with cooking over an alcohol burner (no electricity).
Water is obtained from rain collected from gutters and
delivered into a flexible vinyl bladder. A 15-minute
rainfall can capture over a month’s supply of water.
Once the water is used, it is piped to an under-floor
gray-water storage tank where it is filtered for future
limited reuse. Pressure to move the water through
the pipes is generated with manually operated
pumps.
Although the design and fabrication of the
Autonomous House exhibits a combination of do-it-
yourself ingenuity and ecological high-tech thinking,
its type is of the conventional mobile home, which
implies an enormous land use. The mobile home is
based on the materialization of the American middle-
class tradition which is: housing ownership, single-
family detached dwelling, private outside space, and
conventional construction. It is only the latter norm
which is most conspicuously violated by the
manufactured house. As far as the type is concerned,
the mobile home provides a form of living similar to
the suburban house. Thus a criticism of the mobile
home is structurally the same as the criticism of the
suburban detached single-family house.
Architects should not ignore the field of portable
architecture for no-income and low-income people.
Quality of design, detailing, and planning is as yet
almost non-existent in low-cost shelter and in the
mobile building industries. For any professional
concerned with the quality of life of poor people and
with the quality of our collective environment, mobile,
prefabricated, low-cost structures for housing present
a tremendous challenge.
73
 Gion Matsuri festival procession float, Kyoto

74
Kyoto Machiya:
Ideas of Spatial Layering, Ritual Disclosure, and
Portability in the Form of Japanese Traditional City Dwelling
Marina Pecar
Kansas State University
Introduction
The Japanese city Kyoto, by its configuration,
perception and use represents a layered spatial
structure which is in a state of perpetual cyclical
transformation. Planned and built following the
principles of the physical and ecological structure of
Chinese models as a geometric orthogonal grid, the
city has been adapting its configuration to the
topographical requirements of the area, in addition
to responding to the significant socio-cultural,
religious and historical factors.
In the original urban layout the basic facilities were
placed at intervals along the streets, which acted as
public spaces. The major streets were places of
ceremony, such as seasonal processional festivals,
and the smaller streets were places of everyday
communal life and daily rituals. Many of those activities
and gatherings related to religious holidays, festivals
and celebrations, or ways of appreciating of the values
of everyday life, have been experienced as processes
of spiritual and physical transformation within the
realms of the city, garden and dwelling.
Since ancient times the seasonal rituals like Gion
Matsuri, when large floats are built and stay in the
streets of Kyoto awaiting the moment of ritual
procession, have been reflected in the constitution of
‘portable’ city parts. Similarly, changes from day to night
are marked by the emergence of Ramen stands on
street corners, which also periodically appear from
the darkness of unknown storage places temporarily
to transform the city by creating lively activity nodes.
However, this idea of impermanence and portability
has not been confined only to temporary city
structures, but encompasses the very idea of
architecture, which is most clearly embodied in the
type of town house known as Kyoto Machiya.
Kyoto Machiya includes both dwelling and working
functions, actualized through ritual participation and
reciprocity between the inhabitants and the building
itself. The ritual in this case characterizes the human
Machiya street facade
attitude towards the house space—its conception,
creation, occupation and transformation, and
represents a process that, by including a dimension
of human participational time, enables the house
space to exist as a reality. The unique character of this
architectural form was conceived at the symbolic level
and developed and manifested by its functional
properties of portability and flexibility, facilitating
periodical transformation of its physical and spatial
relationships.
Japanese traditional world view and the
house evolution
According to Amos Rapoport, among the factors that
determine vernacular house form and meanings,
socio-cultural ones are of primary importance, while
physical forces represent secondary or modifying
factors. 1 Socio-cultural forces include religious
beliefs, family and clan structure, social organization,
occupation or livelihood, and social relations
between individuals. In addition, different world views
and ways of life are reflected in a great number of
different house types expressing various concepts of
75
Marina Pecar

Entry way and its elements of house climate protection
ideal environment. Those concepts have been
changing throughout Japanese history and they have
been expressed through development of the specific
organization of space more than in the variations of
architectural form.
The characteristics of organization of space in Machiya
town houses are similar to those seen in a Japanese
farm house, or even a feudal lord’s residence, owing to
the same cultural origins and influences that spread
through all groups and levels of their feudal society.
Those influences seem to have originated primarily
from the interaction of changing religious beliefs and
the Japanese way of life, which will be discussed later.
The evolution of the Machiya form started by adapting
a farm house in response to a city environment and
changing family needs. The earth floor area was
gradually divided into the front part facing the street
(reserved as a space for goods display and selling),
and the remaining part with private entry (on one side
running towards the back and used for cooking). An
elevated boarded floor area gradually increased in size
and often occupied more of the house front area
depending on the family business requirements. The
house facade was changing too and had gradually
become very open towards the street.This was possibly
owing to its flexible post and lintel structure and
removable wooden lattice-work elements.
House climate protection was controlled by extending
the depth of the roof eaves, projecting the upper part of
the shop space above ground level, or adding a second
storey that was developed above the shop. The front
rooms, used as shops or family business offices, seemed
to be just one step removed from the shared area of the
street, but at the same time they were a part of it:
On occasions such as festivals or a funeral
which would concern the community, these
front rooms are brought into use and it is just as
though they are partially screened off street
niches. In other words the street is not
completely cut off but allowed to filter through
into the building.2
The spaces that were closer to a deep part of the site
became used for more private purposes and achieved
a different meaning through time, and the
development of specific family life modes and house
character were also dependent on each other.
Machiya dwellings represented the main form of
social intercourse of the traditional town by being
houses where, together with dwelling and
production, the trade of goods took place. They
originally stood along the streets on the edges of
blocks framing off a common area in the center, but
later their shapes became long and narrow, and the
buildings began to line smaller streets of the
neighborhoods—places of everyday communal life
that filled the sites from front to back. That shape, with
the narrow side facing the street, determined the
development of a privacy gradient, allowing the
natural light and the sense of spatial depth to help
express the significance of spaces and articulate
their layers.
Spatial layering
According to the original Japanese religious beliefs,
space was perceived as identical with the events or
phenomena that occurred in it, and was recognized
in relation to the sequential flow or periodical
recurrence in time. It was believed that the spirits could
be invited to participate in human life, though they
originally resided in places with remarkable natural
qualities of atmosphere, where a sense of mystery and
excitement was produced by the dark depth of a
mountain, cave or waterfall. Darkness itself also had
a spiritual significance, as had its presence in the
space of the house, and that relationship influenced
the development of the characteristically layered
spatial structure of the dwelling.

76

Activities and movement through segments of space
and time were conducted in relationship to the
innermost core, the invisible spiritual point of
reference that was thought to be present in the deep
darkness of a forest, town or house. The structure of
space of these environments was imagined as a
sequence of many spaces wrapping around one
another with variable configurations in centripetal
fashion, suggesting in that way the presence of an
abstract core. In contrast, looking at the spatial order
and arrangement of elements found in the
architecture of Western cultures, their composition
seems to be more commonly ruled by the centrifugal
force of their geometrical center, as well as prevailing
axial directions of extension within the designed
spatial composition.
With the introduction of Buddhism, the notion of
experiential quality of space developed, and it called
for active participation based on the observer’s
imagination and fantasy.The belief that the implicit can
express more than the explicit, through a process of
suggestion of symbolic meanings rather than direct
expression, was developed, and it affected all forms
of traditional Japanese architecture and art.
Buddhism brought an important change in the
Japanese world view by acknowledging and
including human emotions, feelings, imagination,
perception and intuition as equal constituents of the
reality of the existing world. In this view of the world
and environment, the understanding of nature as an
integral part of human perception, and a perception
that always affects the observed world, was
developed.
This consideration of the observer’s participation was
seen in the development of an asymmetrical spatial
order which, by leaving the gap to be filled by one’s
imagination, asked the mind to complete the incomplete.
In other words, human participation in space and time is
needed in order to provide a constant source of
relationship experience that is continuously changing:
Transportable Environments: Context
Extension within the asymmetrical order gives
the feeling of something that is infinitely
extendible. Asymmetry is not a finality but
recognizes that life is not static or capable of
perfection, and that its essence is growth and
change, and that it is composed of
relationships.3
The principle of observation of spatial components
that depend on the viewer’s movement was
developed and adopted as a design principle. It
recognized that, since a person can only visualize their
immediate spatial relationships, space is revealed a
bit at a time and a new scene is seen at every turn of
the circulation path of a city, garden or a house.
The bending and twisting circulation path was
gradually integrated into the house spaces and its
shape was related to the rooms, functional order and
symbolic meanings. This principle resulted in
elimination of the rooms that were not situated along
the principal circulation path and that process of
Entry sequence 1: Kitchen with a side entry
disintegration made building become a single row of
rooms, reflecting a mode of inner horizontal circulation.
This development of spatial structure affected
architectural forms regardless of their purpose and
filtered through all levels of society. The rooms were
looked upon as links in a chain and a house a succession
of spatial cells and elements that only through personal
perception in time became a succession of specific
meanings.
The elements that enabled spatial, perceptual, and ritual
transformation processes continuously to take place in
the dwelling are various types of sliding panels, screens
and hanging elements. Some of them were used as
indoor partitions, and some as window screens, blinds
and door panels and removable street-front facade
panels and screens, which, when periodically removed,
helped expose and connect the house interior work
space of the family business to the city street outside.
77
Marina Pecar

Entry sequence 2: Formal entrance hall
The partitions between the rooms developed from the
vertical free-standing movable elements of ancient
houses, to sliding panels made from light, wooden,
lattice-work structures covered with rice paper. They
all allowed for a sense of flexibility, openness and
layering of space to enrich and support the variety of
spatial experiences.
Although the interior wall partitions, which allowed
for interior spatial division, enclosure, and periodical
merging of the spaces in a variety of configurations,
were very few in the house (owing to its flexible
structure), the shapes of the interior spaces were
clearly defined, whether they stayed separate, or
were occasionally used together by joining two or
more spaces into a larger one.
Vertical planes defined by posts and panels, in
addition to powerful horizontal planes: the roof with
its deep eaves, lower and raised floor surface of the
domestic areas and formal spaces, veranda and entry
were all parts determining the one whole—a house
that reflected the general understanding of the
Japanese enbodied in the notions of Ma, En and Oku,
which will be discussed in the following section.
The house life
Machiya’s unique character of the extroverted shop
and introverted dwelling combined under the same
roof and its specific urban location shape the life of its
inhabitants towards the social and economic, but also
natural and spiritual aspects of that particular
environment. The house lives when the
communication of personal and social life meanings
takes place: ‘The rooms and floor space carries social
and ritual meanings and through ceremony these
latter meanings are actualized.’4 The house does not
exist for itself, but becomes a reality through the daily
exchange of social, economic and ritual gestures. In
the Kyoto Machiya, that communication assumes
characteristic forms according to specific occasions
in different realms of the house. The house form and
spatial character seems to support its meaning and
purpose of providing a shelter, as well as a place of
work and social interaction, within the framework of
family, community and society.
The social life of the house takes place primarily in relation
to the street and community life within the spaces of the
entry sequence, including a transition space, entrance
hall, front room, and shop or office.The first spatial layer,
experienced while progressing towards the interior of
the dwelling, is a transition space Engawa. En ‘implies
connection and/or separation, neither one nor the other
alone, but both simultaneously’. 5 It denotes a
transactional space that links the opposites, or divides
different spaces or realms: inside and outside, private
and public. In the dwelling, it is expressed in the form of
a spatial layer or series of layers between the vertical
space-defining elements that are attached along the
front or back facade.
Passing through the house entry from the outside, one
experiences the contrast in quality of life between the
street environment and the quiet microcosm of the
house. That is a process which brings one gradually
inside through experiencing the changing of the natural
light intensity and quality, owing to the passage through
a sequence of spaces and changes in the floor elevation.
The next layer, the first interior space—the entrance hall,
is where the ‘ritual of penetration’ takes place.6 After
crossing a threshold of the entry gate and Engawa, and
walking over the stone paved floor, one climbs up on to
the step where the shoes are to be taken off. Then,
barefoot, one is again taken up over one or two more
wooden steps on to the Tatami mat covered floor of the
hall where, hidden behind the screen, the host would
be waiting to greet the honored guest. Entering in such
a way may be interpreted as the act of changing of the
state of mind by changing one’s place through the
process of transition, and a passage from the shared
world of community towards the safety of one’s own
private world.

78

The following interior room, which one would enter
by climbing onto a Tatami surface of the house living
spaces, would be another transitional space—the
anteroom. There, the formal greeting procedure
between the guest and the host would take place in
ways of bowing or prostrating oneself on the floor,
which are ways of recognizing the guest’s social
status. In a traditional Machiya that room had no
windows, but received diffuse light from the entrance
hall through the sliding translucent paper Shoji
panels, and being the first layer of space that came
after the change in the floor height levels, it would
signify the ‘intermediate stage in the process of
integrating man into the house’.7
If the guest’s visit was related to the family business,
the office or front reception room was the space where
the meeting would take place. In the case of daily,
ordinary customers’ visits, the front goods display and
selling area, usually on the level of the ground, would
be as close as they were allowed to come towards the
depth of the house. Being wide open and actually
belonging to the street life during the day, this space
would not require the customer to pass through the
formal entrance hall. However, on traditional annual
festivals and community celebrations, these front
rooms of the house would represent their face to the
world, being formally engaged in the street activities
by being opened up for public display of the house
and family treasures.
The daily life of the dwelling was conducted through
activities related to the family business and was
essential to the house ‘survival’, its economic and
social status, including the experience of the house
as a shelter from the busy and noisy city traffic. That
aspect of the dwelling would be experienced as the
house unfolded its circulation, transition and living
spaces and, through the movement and participation
of its inhabitants, the unity of the social and spiritual
components of its space would develop. The major
portion of the dwelling space was divided into a series
Transportable Environments: Context
of rooms where the family life would take place. In a
typical town house there were usually several of these
spaces, their number depending on the house and
family size, lined in a row, all of a similar shape, size
and character. They were traditionally furnished with
several cushions for sitting on the floor, each with a
low table, and with built-in decorative alcoves and
closets for the storage of folded sleeping mats or other
items.
Entry sequence 3: Anteroom looking into the house interior
Such a room would represent one interval or one Ma
of the house’s multi-layered space, and its character
would be expressed in its name: Chano-ma or dining
room, I-ma or living room. Being so similar to each
other, they would in larger houses be referred to by
numbers according to their position in a sequence of
rooms. Ma represents the conceptualization of space
and time as one entity conceived of in terms of intervals.
In spatial terms it means ‘the natural distance between
two or more things existing in a continuity’, and in
temporal terms it means ‘the natural pause or interval
between two or more phenomena occurring
continuously’.8 In experiential terms it represents the
quality of a place or event as perceived by an individual
as the unit within a unity.
During the day these rooms would be used for daily
family and domestic activities or meals, and at night
they were easily converted into the family bedrooms.
They were usually used independently, but owing to
the house structural system and the flexibility of the
removable sliding doors and screens, it was possible
to fuse two or even more of these spaces when needed.
The spiritual life in the house is conducted in relation to
the innermost core of its layered space—the reception
room, whose formal design and careful crafting of its
components, including the decorative alcove, family
altar and a garden, manifest the formal harmony of its
microcosm. Oku means the innermost, the least
accessible, deep, and extending far back’, and it implies
the invisible depth, or the sacred point of destination:9
79
Marina Pecar
In many cases the Oku has no climax in itself as
the ultimate destination begins to be unfolded.
One rather seeks drama and ritual approaching
it. What matters is not absolute height or bulk
but representation of reaching the goal…. It is
the construction of a spatial experience with a
time parameter.10
The reception room, Okunoma, although being
mostly made out of the elements and materials that
had the same nature, treatment, and design features
as those of other rooms, represents the most private
place of the house owing mostly to its innermost
location and only occasional use. Private in this case
means inaccessible not only for the strangers to the
house, but also even for the house inhabitants, for it
was the least used room of the house.
Traditionally, it is a room for gatherings only on
occasions related to events of particular spiritual and
social significance for the family and the house. The
family ceremonial celebrations and religious holiday
Tokonoma recess in a reception room
observations would take place in this room, as well
as the important guests’ formal visits to the master of
the house. It may be said that this room signifies a layer
of space, a step further, and a way in direction towards
the Oku, which stays unreachable and defined only
by its spiritual significance.
One would pass through into this room and close the
sliding door behind, entering the space where, after
taking a sitting position, one could begin to experience
harmony and peace of the mind.The decorative alcove,
Tokonoma, is the spiritual focus of the room and the
house. It defines the location of the honorable guest
right next to it, but also symbolizes the sacred place,
Toko (The Place). The origins of its sacred meaning
are related to religious beliefs about the presence of
spirits in a particular locality, which are signified by a
particular object. That object could take different
shapes, and indeed there are some that traditionally
represent Tokonoma’s symbolic language: a post of
80
its exposed corner, a scroll painting or poem, a flower
arrangement temporarily placed on its elevated floor
surface. That elevated area, which makes Tokonoma
the highest space of the house, may also remind one
of the way that the emperor’s seat was found in ancient
palaces, as a space reserved for a particular subject.
The flower arrangement and the reception room
garden represent the abstraction of the idea of the
nature and universe. The view towards the garden is
controlled by the horizontal planes of the roof eaves
and the floor with veranda (Engawa) in addition to the
vertical planes defined by posts and screens, so it links
with and belongs to the interior space. The abstract
form of the garden originated from the practice of the
tea cult of Zen Buddhism, and it is the expression of
the microcosm (whose elements; rocks, sand, plants
or water, symbolize the harmony of the universe, earth
and mind), that one can experience through ritualistic
contemplation. The volumes of the reception room,
its alcove and garden represent the expression of the
Buddhist idea of the essence of space in a void, that
only through the dynamic, ever-changing relationship
with the human mind and human presence receives
purpose, meaning and character.
Conclusion
This paper introduces a conceptual condition of
portability in architecture, manifested as a process of
transformation that continuously occurs within the
framework of the Japanese traditional city and within
the single city dwelling, influencing their unique
dynamic spatial relationships and their meanings.
The tradition has kept Machiya’s essential meanings
alive in the same form through human presence and
activities, following the ancient customs up to the
present day, under the influence of a traditional
Japanese world-view on the development of the form
from the original conception of time-space continuity,
design principles of asymmetry and successive

observation, and characteristic spatial relationships
within the dwelling. Although the attitude and life
values of Japanese contemporary society exhibit very
different manifestations from those in feudal times,
cultural heritage is still cherished and treasured and
traditional symbolic meanings are maintained in daily
family life within the house and city environment.
The traditional Japanese way of life manifests its
ceremonial or ritual character through the
performance of daily and seasonal activities that take
place in the house. From the moment of passing a
threshold to the entrance hall, through leaving one’s
1 Amos Rapoport, House Form and Culture, Englewood
Cliffs, N.J. 1969, pp.47–49.
2 William R.Tingey, ‘The Principal Elements of Machiya
Design’ in Process Architecture, No.25, 1981, p.88.
3 Stephen Gardiner, Evolution of the House: An Introduction,
New York, 1974, pp.130–131.
4 Chris Fawcett, The New Japanese House: Ritual and Anti-
Ritual Patterns of Dwelling, London, 1980, pp.59–63.
5 Günter Nitschke, ‘MA: The Japanese Sense of Place’ in
Architectural Design, March 1966, p.152.
Transportable Environments: Context
shoes and climbing onto the clean Tatami mat
surface of the rooms in order to participate in their
spaces by using, viewing, appreciating and sharing
them with others, one may experience the
significance of this dwelling’s complex spatial
configuration. Therefore, the volumetric entity of this
building form may be interpreted as a symbolically
and physically immutable frame within which the
continuous flux of various personal and collective
ritual experiences takes place through the
manipulation of its constituent movable parts, which
inscribe a particular conceptual condition of
portability in architecture.
6 Olivier Marc, Psychology of the House, (transl. Jessie
Wood), London, 1977, p.22.
7 Heinrich Engel, The Japanese House: A tradition for
Contemporary Architecture, Tokyo, 1981, pp.223–243.
8 Nitschke, p.152.
9 Botond Bognor, ‘Typology of Space—Constructions in
Contemporary Japanese Architecture’, in Process
Architecture, No. 25, 1981, p.160.
10 Fumihiko Maki, ‘Japanese City Spaces and the Concept Engawa, the garden veranda
of OKU’, in Japan Architecture, May 1979, p.59.
81
 Feeding Centre building made from eucalyptus poles and plastic sheets, Ethiopia, 1991

82
Shelter not Homes—
Appropriate Emergency Relief
Gordon Browne
Southampton Institute
Introduction
In the emergency following disaster there is an
immediate need for shelter. The level of provision will
depend upon the type of recipient of shelter. For
example, displaced peoples will be starting again and
will need assistance to re-establish their lives and
build new homes. This home will only be successful if
the families are able to sustain economic growth.
Refugees need ‘shelter’ to survive until such time as
they are able to return ‘home’. Often these shelters are
in isolation from the local communities, clustered
together in refugee camps where they depend upon
aid assistance to sustain them. A principle established
at the First Emergency Settlement Conference in 1996
was: ‘Access to basic, contextually appropriate shelter
is an essential human need. The standards for this
shelter, though, may vary depending on the context
of culture, situation, climate and other factors.’1
Any shelter solutions which are provided by relief
agencies, must be indigenous, acceptable,
appropriate, affordable and provide a boost to the
local economy and workforce. ‘Emergency Shelter is
most productively self built with external involvement
best limited to enabling the community to meet this
challenge.’2
Relief generally addresses the immediate issues
concerned with saving lives. Emergency shelters
satisfy the physiological needs of survival. However
this level of shelter provision is not quantified and relief
is either too little or too much too late. Food is
quantifiable—0.2 tonne per person per month. Water
is quantifiable—20 litres per person per day. Shelter
is quantifiable—?
The only recommendations for shelter specifications
are based upon temperature i.e. cold and warm climate
provision. In practice this refers to lightweight and
heavy-duty tents. ‘UNCHR stated in 1993: ‘UNHCR
wants a temporary shelter to look like a tent rather than
a house: ie. not permanent, long term and cost efficient.’3
This paper is generally critical of high technology Save the Children Fund JIGIGA Compound, Ethiopia, 1991
emergency shelters. It does not totally dismiss the use
of portable architecture solutions in emergencies. In
particular situations for certain needs they do provide
good, quick and efficient buildings.
Shelter not homes
A distinction is clearly made between a shelter for
emergency purposes and a temporary home or indeed
a temporary home that is intended as a permanent
solution. An emergency shelter should sustain life.
Families in a disaster or refugees in an emergency who
are escaping a disaster have immediate shelter needs.
That shelter should be accessible, have a water supply
and sanitation system, and access to food and health
provision (refugees have these rights under the
Declaration of Human Rights). It is an immediate need
in the emergency and should be treated as temporary,
prior to rehabilitation and re-housing.Typical is refugee
camp scenario, where the camp is founded around a
village with food and water supply, close to the border
and on someone’s land.The Oxfam handbook includes
the statement:
83
Gordon Browne
‘While people rebuild their permanent housing,
temporary shelters are needed. Oxfam has developed
a temporary shelter made of reinforced plastic
sheeting to house about ten people.’4
The dilemma for those assisting in the provision of
relief is the inadequacy of the emergency shelter,
when three months later families are still in the ongoing
emergency phase. One school of thought believes
that suppliers of emergency shelters should plan for
British Red Cross Goma Compound, Zaire, 1994 the longer term, which frequently leads to high
technology and high cost solutions, such as
prefabricated houses. There is little involvement by
the recipients and normally the provision is in place
too late for the emergency phase for which they were
intended. Families are rehoused away from where
they want to be, away from friends and employment
in comfortable homes and with complete dependancy
on the aid agencies. The community around them is
often hostile to these refugees and the aid that they
receive. There is little incentive to break this
dependancy and return home.
The second school of thought (to which the writer
belongs) is that of self help and minimal intervention.
Support and sustain life, but do not interfere unduly
with the dynamics of a rapidly changing emergency.
Assistance should not breed dependancy and change
the desire for people to return home.
The Rwandan crisis in Eastern Zaire resulted in a
massive relief effort and saved many lives. The
establishment of longer-term food, water and health
provision in established refugee camps delayed the
mass migration back into Rwanda. The Red Cross
provided a full field hospital with surgical facilities that
were exclusively for refugees. This hospital was the
best in central Africa. It is little wonder that there were
local tensions in the region.
Where people cannot or are not intending to return
home, longer-term relocation strategies will be
84
necessary. These will be in full consultation with the
local community and affected people. Land must be
procured, and priority given to integration and
assisting self-help coping mechanisms. People will
gradually move from the emergency shelters to the
home. It may be a physical detached move, upgrading
of the existing shelter or recycling of shelter materials
for the construction of the new home. This is the
development—rehabilitation phase following the
initial emergency.
In the former Yugoslavia 15,000 displaced refugees
were rehoused in the Republic of Croatia at a cost of
US $40 million. In addition a further 7,500 people were
housed in barracks, dormitories, recreation centres,
at a cost of US $20 million. Although there are minor
problems with the adequacy of the houses and the
integration into the local community, credit must be
given to the excellent response by the Croatian
government and its partnership with donor
governments and aid agencies. Or should it? A total
of 22,500 represented only 5.78% of the need. Could
US $60 million have been better spent in providing
adequate emergency shelter for all, rather than the
privileged few? What type of winter did the majority
endure? For most their shelter was inadequate.
In 1991, 1.5million Kurdish refugees sought asylum
from Iraq. Temperatures dropped to minus 25°C. The
death rate was 600 per day. Aid agencies could only
offer plastic sheet, tents and blankets. The adequacy
of the emergency provision was pathetic.The eventual
solution was high cost, high technology Tepe Prefabrik
homes at a cost of $100 per square metre. Metal
frames, cementitious wood particle wall panels with
polystyrene sandwich, covered with insulated
corrugated sheet roofs. They provided units for 8,467
Kurdish families at a total cost of US $17 million.These
were houses for a longer-term permanent solution.
The minimum standards of performance, for what can
be referred to as an adequate emergency shelter,

have not been determined. Until such time that
standards are determined, the aid community will
continue to respond either inadequately, or more
likely too late, with expensive temporary and
inappropriate homes.
The shelter best suited to refugees is the one produced
by themselves with minimal assistance from outside.
That assistance may be plastic sheet, corrugated iron
roofing sheets, tools and other construction materials.
Dr R.Zetter states that: ‘The design and construction of
shelter, even in emergencies should be based on local
materials, indigenous technologies, or the careful
adaptation of imported and non traditional methods and
materials’.5
The challenge to the relief community today is to
replace the plastic sheet and tent philosophy with
warmer, better-insulated materials that are more
appropriate to the needs of refugees in cold climates.
This is becoming the new arena for emergencies and
the relief used in African crises do not translate well to
cold climate situations. So far we have failed, and
produced prefabricated homes too late and
inappropriate for an emergency response. A
specification is required for emergency shelters that
provides adequate protection from the elements, but
is not over specified and prohibitively expensive.
Performance standards are not established and, even
if they were, would not cover the complexity of
variables that effect adequacy of emergency shelter
provision. To illustrate this problem several factors are
considered below:
• Age of recipient of shelter. Both children and older
people are more prone to the cold.
• What level of warm clothing do the people have?
• Do they have beds and heavyweight blankets?
• What is the nutritional intake?
• Exposure level of the site to the weather.
• Heating and energy sources.
Transportable Environments: Context
Add to these, that most insulating materials involve
bulk (which excessively restricts transportation) and
finance available for each shelter, and the extent of
the problem is more clearly understood.
Performance standards for emergency shelters are
better referred to as minimal needs (rather than
standards) which can be established from the initial
needs assessment following the onset of the
emergency. The writer advocates the use of
emergency manufacturing facilities that can produce Field Hospital Kibumba RC, Zaire, 1994
in country and on site insulating construction materials
such as straw, cement, or earth\aggregrate blocks for
walling and sandwich insulated composite sheets for
roof coverings. It is interesting to note that whilst
prefabricated homes were imported into the former
Yugoslavia, the existing facilities that would have
produced such units in-country stayed closed.
One agency working in an emergency imported the
machines for making concrete roofing tiles. The
owners of the business produced tiles free of charge
for emergency purposes, then took ownership of the
machines and began to sell the tiles in the
development rehousing phase. Kreutner comments
on this issue: ‘An enormous logistics task had to be
solved, 13 trains with altogether 450 wagons and a
total length of 7 km moved in stages through Bulgaria,
Romania and Hungary before crossing the frontier to
Croatia’, (preference was given to this mode of
transport rather than by road, which would have
needed more than 1000 trucks).6
Appropriate portable architecture in
emergencies
This paper has been critical of imported emergency
shelter solutions for refugees. However such
structures are not totally dismissed. Portable
architecture in the form of prefabricated buildings have
uses in emergencies. Relief teams of expatriate staff
and local labour have to maintain a good level of
85
Gordon Browne

Pressed Mud Brick Clinics: Hartishiek, Ethiopia, 1991
wellbeing so as to operate efficiently in very difficult
circumstances. They cannot afford to be ill either
physically or mentally. Prefabricated housing located
in a compound which is self contained and protected
from the effects of the emergency will help preserve
this wellbeing. The Oxfam handbook criticises the
quality of most current products: ‘Many commercial
companies produce emergency housing. In most
cases, the individual units are costly, difficult to
transport to site and generally not appropriate to local
people’s needs. Occasionally, such housing may be
suitable for the use of relief teams.’ 7 The ODI
maintaining the importance of looking after aid
workers: ‘Principle 7: We take all reasonable steps to
ensure staff security and wellbeing.’8
Some research and further development is needed
by companies that supply such accommodation, the
main problem being that of logistics and transport
costs which make such units prohibitively expensive.
Most aid agencies arriving at an emergency will
operate from a rented house or accommodate relief
workers in nearby hotels (if not already full with the
world’s media). There are occasions when housing is
needed in remote regions and the solution must be
por table and quick to establish. The initial
accommodation for a relief team at the outset of the
Rwandan crisis in Zaire is typical. The sitting room of
the existing house was rented, the team had use of
the kitchen and bathroom and the tents were used as
bedrooms in the garden. A shower and toilet were also
installed in the garden. A tent is adequate for the short
term—up to one month. After this time more suitable
housing should be provided.
Food storage facilities are always needed where
people are concentrated in camps or settlements.
Warehousing locally is often not available and large
imported commercial ‘Rubb Hall’ type rubberised
fabric covered tubular portal frame buildings are
strong and weatherproof. They can be quickly erected
with some initial supervision/training. They are also
used as temporary hospitals, although this purpose
is somewhat wasteful with such high headroom space
available. There are also army hospital tents, which
are more suitable. The reasons for ‘Rubb Halls’ being
used for patient care has much to do with their
acceptance and availability in an emergency. They
do also provide good large, dormitory space, a
circulation of air and coolness in hot climates.
Reception/collection points, feeding centres, health
care clinics, schools etc. can be constructed using local
materials with or without outside assistance.
Structures can be made from eucalyptus poles,
corrugated iron sheets, or if this is difficult to obtain,
Monarflex reinforced plastic sheet coverings.
Monarflex also produce a family-sized tent using this
versatile reinforced polyethylene sheet.9
It has been mentioned previously that locally
manufactured construction materials are preferred.
Mud brick buildings offer better insulation properties
and are more solid than sheet-covered buildings.
Blocks can be produced with compressed mud and
or cement/lime. Concrete floors and corrugated iron
roofs make simple but substantial buildings. A small
imported machine can be used to produce buildings.
It is efficient and inexpensive. A production team could,
with one week’s notice, supply enough blocks to
construct a simple clinic using this machine.
Conclusion
The pressing need is for cold climate emergency
shelter for refugees which is warm, inexpensive,
appropriate, acceptable and easily transported. The
successful use of plastic sheet has much to do with its
versatility and cost rather than its effectiveness,
especially in colder climates. A roll of plastic sheet 52
metres long×4 metres wide will cost approximately
US $350. The air freight will double its cost. Yet it is
relatively cheap compared with tents. Its price is
insignificant compared with the cost and transport of

86

prefabricated buildings. The challenge is not to the
designers to produce a cheap warm emergency
shelter but to the manufactures to provide inexpensive
construction materials that have high insulation
1 First International Emergency Settlement Conference, April
1996, Revised Principle.
2 UNCHS Conference on Human Settlement—Habitat 1995.
3 UNCHR 1993, Improved shelter response and
environment.
4 Oxfam Handbook of resources for development and relief,
1995.
5 Dr. R.Zetter. ‘Shelter provision and settlement policy’, 1993.
Transportable Environments: Context
proper ties, that can be cheaply impor ted or,
preferably, produced locally with indigenous
materials and labour.
6 H.V.Kreutner—Housing Settlement, Karlovec/Cepin/
Rokovci. Report—Construction of Settlements in Croatia.
7 Oxfam Handbook of resources for development and relief,
1995.
8 The People in Aid Code of Best Practice in the Management
and Support of Aid Personnel, ODI, 1997.
9 Monarflex Ltd Emergencies division produce the
Monartent.
87
Design

The architectural poetry was in the proportions and the relations of these elements to each other.
The design became a mixture of architecture, industrial design, and engineering…This project put
us on the edge of our profession by raising the question: When is a structure a machine and when
is it a building?
Nicholas Goldsmith describing FTL’s Carlos Moseley Music Pavilion in Design Quarterly, 1992

Modular Railway Platform Units: Standardisation in Portable Architecture, Alan Brookes

 Micro Architecture in Education
Andreas Vogler
Technical University of Munich
Introduction
The Micro Architecture Unit in Munich provides students
and teachers with a highly tuneable ‘Architecture
Simulator’. Scaling down the size of the usual university
projects to lightweight, portable structures enables the
students to have a more intense control over their design
from beginning to end, whilst also providing experiences
which are usually found in an office rather than a
university.
The wide-ranging geographical environment
surrounding Munich provides a rich testing ground for
relating projects to mountain, alpine (up to 3000 metres),
forest, lake, river and urban situations, allowing students to
develop a high level of sensitivity to the human habitat and
to the existing built or natural environment.
Leisure and pleasure in architecture
The famous saying by Charles Eames, ‘We take our
pleasures seriously’ simultaneously expresses and
bridges the mental gap between seriousness and pleasure
that is so deeply established in Western society by the
Christian idea that spirit and body are different.1
The reality today in the West is that a majority of labourers
have much less physical work to do than centuries ago,
though they experience an increasing mental pressure
due to the ever-changing environment. In Europe, most
workers have an 8-hour day.The 24-hour day is split into
about equal parts for sleep, work and leisure-related
activities and thus, over one third of human life in Western
societies is leisure related.
90
The massive growth of the leisure and ‘lifestyle’
market and the endless invention of new activities
and sports indicates that leisure activities are already
a necessity of modern urban life. Escape and
compensation may be the more negative keywords,
enjoyment of nature and relaxation the more positive
ones. The mental pressure of work (i.e. hard work)
requires physical activities such as sports (i.e. hard fun).
On a planet where very soon 50% of the inhabitants
will live in cities and the problems of pollution are
becoming life-threatening, people are beginning to
look at the vast areas of vanishing nature with
different eyes—enlightened and alienated at the
same time.
Since the late 1960s people have tried to find a new
relationship with nature which is not based on
ruthless exploitation, but on enjoyment (‘flower
power’, was just one of these reactions, which led to
a big new leisure industry). In fact the beauty of our
planet’s nature and its enjoyment might become our
most valuable resource in the next century. Service
industries will have the most to benefit from this
development.
In manufacturing industries this is happening in the
development of new sustainable and ‘clean’
technologies which are powered by renewable
energies. The Club of Rome is predicting an
‘efficiency revolution’ and the idea of ‘negawatts
futures’ (futures based on non-used energy) might
easily turn around the whole financial market without
changing the system itself.2

Nevertheless, a change of thinking is affecting our
immediate environment now. In the late 20th century,
wars and pollution have destroyed our belief that
technology could make our lives fundamentally better.
Since the oil crisis of 1972, we have realised (though
this sounds paradoxical) that only technology will help
us to prevent an environmental catastrophe.This change
of thinking has been introduced by low-energy housing
projects, electric cars, energy-saving lights etc., all ‘light
technologies’, and ‘light sports’. The future is not
separation but integration.
The image of the hang-glider and the eagle shows how
close a highly technological understanding of the forces
of nature can bring man back to nature. It also indicates a
non-hostile, purely leisure-related activity for human
beings. This image, not known until recently (the hang-
glider was invented in the late forties), puts man into a
harmonious relationship with his roots (nature), with what
he is (man) and what he makes and controls (technology).
It is last but not least a new ‘understanding’ of technology
which makes buildings, cars, aircraft etc., more energy-
efficient and less polluting. The theme of the EXPO 2000
in Hanover is ‘Man—Nature— Technology’, showing this
trifold relation, where man cannot step out of his
responsibility, since man is nature and technology. So the
key to the relationship of man to nature (what made him)
is technology (what he makes). But the future should not
be in heavy, exploitative use, but based on ‘light thinking’
and ‘light technology’ which is integrative into the
processes of nature and not destructive.
It is in sport and leisure activities where people are finding
this integration of physical and mental being, lost through
‘separative thinking’ in philosophy and science over the
last three centuries. People who sail, fly and ski are
exploring the forces of nature (wind, water, gravity) in a
playful way.They are learning a more sensual approach
to nature, lost because of our highly alienating modern
life. Indeed sailing and gliding need an intense mix of
the two most precious human capabilities: thinking and
feeling.
Transportable Environments: Design
It was the dirty and tuberculosis-ridden industrial city
of the last century which made the modern architects
postulate Licht, Luft und Sonne (Light, Air and Sun).
Together with new construction technologies, this led
to an absolutely new conception of architectural
space and the relation of architecture and nature in
the Western world. Space came out of the
‘architectural box’ and became a continuum—a flow
between nature and the artificial environment. In this
century, glass became the most important material in
Technological understanding of the forces of nature
the exploration of this continuum. It was discovered
that building mass had nothing to do with space and
Mies van der Rohe proved with his ‘more with less’
approach that actually the less material an architect
is using the more space he can get. The modern
minimisation of material leads directly into micro
architecture.
The growing importance of computer-generated
virtual reality (=non-material based reality) is just
showing the way into the new millennium, where
physical and non-physical spaces (like our ‘inne
space) start to become a continuum as well. We live in
a time of falling boundaries, where the future
architectural, social and psychological definition of
space has yet to be explored.
Micro Architecture Unit, Munich
When Richard Horden became a professor in the
Faculty of Architecture in Munich in October 1996, we
based the first semester’s teaching on experiences
we had in the architect’s London office. One of them
was the Micro Architecture Unit, Philadelphia, where
‘Flying Water’, the prototype of the ‘Skihaus’, evolved.
Another was the Micro Architecture Unit, Vienna,
where various projects like a ‘FishHaus’ and a
‘KiteHaus’ were developed. These teaching sessions
were notable for an incredible enthusiasm by all
participants. We tried to encourage students to
approach architecture in a more direct and refreshing
way than the way they were used to. With the often Richard Horden and students: Technical University, Munich
91
Andreas Vogler
sport- and leisure-related micro architecture projects
we try to communicate to students that architecture is
something they can have fun with. Other people
should look at their projects with a smile on their face.
This experience will have an invaluable impact on
their future large-scale projects. In micro architecture
units as well as in our other classes we try to lead
students through the following steps in the design
sequence.
Referencing
We begin the teaching in Munich by placing the
students in full control of their project from the
beginning. We give them some references and
explain the concept of micro architecture. They first
produce little booklets with references and images to
accompany them through the stages of design yet to
come. These booklets start to build a little library of ‘yet
to be explored’ architectural design approaches and
are the first step in communicating and marketing their
new ideas. They encourage an understanding of the
sequence of architectural design.
References are collected from marine, car, aerospace
industries as well as buildings from the developing
world and from nature—all rather unusual references
for architectural education, which are forcing the
student (as well as the teachers!) into the position of
thinking hard about the core of ‘architecture’ and how
reduced the pure building mass can be without losing
content. It also shows how architectural a seemingly
technical detail (like a splint) can become. Also it
shows how free and wide the source of human
inspiration is. It is the designer’s task to challenge his
imagination day by day! Since we educate upper
semester students, who have already passed through
at least two years of architectural training (and thus
have a wide knowledge of important architectural
images and mental inertia) opening the ‘architectural
thinking space’ beyond its classical boundaries is a
Eibsee: site near Munich revelation for most of them. This allows them to think
92
no less critically but more freely and also in a more
analytical way. Students discover the design grammar
of a spider, a tripod or a mountain-bike, using these to
develop a new architectural language.
The site
Simultaneously we ask students to find a site which
they would like to enjoy. The programme we give the
students is more than asking for a portable device for
two people to sleep in. In fact they have to develop
their programme, function and last but not least the
basis for an economical realisation of the project on
the site. This sounds paradoxical at first, since
portable architecture seems to be site independent,
but the moment you put an object into nature you
change it—you create, destroy or enhance a place.
The dialogue between object and nature is a most
crucial one and most probably the key to what we call
architecture.
Thus, it is the site which turns portable objects into a
piece of architecture. It is being potentially in motion—
in a temporal and spatial dialogue with the landscape.
Portable architecture is not redefining the landscape,
but it is starting a dialogue, it is ‘touching’ the earth, it is
exploring the site. This is forcing the students to be
really sensitive about where to put what and what to
put where, whereas with permanent buildings it is a
one-way relation: you change the ‘where’ with the
‘what’.
Design concept
In micro architecture all the ingredients of architecture
are very crisp, clear and interdependent: structure,
construction, skin, energy-circulation, inside-out,
surface and colour. Each tiny little element has
potentially the same importance for the whole design.
The concept has to be precise to become a sound basis
for decisions. It is for the students to realise that small is
beautiful, simplicity is better than complexity and how

important an understanding of scale is. It is also to
realise that in our highly complex modern life, to spend
a night in a beautiful place and enjoy a great view might
be enough to create an excellent piece of architecture!
Detailing
Since the developed construction details often refer
to other than the building industries, the student cannot
confuse building solutions with architecture. He/she
comes much closer to the origins of architectural
construction, where function and concept become so
reduced that they only fit into one form and cannot
disguise each other. The students learn, while making
models out of appropriate materials (often aluminium),
how the details work, whilst they are still developing
the design. Call the aluminium ‘hang-glider joinery’
technical or rationalistic—whatever; but there is not
much space (and weight!) left for form being something
else than function! It is this and the site (the sky in the
case of the hang-glider) that creates its beauty.
Marketing
As students have to find their own site and develop
the program they become a ‘virtual developer’. Selling
an idea is probably one of the most important skills for
an architect today.The less obvious an idea the harder
a student has to think about what the qualities are and
the better he has to present them. Precise visual
presentation, models and computer rendering are
very important to present an idea. This is usually the
point where it stops at the university. We try to push the
students further into the design and building process
and to get potential sponsors to build a prototype. In
Munich we try to set up a fund, which allows students
to test their ideas in prototypes, exploring the most
crucial phase of every design, which is where things
come together! Up to now we have had three cases
where students presented their projects and received
immediate sponsorship and support because of the
freshness of their ideas.
Transportable Environments: Design
Construction
The most exciting moment for every designer is when
the project comes to be assembled, when a drawing
becomes physical reality. When a tube diameter is not
a question of a circle template but of what your hand is
gripping. This ‘grasping’ of material—both physically
and mentally’ —is a very crucial experience for an
architect and cannot be excluded from any sound
education. Every good craftsman has this sensual
experience of how things work and it should also be
trained into the architect. At most universities this will
need a more design-orientated environment where
a building workshop is as important as a lecture hall
and a design studio!
Students build 1:1 mock-ups out of timber or cardboard
to test the dimensions of their design in comparison
to their own eye-level. Immediately the discussion
turns from an intellectually based design discussion Conceptual sketch
to a discussion where the body and its senses react to
touch, movement and observation. Differences in what
‘feeling comfortable’ means to each individual
become obvious and have to find a common ground.
This is the closest we get to realising that all
measurements in architecture relate directly to the
human body. After these mock-up studies students
start construction. They learn about the properties of
materials, their actual weight and the joints.
On-site installation
The on-site installation is the big event at the end of
the process, where not only the architecture is tested
but also its impact onto the site in a scale of 1:1. The
structure has to be adaptive because the site
conditions are never controllable. All site preparations
have to be organised and undertaken by the students,
including the maintainance of security. They also
organise the distribution of invitations and the press
events. It is predicted that the unit will have three
student projects built by August 1997, which will be Rendered computer model of the Beach Point Project
93
Andreas Vogler

very important for the continuation of this programme
and support efforts to raise further support and
sponsorship.
Conclusion
After a lot of hard work and fun, or as we call it ‘hard
fun’, students find themselves having experienced
the whole process of design and not being cut off
before it really starts, which is giving them a more
experience-based education. This is only possible
through the small scale that micro architecture
allows. The less material you use the lower the cost.
To understand the sequence and the process of
design, students don’t have to build a skyscraper. The
smallest piece of architecture can create that deep
understanding. I believe that the real pleasures of
an architect are in making and creating things and it
is our desire to make our students take ‘their
pleasures seriously!’

Timber frame mock-up of the Beach Point Project
1 Charles Eames’ response to the question of the importance
of the creation of works reserved solely for pleasure in the
1972 film, Design Q&A, was ‘Who would say that pleasure is
not useful’.
2 The Club of Rome, founded in Rome in 1968, is a group of
scienlists, economists, businessmen, high-level civil
servants, heads of state from all five continents whose
position is that the future of humankind is not predetermined,
and that each human being can contribute to the
improvement of our societies.

94
The Principle and the Commercial Reality of
Portable Architecture: A Manufacturer’s View
Nicholas Whitehouse
Terrapin International Limited
Surges in interest in prefabricated or portable
architecture have usually been as the result of political
or commercial pressure to meet specific urgent needs.
Over the years there has grown up a significant industry
to service this sector. Many of the organisations
involved have invested heavily in plant and machinery
and are producing competent products particularly
relevant to the current needs of society and the
demands of critical clients.
Immediately after the last war considerable political
and social pressure to provide housing resulted in the
mass production of prefabricated houses. It was also
the time of the origin of the company I work for, Terrapin,
whose first product was a mobile prefabricated house.
Following close on the heels of the housing crisis,
major infrastructure works were undertaken
throughout the country which, in turn, demanded
attendant labour camps from which the current
‘mobile’ was developed. These events were repeated
in the 1970s when major construction camps were
required by the oil industry when the North Sea oil
fields were developed. With few indigenous resources
mobility was again a key factor and the
accommodation was delivered by barge.
As a direct result of increasing social stability after the
war, the birth rate increased, resulting in pressure on
the education system in the form of an increase in
children of similar age coming through the system.This
bulge of pupil population was met in part by a
streamlining of the traditional approach to
construction and part by local government
organisations sharing resources and establishing
system building consortia. A further contribution to
solving the problem was made by the provision of
transportable temporary accommodation,
particularly where the problem was perceived to be
transient. Many of the current manufacturers of
transportable accommodation have their origins as
suppliers to this market. There have been parallel
developments in other niche markets such as the
mobile home industry where, again, the products have
become more competent and, on many occasions,
have met an urgent need to meet a social demand Prospex prototype
such as providing accommodation for the homeless
or protected accommodation for women under threat
and their families.
Today the pattern of demand has changed.
Increasingly clients working in the commercial,
industrial, education and healthcare sectors are
demanding flexibility. This flexibility is required to
accommodate predicted rapid change in the users’
requirements during the period of occupation. The
form of flexibility needed may range from re-
organising the interior through to extending or
reducing a complete structure. Ultimately the complete
physical mobility of a structure gives total flexibility.
Similarly, the demand for the rapid delivery of a
building is becoming commonplace as clients wish
to have immediate use and an early return on the
capital invested with the advantage of appropriate
facilities before they become superseded by change.
The traditional construction industry, in response to
this demand, has increasingly borrowed from the
philosophy of the system manufacturers, particularly
95
Nicholas Whitehouse

The Terrapin expanding house, 1948

96

in terms of speed, flexibility and off-site fabrication. In
a diametrically opposite trend, many of the system
manufacturers have tended to pander to clients’
comfort with traditional materials. Factory-fabricated
products are given an ‘acceptable’ veneer of bricks
and tiles. What used to be two extremes in the industry
have come closer together. It is when mobility is added
to the equation that life becomes more interesting.
Generally wet trades and, in particular, masonry and
concrete become a less attractive design medium
when mobility is required. Frequently the end result of
producing a truly portable building is a more honest
expression of its built form and function.
Sadly, in history mobility has been associated with
temporary and temporary with cheap. Frequently the
more exciting portable architecture has resulted from
providing a ‘one off’ bespoke structure to a specific brief
rather than satisfying a generic building type. However,
there are exceptions which I will return to. Our built
environment would be a more exciting place if the true
value and benefit of mobility had been realised in
architecture of high quality, high performance,
embodying transience without redundancy.
A categorisation of the various methods used to create
portable architecture can be as follows: post and
beam; elemental (slab or unitary); pod (volumetric box).
Richard Bender in his book A Crack in the Rear View
Mirror adds ‘small box’ and ‘total system’ as variants
of the volumetric box.1
As previously described, the manufacturer of
transportable accommodation is generally either
involved with a bespoke requirement to meet a
specific need or the production of a repetitive product.
The bespoke requirement implies a carefully crafted,
high added value product. For a repetitive product the
manufacturer is looking for continuity in an
established volume market. With available volume
and continuity the opportunity can lead to a justified
investment in plant and machinery supported by
Transportable Environments: Design
appropriate design and operator skills. It is only with
volume and added value that investment in factory
production can be economically justified. It should be
remembered that in the construction industry it is usual
for the constructor to use the client’s site and overheads
to provide a work place to assemble the end product.
So, the factory-produced pre-engineered product is
potentially at a commercial disadvantage. In addition,
the portable structure will have a degree of
redundancy built in to be robust enough to be handled
during transportation and to have a universal
application on a variety of locations, for instance, to
cope with wind loads throughout the country whatever
the exposure conditions.
So what are the product and process advantages? As
with all product development an in-depth market
analysis should ensure competence to meet the market
needs.There can be appropriate resources invested into
the design and manufacture since the recovery of costs
can be spread over a relatively long repetitive production
sequence. Investment in jigs, tools and processes can Trusthouse Forte Travelodge, modular unit installation
ensure predictable quality and performance and the end
product can be thoroughly tested prior to being placed
on the market. Products of this nature can in turn be
supported by national type approvals such as LANTAC
(Local Authority National Type Approval Certification)
and Agrément for a quality assured product to a
predetermined specification. Out of the factory gate
should come a predictable product of known
performance and known cost delivered on time and
suitable for the appropriate market. This predictability
can be extremely attractive to clients and specifiers who
have suffered from the vacillations and conflict
experienced with some traditional procurement routes.
In the factory the effective management of labour, stock
and the supply chain should be able to minimise waste,
optimise buying and maximise efficiency. For maximum
commercial benefit, a stable product of constant demand
is the ideal so that production resources can be balanced.
Trusthouse Forte Travelodge, Alcester
97
Nicholas Whitehouse
With a pre-finished repetitive product further benefits
can be realised at the point of delivery as site handling
is with tried and tested techniques. Well established
safe working methods and a trained workforce familiar
with the tasks involved make for a safer site. The
exposure to risk for site operatives should be minimal.
However, the restrictions on economic transportation
can be a design limitation.
The construction industry is generally poor at innovating
British Telecom, Reading and the development of new products, services and
processes is generally slow. Most of the research and
development is carried out by manufacturers of
individual elements, such as windows, claddings, linings
and roofing materials, with the object of defending market
share. Almost by definition client and user involvement
in such research and development is remote. The
advantage that portable building manufacturers have
is that feedback and user involvement are immediate.
Thus there is an incentive for the portable building
manufacture to develop materials and processes in an
holistic way. There are many examples of technology
transfer from more advanced industries such as motor
vehicle manufacture.
The implementation of innovative design can be an
expensive process and a degree of commercial
protection can be gained by design registration or the
grant of a patent. This in turn can lead to further
commercial opportunity through the sale of
components or the issue of licences to other producers.
Two examples of technology transfer which Terrapin
adapted to construction in the late 1970s were cold
formed steel chassis members for HGVs and the
structural foam cored panel derived from refrigerated
vehicles. At the time there were only two manufacturers
with the quality of production and appropriate panel
technology, one in the north of England and one in the
north of France.The automated manufacture of a high-
quality product from France served us well for a few
years until a reduction in the refrigerated vehicle market
and the failure of the company.
98
Successful innovation within an organisation is a
valuable asset. With careful protection, innovation can
be shared with others to mutual benefit. Terrapin has
licensed its products for many years to many countries.
One of the most successful has been in Japan with
Nippon Terrapin with whom we have worked for more
than 30 years. We should not be intimidated by the
Japanese approach to construction. As with many
other industries they bring a production efficiency and
investment commitment to the enterprise which we
can rarely dream of here in the UK working to the
constraints of our industry. This commitment by
Japanese constructors and fabricators is supported
by a substantial market which readily accepts
prefabrication. The Japanese have their inefficiencies
and areas of high cost; increasingly, however, they are
drawing on the best techniques developed in the West
and converting them to the needs of their industry.
Portable architecture has the potential to be reuseable
and, as such, conserve materials. In normal
circumstances redundant buildings, when
demolished, create considerable waste. A good
example of portable building re-use was the labour
camps for North Sea oil exploration which, after five
years of use, were taken out of the remote sites by
barge and used as accommodation for a university in
Africa.The sites in the Shetlands were returned to their
original wild condition.
Some of our hire contracts include buildings which
have had many previous lives. This must surely
approach the ultimate re-useable building with strong
green implications. This, again, comes back to my
previous comment of transience without redundancy.
The portability and the ability to hire complete
buildings means that clients do not have to find the
full capital value of a building and they keep their
options open for change. I believe that we will see a
greater variety of this type of accommodation in the
future as modern business increasingly requires
greater flexibility.

The limitations of form directly relate to the amount
of freedom the construction method provides.
Following the same sequence as the categorisation
cited earlier, the post and beam option can embrace
considerable flexibility; the elemental less so and
tends to be reflected in the modular plan form and,
finally, the pod tends to give a rigid and finite
discipline. However, in the Japanese housing market
manufacturers such as Sekisui generate
considerable variety out of the small pod whilst
achieving more than 40,000 houses per year. Of
course there are hybrids of these categories. For
instance, pneumatics which eventually become a
large volumetric in form and tensile structures
generally use a post and beam form to support the
envelope in a finite repetitive discipline.
The future suggests that traditional construction
must embrace more off-site fabrication and include
1 Richard Bender, A Crack in the Rear View Mirror, Van Nostrad
Reinhold, New York, 1973.
Transportable Environments: Design
portable building implants. Similarly portable
buildings must adapt and improve on the
performance of traditional buildings and meet the
critical requirements of a reactionary client base.
This breakthrough will only be significant as
portable architecture when the products are
perceived to be of high quality and of attractive
design. I believe that the industry is on the edge of
achieving these objectives. Long-life, low-
maintenance materials feature so that the lifespan
and the ability to re-use and reconfigure buildings
over many years is already commonplace. For
instance, the use of recoverable high-quality
rainscreen cladding enables effective replication
of the current facade features of the modern
commercial building.
The immediate future is exciting and full of promise,
particularly if the continuity of market can be provided.
99
 Pagoda modular tensile membrane system, Madrid

100
The Service, Form and Function of Relocatable
Structures: A Constructor’s View
Nigel Brown and Adrian Billingsley
Pagoda/Nomad Group
The evolution of modern man saw the arrival of a
unique animal on the planet. He was naked and
vulnerable to the environment; he could not outrun
the animals preying upon him and he needed social
groups in which to survive. Despite these problems,
he possessed distinct advantages that set him apart
from his competitors. He had a complex brain and
consciousness from which innovation and ideas could
be formed. Moreover he had manipulative
pentadactyle limbs with which he could realise these
innovations. Mankind has therefore from his earliest
origins been able to make shelter to protect himself
from the weather and predators whilst at the same time
creating social spaces where secondary functions are
carried out.
For the majority of prehistory it is probable that
responsibility for the built environment—however
crude—was with everyone using locally procured
materials to combat local environmental pressures
and constraints. Man was forced down two routes of
development: to build in spite of his environment or to
build in conjunction with his environment. If we are
able to measure success in terms of affluence and
population expansion then the former (perhaps
parasitic) approach could be seen as the clear leader.
However, if we are to acknowledge that success can
be measured in terms of longevity of a culture, race or
traditional movement then the latter, more symbiotic
approach prevails.
Of these cultures the nomadic and semi-nomadic are
of interest to the student of relocatable architecture.
That is to say those which have arrived at a sustainable
status whereby any further social developments
would be inappropriate and counter-intuitive.
An example of such a culture is the Ma’dan or
Marshmen of Southern Iraq who despite the conflicts
in that country continue a building technique dating
back some 6,000 years. The technique involves the
use of the giant Fragmites Comunis reed that grows
to a height of 20 feet (6 metres) along the Lower Tigris
and Euphrates. It is bound into bundles and stuck into
the ground in opposing rows. A man then climbs onto
a reed tripod and, as others pull the tops down, he binds
them together. With the arches placed thus, lateral
bracing is fixed and then mats are tied into place.
An optimum structure is hence created, utilising local
skills, local material and suited to local environment
conditions. It is easily relocatable and requires
minimum energy input. Moreover, although the
technique provides an efficient functional structure,
its appearance is still one of simple elegance.
Wilfred Thesiger wrote, ‘Sitting in the Euphrates
mudhifs I always had the impression of being in a
Romanesque or Gothic cathedral, an illusion
enhanced by the ribbed roof and traceried windows
at either end through which bright shafts of light came
to penetrate the gloom of the interior. Both on the
Euphrates and the Tigris the mudhifs represented an
extraordinary architectural achievement with the
simplest possible materials. The effect of the reed
patterns came entirely from the functional methods of
construction.’
101
Nigel Brown and Adrian Billingsley
United Arab Emirates exhibition stand
102
Within these cultures the people and their needs
dictated design development. Before the advent of
what we recognise today as the specialist discipline
of architecture, drawing its influences from art, ego
and the exchange of ideas, we were all in our way
designers, architects, engineers and constructors.
Architecture was then truly spontaneous until these
optima in form and function were achieved.
From these cultural beginnings disparate movements
in architecture and associated building techniques
emerged. The exchange of ideas and innovation was
driven by social change, inter-regional trade, empire
building and religion. Whilst some cultures (as
exemplified above) remained in their static
equilibrium, the majority of the world began to develop.
As societies became more complex humans found
their social functions became ever more specialised.
Within the built environment specialists had to emerge
who could plan, design, engineer and construct ever
larger, more robust and stylised structures. Commerce
became the new driving force to accompany those of
nationalism and religion. The link between the user
or inhabitant of the built environment deteriorated.
This was accompanied by a departure from the
relationship between structural form and function.
Buildings with facades became the norm. The habit of
building a basic structure and then covering it with
whatever motifs and cladding that satisfied the
building’s identity continues to this day. Hence a
modern neogothic Minster Court sits a mere bat’s flight
from St Paul’s with its timber crinoline dome derided
by Max Hutchinson as a ‘Gothic building in classical
drag’.
Recent years however have witnessed a shift back
towards more efficient approaches to architecture
and further shifts back towards human scale where
traditional skills are revisited in a modern context. As
such considerations as budget, ecology, fast-tracking
and accountability take precedence, there is a
renewed need to link form and function more
intrinsically. This is especially true of relocatable
architecture where disguises and facades cannot
logistically be accommodated and where all
components of structure have to be put to work to justify
their inclusion. Happily, by revising old techniques and
applying their principles in combination with new
skills and materials, essentially utilitarian structures
can be produced which appear elegant, striking and
adaptable.
Tensile, air-supported and other lightweight structures
are good examples. The increase in their inclusion in
the built environment has lead to the emergence of
specialists like Pagoda who provide a dual service to
the construction industry. On one hand this company
is a facilitator of others’ ideas, making architects’ paper
concepts work and exist within the limits of budget and
structural considerations whilst on the other hand
being problem solvers, providing a design and build
package using specialist techniques to overcome the
challenges that static structures cannot cope with such
as span, lightness, relocatability and production
turnaround.
To achieve these goals and to progress the industry
further, it has been necessary to rationalise its
techniques and components, identifying them in terms
of their function and form. This ensures that no element
of the design that is either structurally or functionally
surplus to requirements is included. A jargon has
emerged which is helpful to the veteran participants
in the industry as it does, to some extent, enable them
to communicate with one another precisely. For
example, steel workers subcontracting to a tensile
fabric contractor can not only produce work on
drawings provided to them but can offer their own
design input and improvements to a project if they
have an understanding of what is to be achieved. The
same can be said of subcontract structural engineers
and fabric manufacturers. This relationship is
characterised by any one of the field specialists

leading a contract and employing the services of
complementary specialists.
There are positive and negative effects of this
collaboration, which can be exemplified thus.
Constructors are always up against the budget.
Competition is fierce when the same tenders are
passed around the few specialist constructors in
existence (who know each other on first name terms).
Then margins are pared to the bone. This is both good
and bad news for the architect. Good in so far as he is
often getting a bargain for his budget allocation and
bad in so far as he may be compromised and forced to
scale down his requirements to suit the constructor’s
preferred means of provision, the constructor being
bent on getting value for money from each component,
again forcing the link between form and function.
Another effect is that the codes, jargon and
rationalisation of this discipline emerging from the
collaboration have meant that the various facets of
most design and build contracts can be costed
accurately. Experienced end users and specifiers of
these products and services know when they are
getting a good deal. However, to architects and clients
specifying these materials for the first time there is often
a daunting mystique attached to them that many may
find off-putting. An initial glance at a tensile structure
or geodesic dome with their absence of right angles,
their skewed curves and apparently complex rigging
is frequently enough to deter well-intentioned
developers with healthy budgets.
In the past it could be said that constructors benefited
from this mystique. It meant that the less scrupulous
could sell customers a higher specification product
than they needed. Alternatively, the true costs of the
service provided could have been hidden behind
science and jargon in an effort to increase margins. A
further benefit to the constructor is that prospective new
faces to the industry who may emerge typically from a
sailmaking, exhibition or marquee background, are
also deterred by a seemingly inaccessible science.
Transportable Environments: Design
However, in spite of the threats of competition it must
be said that now is the time for the mystique to be blown
away. There are several good reasons for this. The
exclusive identity of the discipline is deteriorating
anyway. Veterans of the industry including Horst
Berger and Frei Otto have published books which
elucidate the subject to the layman. Moreover,
although the industry, ever since the days of
Buckminster Fuller, has enjoyed immunity from official
trade standards and codes of practice other than those
which are in place for construction generally and
those controlling the integrity of component materials,
this is set to change. The American Society of Civil Daewoo car showroom utilising Pagoda structures
Engineers has already formed committees on special
and tensioned fabric structures which have published
initial guidelines and regulatory standards that are
imminent for Britain too. These will inevitably be
quantified in detail by future quantity surveyors and
main contractors.
Employees of specialists are moving on, either setting
up on their own or helping established companies in
related fields to join the fray. This is especially true of
structural engineers and architects and increasingly
true of constructors. If there is to be sufficient work to
go around then it is up to us to make the medium as
accessible as possible. More than problem solving
for clients or facilitating the visions of architects we
must educate wavering specifiers who might like the
idea of a light structure but are daunted by the
specialist language they must learn.
A more detailed examination of past and existing
relocatable structures is helpful in the exercise of myth
exploding. Again, if relationship of form, function and
service are used as terms of reference in this rationale
then the logic behind the design becomes apparent.
An example is the NatWest Training Centre designed
by Atelier One. This structure was designed to provide
the service of an auditorium and offices for training
delegates. It had to be relocatable without the need
for foundations; it had to be transportable, fitting on
103
Nigel Brown and Adrian Billingsley
three 13.5 metre trailers; its span— some 30 metres by
25 metres—had to relate to its transportability; it had to
be easily erected (six men with a 15 tonne mobile crane
can complete the job in eight days); and finally it had to
be visually attractive. Given these stipulations the
design is almost self generating, utilising off-the-shelf
steel sections.
The longest component that can be carried on an
unescorted trailer is 15 metres. One 15 metre section
represented half the span of the structure and made
up one arm of a cruciform truss. The depth of this truss
was dictated by the bending moment it was under. The
roof had to be lightweight and at a pitch sufficient to
counter wind and snow loading.This lightness dictated
that the roof material was fabric. The pitch of the roof
dictated the height of the masts required from which to
pull the fabric into tension. The forces imposed on the
fabric dictated the fabric type, the specification of the
rigging and the section size of the steel masts.
The forces imposed by the roof components dictated
that there was a series of ring beams at eaves and floor
level connected by columns and floor grids. The upper
outer ring beam also had to act as a gutter (which
dictated that it should be a ‘toe up’ channel section) and
as an anchor point for the outer membrane. This ring
beam also acted as housing for glazing and cladding.
The inner ring beams had additional duties of ceiling
and wall retainers.
It can be seen from this example that once the service
that a relocatable structure must provide is established,
the duties required of individual components are then
demanded. This in turn dictates the minimum form
which the components must take. Add into the equation
safety factors, the availability of off-the-shelf
components, storage and transportability then the
choice of component becomes academic.
104
As for the form of the fabric, once the limits in three-
dimensional space have been established, then only
one form—the optimum form—can be found. It can be
argued that as soon as the industry’s parameters have
been identified and its methods rationalised in this
way it is time for it to progress a step further.To this end
it is important to welcome new ideas, methods and
materials. Not only would this approach challenge
accusations of familiarity and nepotism but would
widen the scope of the application of the discipline.
Advances in glass reinforced composites are making
rigid structural beams ever lighter and immune to the
effects of weather. Relocatable GRP storage and utility
buildings are already in use in the USA but the medium
has yet to influence fabric structures. Moreover,
ecological considerations are making increased
demands on the industry.The relocatable units planned
for the Olympics at Sydney 2000 must be devoid of
PVC, the mainstay of our industry for the past thirty years.
As mentioned previously, it is probable that old skills
will have to be relearned within a modern context.
Examples of this approach include Edward Cullinan’s
relocatable hyperboloid structure made from cloven
wood thinnings at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
As constructors, then, we are faced with a choice of
merely reacting to what is at present buoyant demand
for our services generated by millennium funding,
lottery cash and imminent international sports festivals
and expos or taking a more proactive approach. In
doing so we should acknowledge that after the
millennium a mood of chronic festival fatigue is likely to
prevail. Adaptations and new applications of existing
products and technology must be accompanied by
innovation in design and materials to widen demand.
As materials become stronger and lighter the
relationship between service, form and function in
relocatable architecture is set to become even closer.
Softdwelling: A Programme for Living and Working
David Clews and Rex Henry
University of North London
Settlement
In the Bedouin tent (and in its collective form the
settlement) one sees a structure whose form and
materiality has evolved over centuries, adapting to
harsh environments, ultimately representing the
society that created it. One might make a similar
reading of the modern Western back-packing tent.
New technologies allow it to be manufactured from
ultra-lightweight kevlar skins with carbon fibre bones
but it too will respond closely to its environment in a
settlement. Where the relaxed development is
replaced by masterplanning, the structures
themselves might remain nomadic and one might
continue to see them as representations of a political
environment but their response to climate and a
programme of social space becomes increasingly
attenuated. This is seen not only in military and
institutional projects: the optimisation of services, road
layouts and communication, over-standardisation in
rigid systems and zoning regulation have provoked
a detaching of the settlement structured around social
occupation in favour of an apparent economic and
functional efficiency.
Housework
In 1995 we introduced a programme within the
postgraduate school at the School of Architecture and
Interior Design at the University of North London called
‘houseworks’. In the broadest sense our interests were
in the re-introduction of housing design, procurement
and construction into the mainstream discourse of
architectural education. This was driven by an
acknowledgement of the tendency of schools of
architecture, particularly in London, to be working in
highly speculative and theoretical areas of architectural
discourse in which the dramatic was often privileged
over the immediate issues of society and culture where
the built environment could make a fundamental
difference to our lives. We were interested in developing
a programme that was rooted in real world issues, a
house that would respond in some significant way to
the post-industrial social and topographic landscape
and a settlement that would have a clear spatial, formal
and political connection to this landscape.
Wastelands
The idea of wastelands was central to these concerns.
Disused, leftover or abandoned sites would be re-
occupied with new events or their existing occupations
intensified and diversified. The core of these new
events and occupations would be low-cost, high-
quality contemporary houses. We considered the
notion of terrain vague, where the landscape reveals
itself in the city and underlies the positive potential for
this openness.1 The house as a basic building block
for urban structures would give expression to this
potential and be seen as an extension of this
landscape: this is about the nature of the house as an
interior landscape.
Terrain vague
Ignasi Sola-Morales, in tracing a brief history of the
photography of urban space, describes a
contemporary preoccupation with empty abandoned Terrain Vague, Barcelona
105
David Clews and Rex Henry
spaces, internal to the city yet external to its everyday
use. These spaces in which a series of occurrences
have taken place, and still bearing the traces of those
occupations, have a sense of lack of colonisation by
authority and a lack of limits, order and form, and have
a fascination for the urban dweller.
Terrain vague has preoccupied not only the urban
photographer but the politician, planner and architect.
In the UK one only has to look at the Cardiff Docks, London
Docklands or Stockley Park, or most large (that is urban
scale) projects to see how the conditions of terrain vague
will not be preserved by the intervention of the obvious,
the conventional, the monumental and the monolithic.
In fact terrain vague resists all efforts to be read through
the conventional language of urban forms.
Urban beaches 1
Florian Beigel has described an architecture of
landspace where one navigates and occupies the
urban landscape as one might the natural landscape.2
One might look at the moments where this occupation
becomes intensified, at the points, lines and planes
representing shifts in materiality and topography. Just
as skateboarders take over the space (of the city)
conceptually as well as physically…their most
intensive activity happens precisely at the edges,
abutments and interruptions to the ground plane, kerbs
and walls, planting boxes and bollards. Benches and
railings become the sites for jumps, twists and slides,
to quote from Ian Borden’s essay in Strangely Familiar;
‘Beneath the Pavement, the Beach’: ‘skaters pursue
an overtly political space, a pleasure ground carved
out of the city as a kind of continuous affirmation of the
notion that beneath the pavement lies the beach.’3
Urban beaches 2
In Barcelona an artificial beach makes a new edge to
the Mediterranean—in common with many others it
Urban beaches, Barcelona is a vast civil engineering project. In distinction from
106
others it not only protects or moderates the existing
but creates a new beach-like territory where none
existed before. The material is graded and landform
made to provide for swimming and sunbathing;
territories are marked out for the playing of games,
commerce and settlement; routes and paths are
marked by changes in material and form; services are
laid beneath ground to supply water and electricity.
The beach is patrolled, there are rules for its use and
its, albeit temporary, citizens observe highly evolved
forms of social behaviour. This is softsettlement. Its
closest (poor relation) is the shanty town: a settlement
with a relaxed programme that responds in form and
event to the immediate topographic, economic and
technological conditions.
On the beach the artificial simulates the natural
condition of instability that is a character of the natural
coastline. It is, perhaps in seeing the beach as a site of
settlement, predominantly through its conditioning of
events rather than through its stabilisation as the site
of ordered architectural intervention that it qualifies
as terrain vague. This view prompted us to use the
beach as an analogue for the wider urban situation.
Since it exists in a marginal state in between dry land
and the sea, it is not only sensitive to changes in the
physical but also the cultural environment. This
became the site of the first interventions—to establish
a soft settlement on the beach, determined not by
institutional or formal programmes but by building a
social space informed by a navigation of social space,
where the record of that navigation is a layering of the
events on the terrain.
Softsettlements
The use of photography at night (using long
exposures; minutes rather than fractions of seconds)
revealed the shape of the terrain, made temporary
limits in it and did this, not through the intervention of
a delimiting architecture but by registering the traces
of occupation and events over time. In Barcelona the

interventions were made in small groups and helped
establish methodologies that were used at a larger
scale in Dungeness. The most potent recognised the
power of these places was in their bigness, simple
repetitive forms that responded to climate and
topography, materiality and occupation. The absence
of the most obvious indicator of occupation, people,
meant the photographic record retained the quality
of the site as a terrain vague and yet the small-scale
deviations from the repetitive pattern revealed
uniquely social spaces. These first settlements were
simple abstract marks in space moderated by shifts
in landform, objects and events on the beach, the
random variations in the brightness of the lamps and
by the physiognomy of the person holding them
Measurement
It had become clear that in order to propose the
intervention of softdwelling and softsettlement onto
any site (an intervention that was to respond and
intensify these conditions) then the site was to be
subject to close scrutiny of its physical and, when we
moved to examine urban sites, social and economic
conditions.
To establish methodologies for this activity the site on
Dungeness beach was used as a paradigm or control.
The shape of the ground over an area of 200,000
square metres was measured and mapped in detail
using electronic distance measuring (EDM), which
recorded the elevation and relative position of some
400 points with tolerances of a few millimetres.
Smaller-scale photogrammetry surveys revealed
small-scale variations in materiality. Before this
information was transcribed it was clear that the beach
was under construction, that the ecology was subtly
influenced by small variations in slope, materiality and
human traffic. In the studio, computer and physical
models were made of this site and the natural
processes that are continuously building the beach
and its ecology were examined. It was this data that
Transportable Environments: Design
determined the form of interventions at an
infrastructural and settlement scale.4
These methodologies, that were re-used on the
London site and re-invented for the site in Parel,
Bombay, enabled us to produce detailed critical
documentaries that began to determine the social,
formal and infrastructural programmes as adaptations
of the early softsettlements. It is important to us that
the methodologies for examining sites are
transferable; we think of the sites as prototypical,
provoking adaptation of a programme in relation to
local social and environmental, economic and
political programmes, generating specific
adaptations at a material, constructional and spatial
level.
Repetition and variation
At both constructional and urban scales the patterns Light drawing: Barcelona and Dungeness (with Tim Holmes)
of settlement were thought of as repetitive and
iterative, capable of standardisation but relaxed
enough to allow for the variations to develop which
would accommodate a range of occupational,
environmental and cultural programmes. Iteration is
a way of considering spaces and events at a local
scale, having equivalents at urban scales, or where
the spatial form of the settlement is seen as a variation
on the form of the house. Adaptation is the potential
for the dwelling, or in its multiple form the settlement,
to respond in form to changing events. These events
may respond to shifts in intensity of occupation, where
intensity is not privileged over diffuse occupations, or
to shifts in topography which allow spatial form to
adapt to existing landforms and micro-climates.
Work, rest and play
Fundamental to urban structures are the relationships
between working and living. Perhaps for the first time
since the industrial revolution we have the opportunity
to break down the monoculture of the city. Its tendency Dungeness beach settlement, Glenn Longden-Thurgood
107
David Clews and Rex Henry
for zoning and specialisation is challenged by the
collapse of centralised heavy industry, the rapid
development of communications and information
technologies and the need to facilitate more relaxed
working and employment practices. We are interested
in how these new relationships might apply to a new
house type, or to an older one where the house was
the centre for both living and working activities.
In the developed world these activities of living and
working remain separated by distance and time and
their spatial relationships are attenuated. Changing
work patterns and technologies may promote new
live/work environments and when focused on the
house these will have new spatial and organisational
implications. Working and living at close proximity
will require new house forms, a structure that
responds to the return of production to the house; this
was to become a key component of the idea of
softdwelling.
Softdwelling
Many of the issues of working at urban scales had
been resolved (we had after all been looking at large
sites and making large-scale interventions), but how
would the research at this scale be applied to a single
dwelling? How would we make a house, a
constructional programme that could respond to a
range of event programmes and retain its capacity for
repetition and could this programme be adaptive over
time and distance?
Our response to these issues was the softdwelling,
which was to be both an altering and transforming
structure, and to have the potential to be relocated on
new sites, either physically or programmatically. The
site may change over time and location and the house
as an adaptive structure would be capable of
responding to specific programmes of use and interact
at a significant level with the nature of the site.
108
Flexibility and adaptability
We make a distinction between flexibility and
adaptibility.The former tends towards a static condition
that attempts to fulfil the widest range of criteria.These
appear to fall into three categories: first, the hitech
caravan, Archigram, Future Systems; second,
complex sheds such as the Sainsbury Centre and
Patera buildings; third, where only the aesthetic of
flexibility remains, for example, the Lloyds building.
The Future Systems project, une petite maison, may
be an ironic take on Corb’s earlier project, but it does
highlight a fundamental shift in design. Whereas the
latter is described as being organised around its
occupation and its relationship to its site and to
landscape, the former is seen as performing outside
of this relationship. It is a vehicle designed to cope
rather than respond to terrain and its occupants would
have only the most abstract relationship to their
environment. It may be flexible in its ability to site itself
anywhere but it would in no way be adaptive. Adaptive
architecture tends towards simple, repetitive
constructional programmes, which should be
relatively low cost, investment being a brake to
change, and will have relaxed programmes. Cedric
Price’s Interaction Centre or Potteries Thinkbelt
project were useful precedents. A proposal for the
King’s Cross site uses a structural system not unlike
warehouse staging to provide a platform for rooms
that are assembled using materials and technologies
similar to those used for manufacturing lorry trailers,
that will provide simple enclosures or highly
moderated environments. Like the Unité structure it
is thought of as being like a wine rack that can hold
bottles of varying shapes and sizes with a variety of
contents. The staging system will follow the line of the
ground, responding to topography and materiality.
The rubble and soil that has accumulated on the site
will be shifted to make new sites and landforms that
respond to and intensify social spaces. The pattern of
this new settlement will be organised around existing

events, the service roads, railway lines, disused
platforms and crane sites providing hard ground for
larger-scale events.
Innovation
The construction industry in the UK has been unable
or unwilling to confront the issue of innovation. Typified
by a deeply conservative attitude to technology and
wedded to outmoded stylistic concerns, it continues to
use 18th-century techniques, site-based craft
processes and labour-intensive constructional
methods, that are ill-suited either to exploit
contemporary technologies and economics or to
confront the regeneration issues facing many cities and
towns.5 One might, however make two observations in
relation to this: there is a need to provide at a minimum
some 4.4 million new dwellings in the UK by 2016 to
cope with the national growth in the number of
households and the replacement of the housing stock
that is substandard.6 It is clear that the existing funding
and procurement methods will not provide housing
developers with the incentive to meet even a fraction of
this number.There is an assumption within the industry
that innovation will cause construction costs to rise, but
in the Netherlands, innovation in procurement and
funding processes and in construction have resulted
in volume house construction at significantly lower
costs and higher output than in the UK even though the
average salaries of construction workers are 30%
higher.7 Secondly there is the largely undeveloped self-
build market which could, in more ideal conditions,
provide a significant proportion of the demand.
These observations led to a re-evaluation of
construction processes which would shift the skilled
work from the site to the factory and in particular to
exploration of small-scale manufacturing that could
continue to benefit from economies of scale. We looked
at the work of Jean Prouvé, who suggested folded metal
structural components could be made in small-scale
workshops and erected speedily on sites by small
Transportable Environments: Design
numbers of people to high tolerances. We also
examined the use of materials in new contexts:
geotextiles as rainscreens; composite structures;
timber and light steel flitch beams and stanchions and
stressed skins panels.
Sustainability
King’s Cross softdwelling;
Glenn Longden-Thurgood and Steve Mugford
In the context of adaptable programmes the structure
we made needed to be capable of supporting a range
of skins and had to be adaptable to varying cultural
and climatic conditions. We were looking at
appropriate technologies and processes that were
consistent with local technologies and economies.
This has become particularly relevant as the
programme and proposals established in 95/96 for
Dungeness and London are now being adapted for
relocation in Bombay. The use of recycled materials
as either primary or raw materials has become
important in a city that has a highly developed, albeit
low productivity, recycling industry.
Embodied energy
An assessment of the embodied energy costs (rather
than just considering the energy consumption of the
building) allowed us to see the total cost of building in
relation to local economic conditions. For the
softdwelling, embodied energy costs of building are
considered for the entire life of the structure, including
raw material processing, manufacture, assembly,
building life span and energy consumption, and might
include defrayed costs for potential recycling. This
shifts the balance back towards factory-based
construction where, for instance, steel with its low-
energy fabrication, long life span and good recycling
potential becomes a more attractive material.
Building
The prototyping of the soft dwelling allowed us to begin
testing some of the ideas at a constructional scale.The
109
David Clews and Rex Henry

Softdwelling prototype
Building the prototype, prefabricating components
test site was the borrowed space of the courtyard at
the School of Architecture at North London. We started
with much of the development work having been
explored in individual projects and by the Unit working
as a team. We now had a ten-day time limit to fabricate
and assemble the components. We decided to
simulate some of the processes that a larger-scale
production run would employ but due to time
constraints much of the detailed design was resolved
during construction. Little or no design drawing was
done for the project prior to its completion although
there was a continous process of refining
manufacture and component design through shop
drawing and making. This was designing through
building.
Self-assembly
Considerations of cost efficiencies, and of providing
social regeneration through new employment
possibilities propelled us to reconsider the option of
self-build or self-assembly. This is also integral to the
thematic of living and working and the idea that
housing, as the basic building block of the city, could
form the basis for social interaction and the
regeneration of left-over or neglected spaces within
the city. A team of ten people worked on the project
and we aimed to prefabricate as much of the structure
as possible, working in conjunction with the school
workshop. Although there was some overlap work on
site this was largely restricted to assembly, working
with standard board sizes as a main co-ordinating
dimension helping to keep the amount of cutting and
finishing to a minimum.
Recycling
The idea of the urban landscape involves re-use,
reinventing use from existing conditions, where new
interventions rub up against the remnants of the city
landscape. This tension between new and old is the
visible expression of the regenerative nature of this
intervention. We seek to raise this process of city
montage to the level of a constructive principle. The
‘housework’ prototype expresses this in a number
of ways: through the use of recycled material to
achieve cost constraints; the use of materials and
methods that typically lie outside the traditional
building industr; and in an attitude to spatial
organisation centred around the idea of overlap,
conflict and multiple use.
The key structural element was a lightweight flitch.
This was originally conceived as a pair of purpose-
made, 1.75 mm thick, unequal angles, arranged back
to back and separated by a 15 mm ply flitch. Cost
restrictions dictated the folded metal angle be
replaced by a similar gauge plate of recycled Dexion.
This configuration was consistent for beams and
stanchions. The flitch not only stiffens the structure, it
locates the stressed skin floor plates and provides a
fixing ground for screens and skins. The angle
flanges allow for panel fixing. These members are
assembled into a series of frames which can be
accumulated to make a range of footprints. The
structure is rigid enough to build up to three storeys
high with domestic loadings.
Repetition
The frame structure forms the main repetitive
element, itself made up of bent steel and plywood
flitches configured either as beams or as columns.
These are arranged in pairs to form ‘rooms’. The room
grid is then repeated to form larger spaces. Repetition
allows for cost savings and improved quality of
manufacture, but its main benefit comes from its
flexibility and extensibility and its ability to
accommodate different uses.
The separation of rainscreen roofs from intermediate
floors allows for noise and fire separation. This acts
as a plenum for services and passive ventilation.
Additional storeys would be constructed on top of

110

the roof. The structure and services would not need
to penetrate existing membranes and new storeys,
added at a later time, could be made with relatively
little disturbance to the existing structure and
occupants.
Variation
Repetitive structures afford the maximum possibility
for adaptation. Spaces can be extended or contracted
with changing use-patterns. The skin, or building
envelope, constructionally independent of the
structure, becomes adaptive to internal organisation,
external orientation, environment and context.
The envelope used in this prototype was a minimum
configuration with the emphasis given to providing
comfort, weather protection and bracing. A
combination of geotextile and triple-skin
polycarbonate gave a perforated wall and provided
an external rain screen, defracted light and ultra-violet
sun protection. Other combinations used lapped high-
density paper fibre board externally and ply panels
internally to provided stiffness to the frame. The flitch
was designed to take insulation boards but these were
not used in this project. Plywood slats were used as a
screen to an internal courtyard space which allowed
a visual connection to the School courtyard while
maintaining a degree of privacy.
Layering
The main structural element is designed not only to
take a variety of materials, but also allow a multiplicity
of layers. The skin becomes a composite structure.
Proximity of layers, one to another, is critical. Air
becomes an important layer. This layering provides
for variations in visual permeability and environmental
control. These modifiable composites give the ability
to organise sightlines and provide enclosure and
privacy. They can mediate climate, ventilation,
condensation, cooling and light. They provide rain
Transportable Environments: Design
protection and wind and humidity control. This
multilayered skin also provides lateral and
longitudinal stability to the structural frame. Montage
is again raised to a constructional principle. At a large
scale the components are designed to be
manufactured in small-scale workshops or teams
within larger factories to achieve improved
economies of scale and extend the range of possible
house types.
Component assembly is kept small and light so there
is no requirement for large-scale plant on site. Like
knock-down furniture manufacture, the components
could be flat-packed and shipped to site for assembly.
Typically, the whole structure can be assembled by
as few as three people with only the minimum of skills.
Alternatively whole units could be manufactured and
pre-assembled by factory teams and transported
ready-made, with only services to be commissioned
on site. Prototype: detail of Dexion flitch beam
Low-cost/high-quality
In a period when costing has entered the arena of
environmental concern and the words ‘low-cost’ have
become a social imperative, the idea of a modifiable
house as a re-usable resource once again comes to
the fore, not as a temporary solution but as a
sustainable method of building.
Traditional building methods have been able to
produce low-cost housing, but even the volume
builders cannot achieve much below £350/400 per
square metre and even then only at the expense of
quality. With new production techniques the factory-
produced house has an increasing credibility. Modern
factory methods and rapid prototyping, using small-
scale group organisation, make the made-to-measure
house a real possibility. Whether we could achieve a
made-to-order one needs to be investigated. This
method of organisation is the place where quality can
Prototype: repetitive frames and the stressed skin floor are
be controlled and developed. Japanese car added in sequence; the corner bracing is temporary
111
David Clews and Rex Henry
Prototype: polycarbonate wall with geotextile rainscreen
Prototype: building day seven-primary envelope complete,
prior to installing the rainscreen, skin and roof
112
production offers an insight into this development.
Ideas can be adapted from the computer industry
where modular components allow an upgradable
pathway to take on new features or to add new
functions or simply to increase the available work
space. Whether it is software or softdwelling it is this
modular structure that makes for adaptability and
multi-functionality.
Low-cost
The prototype achieved a cost of below £250 per
square metre, even using limited one-off production
procedures and adding cost for insulation and
services. The main structure sits off the ground and
allows its footprint to negotiate the typography of the
site with a degree of ease. Simple stone pads provided
the foundation and spread the load. The floor plate
functions as a composite stressed skin offering a thin
profile, here about 75mm in total. This could, we
believe, be reduced further. The floor deliberately
undulates along its length, mirroring movements in
the ground below and giving functional and spatial
distinction within the building.
Terrain vague
The softdwelling negotiates the land on which it sits. It
has feet, it moves, but does not yet walk. It emulates
the ground but contradicts its presence. It lifts itself up
to offer a new ground and folds down to kiss the ground
gently. It provides a vacant space loosely defined by
its variable skins. Indeterminate spaces are ordered
by repetition where uses are deliberately blurred. It is
the extenuated expression of terrain vague at the
scale of the house.
The original softdwelling prototype is now being
developed to resolve secondary elements: the
openings, windows and doors and vertical circulation;
exploring environmental systems; its insulation and
ventilation. The assembly process is also being
investigated further; the prototype used a bolted frame
structure and we are now looking at using clinch-
pressed cleats, a system used in the automobile
industry. A portable clinch press gun developed by
British Steel makes stiff, rather than pin joints and
would relieve the envelope of its bracing role.
Softness
The idea is both a constructive idea and an idea about
programme. Construction, which in this case includes
its architectural expression, attempts to challenge the
distinction between building as a fixity and the shifting
and vacillating demands of a changing environment.
It deliberately seeks to mutate, it has a built-in
instability, fluctuating to respond to a kaleidoscopic
city landscape. It is unstable, mutable, versatile and
extensible. palpable and extenuated. above all it is
relaxed.
Portability
We are now looking at the relocation of the
softsettlement and softdwelling projects on a site in
Bombay. The obvious and immediate differences are
climatic, but as significant are the extremely high
urban population densities and equally extreme low
standard of existing housing stock, much of it self-build
(squatted) or adapted structures. The land area of
Greater Bombay is approx 40% of the area of Greater
London and the population is almost 100% greater.
The average population density is 6.6 square metres/
person compared to 172 for London. As about 15% of
the land area of Bombay is given over to maidans,
private parks and government and military use this
figure is misleading. In common with London there
are high and low densities. In the Lower Parel district
one encounters some of the highest density housing
in Bombay; in one area of approximately 75,000
square metres, we estimated a population of about
25,000: approximately 3 square metres/person. The
majority of these will be living in self-build housing.

Some of these structures are very crude, being little
more than lean-tos, often constructed against existing,
more permanent structures. However, many are
relatively sophisticated in terms of construction, and
in terms of the spaces creted in both individual
buildings and social areas. In this same area there
are large swathes of land occupied by predominantly
redundant industrial buildings and although some
large-scale industry continues to survive, and there
are new industries developing on the site, the
predominant commercial activity is small scale and
often closely related to domestic spaces.
Physical infrastructures are in an advanced state of
decrepitude or are non-existent. There are extreme
problems, not least the grinding poverty, however,
social structures of self and mutual support and
living/working relationships remain largely intact.
There is a wide range of small-scale manufacturing
activities, often related to recycling and re-use, which
could be tooled up quickly to fabricate building
components. There is also extensive redundant
building stock, mostly inoperative cotton mills, and
although many of the structures are in an advanced
state of decay even these would yield a vast amount
of raw material. The land liberated (approx 30% of
the total Parel triangle) would ease the existing high
densities. The predominant patterns of occupation
demand relaxed programmes in structures that will
have the capacity to adapt diurnally and over more
extended timescales. They will need to
accommodate diffuse and intense densities of living
and working and activities that will range from
sedentary to industrial whilst performing structurally,
environmentally and socially with minimal
adaptation. This will mean providing a construction
that will behave as an armature for this range.
Spatially and materially it will allow very local
interventions or interventions that are very
attenuated. The ground is and should continue to be
adaptable and robust and the skins of building will
signal and moderate environments.
Transportable Environments: Design
The buildings should be assembled from
components manufactured locally using, as far as
possible, local resources. This will mean exploiting
the existing highly developed recycling and small-
scale engineering industry. Building component
manufacture will be at workshop scale, diffuse rather
than centralised. Raw materials might come from the
existing, large-scale redundant buildings and new
settlement patterns might utilise the existing slabs,
walls and green spaces. Processes such as metal
folding, casting fibre-reinforced tiles, weaving using Prototype: completed June 1996.
After two years the building is still on site and heavily used as
reclaimed materials can make anything from a plastic a pavilion in the courtyard of the School of Architecture and
Interior Design
bag to a truck. Encouraging the manufacture of
building components at this scale for the period of
building will allow them to revert after local building is
completed. This will help avoid commercial inertia and
centralisation by minimising tooling up and and
prioritising existing sustainable industry and skills.
We are continuing to think of the softdwelling in
Bombay as a frame and panel system which will-
provide structures that are relatively cheap to
manufacture and are responsive to local climatic
conditions.
Site
What is clear in the context of this programme, is that
we have had to reconsider our understanding of site
specificity. Sites are prototypical rather than unique.
The structures we are working with are not
(re)designed for each site but nor are they capable of
relocation from one site to another without adaptation.
However to understand how individual structures and
settlements will respond to location requires a new
understanding of context. The form and material of
structure and settlement will be adapted in relation to
physical, economic and cultural conditions and will
have to continue to adapt as those conditions change.
But these conditions themselves become more
global, more general. The key is to use the housing
programme as a catalyst for a new scale of activity that
113
David Clews and Rex Henry
will build on and intensify the existing activities and
provide spaces at the domestic and social scales that
are sensitive to the existing social patterns while
allowing these to develop and change. It is clear that
where communities are given opportunity and
incentive, usually by legitimising their situation they
use their skills and social structures to adapt their
environment in intelligent and sophisticated ways. We
would attempt to refine the infrastructural
1 A transcript of Ignasi Sola-Morales’ paper, Terrain Vague,
delivered at the Erasmus Barcelona Conference 1995, is
published in AnyPlace, New York, 1995, pp.118–123.
2 Prof. Florian Beigel, ‘Landspace.’ Lecture given at the
Polytechnic of North London, 1993. A fuller description by
Prof. Beigel and Phillip Christou is published in Quaderns
216, ‘For m and Place: Urban Landscapes’, Collegi
d’Architectes de Catalunya, 1997, pp.34–43.
3 I.Borden, Strangely Familiar, ‘Beneath the Pavement,
The Beach: Skateboarding, Architecture and the Urban
Realm’, London, 1995, pp.82–86.
4 A fuller description of these projects by David Clews and
Rex Henry in a paper titled ‘On the Beach’ published in Scroop
8, Cambridge Architectural Journal, 1996, pp.72–77.
5 ‘At present, new housing is excessively standardised,
relatively low quality and expensive to build…it is a
labour intensive industry plagued by skills shortages.
House building in Britain is increasingly slipping behind
international developments…many other countries
however, have innovated in the production techniques
using more off-site prefabrication and highly trained site
labour to keep production costs under control. Housing
and Construction: a troubled industry, Michael Ball,
Rowntree Foundation, 1995.
6 The House of Commons Select Committee on Housing
Need reporting in 1995 suggested that housing demand
between now and 2001 would be 60–100,000 houses
114
programmes through the close analysis of these
conditions and tendencies and to propose urban and
local forms through engaged economic and
constructional programmes. This might be thought of
as a master programme, where the detail is developed
through inhabitation and local intervention. This is a
departure from the master plan, which will seek to
make form institutionally through physical
intervention and centralised control.
per annum. The National Federation of Housing
Associations pointed out that house building during the
building boom and buoyant housing market of the 1980s
was the lowest of any decade since the 1940s and with
the government predicting a growth in the number of
households of 4.4 million (23%) up to 2016 the shortfall
in 1995 was 480,000 houses. This means that the actual
new housing need is 117,000 houses per year over the
next two decades. The picture becomes even darker
when one adds in the number of homeless households;
a Shelter Briefing Document published in 1996 pointed
out that Local Authorities accepted that 125,640
households could be considered homeless. The Select
Committee’s Repor t also excluded replacement of
substandard dwellings. The 1991 House of Commons
Select Committee, House Condition Survey estimated
that 1.5 million dwellings in England and Wales were unfit
for habitation; there were, for example 165,000 houses
without bathrooms. Summary from Shelter Briefing
Document, 1996.
7 In the Netherlands less than 50% of the UK site labour
per square metre is needed to erect the superstructure
of a house at over 25% less the cost despite the fact that
labour is paid 30% more. Innovation has not led to a loss
of jobs in the Dutch or German house building industry
but rather to an increase in output. Clarke and Wall. See
the Shelter Briefing Document, 1996.
Standardisation in Portable Architecture
Alan J.Brookes
Brookes Stacey Randall Architects
Introduction
Almost 100 years ago H.G.Wells was putting a footnote
to the third chapter of Anticipations when he wrote:
I do not see at all why the walls of a small dwelling
house should be so solid as they are. There still
hangs about us the monumental tradition of the
Pyramids. It should be possible to build sound,
durable and habitable houses of felted wire-
netting and weather-proofed paper upon a light
framework. This sort of thing is, no doubt,
admirably ugly at present, but that is because
architects and designers, being for the most part
inordinately cultured and quite uneducated,
are unable to cope with these fundamentally
novel problems. A few energetic men might at
any time set out to alter all this.1
The impetus for new forms of dwellings in this
country arose following the Second World War
when, as now, there was a clear need for a huge
increase in the housing and schools programme:
‘Homes fit for Heroes’. Areurin Bevan the then
Minister of Health wrote in the foreword to ‘Homes
for the People’ (1946):
The age we live in will surely be known as the
age of invention. This has its dangers and its
penalties, but it should also have its rewards
and excitements. The skill and ingenuity of our
technicians can revolutionise housing as they
have revolutionised so many other
undertakings.2
Effects of building usage
Building usage often determines and promotes the
need for temporar y buildings. Thus military
requirements have often been the reason for the
development of temporary structures (e.g. the Bailey
Bridge) and the design of shelters and hospitals for
soldiers in wars. In particular, the ‘Gloucester’ hut used
extensively during the Crimean War and the ‘Nissen’
hut used in the First World War were built from
prefabricated standard parts as an answer to the
problem of quickly transporting and accommodating
soldiers. One of the first modern uses of fabric building
structures was the transportable fabric-covered
hangars by Arthur Muller used in 1911/1912 for
housing the airships whose construction they
reflected.
In times when the expansion of housing, schools or Stork delivering a house,
from John Gloag, ‘House out of Factory’
hospital programmes has been needed, such as in
Britain following the Second World War, new
development of building systems has occurred such as
the Arcon Prefab and the Hertfordshire Schools
Programme with its influential proposals for
interchangeable panel assembly. No account of the
development of building systems could fail to mention
the Crystal Palace of 1851, and its designer Joseph
Paxton, which also demonstrated how the process of
building (with improvements such as the glazing wagon)
could be incorporated into the design to ease the process
of construction. The British Pavilion at Seville Expo by
Nicholas Grimshaw, although incorporating interesting
ideas in environmental control, did not show the same
inventiveness in its constructional method.
115
Alan J.Brookes
1850s steel housing, Melbourne, Australia
Pod-type systems developed for extreme environments
116
Interestingly it was the Danish Pavilion by Architects
KHRAS with its loose-fit arrangement of modular units
disguised by a perforated rainscreen and g.r.p sails
which was bought by the Japanese and successfully
moved to another site.
The majority of the world’s population choose to live
in the geographical areas that can most easily support
human life. However, there are instances where man
has chosen not to follow this lifestyle pattern due to
exploration, research and sometimes forced
occupation. In the hot and dry deserts of Arabia and
North Africa the Bedouin tent is used as a means of
adapting the surroundings in order to survive the
harsh conditions. In the 19th century many emigrants
from Europe chose to settle in lands with harsh
climates. The exploration of the American West and
Australia depended upon the development of
por table homes. The balloon timber-frame
construction dependent upon the galvanised nail
enabled the development of the American West. Early
settlements in Australia took with them homes like the
Manning Cottages and bought cast-iron churches
from catalogues—some of these buildings still exist
today.
The space programme has encouraged research
and development into moon bases. Strangely these
pods developed for extreme environments with little
gravity often make reference to traditional building
form with straight lines such as the conventional
panel-type arrangements developed by the NASA
programme. In these types of portable buildings the
performance requirements are clearly different from
those of more conventional or traditional building
forms.
Many designers have developed systems for use in
hostile environments on Earth, such as Richard
Horden’s design of the Ski-Haus, a portable shelter
deployed by helicopter within the Alps and capable
of subsequent easy movement.
Categories of portable structures
The type of structure and constructional system
influences the building form. In portable architecture
all systems can be categorised under either
‘deployed’ or ‘prefabricated’ structures.
‘Deployment’ concerns not the pre-manufacture of
elements but more or less pre-assembly of an entire
structure in a factory and the unfurling or deploying of
the structure on site. As such the building form tends
towards a finite element as a complete form or a series
of add-on elements. Deployable structures can be
divided into 6 main systems:
1 Flat Packed: These can be the pre-hinged type
such as the Terrapin system or a kit form.
2 Pantograph: Sophisticated hinged systems
which use a scissors mechanism or pantograph
to produce a shell when unfurled from a lorry.
Examples would include:
a 1963 Emilio Perez Pinero Competition to
design a mobile theatre,
b 1996 Chuck Hoberman folding structure,
c Mario Botta tent for 700th Anniversary of the
Swiss Conference.
3 Membrane Systems: These would include the
MOMI tent by Future Systems, Cardiff Bay
Visitors Centre and recent developments on
military tents by Dundee University.
4 Pneumatics.
5 Tensegrity Structures: Buckminster Fuller,
Californian Schools Systems lifted into place
by helicopter.
6 Pods or Capsules: Monocoque ski-lodges,
Hull system housing, Terrapin volumetric unit.

Modular buildings are either volumetric or
independent. The difference between these modular
types is in their autonomy. Independent units can stand
alone and are fully functional on delivery. Volumetric
or slice units must be bolted together to form large
areas ready to be fitted out, for example, Renzo Piano’s
IBM Travelling Exhibition.
Standardisation and prefabrication
There is no doubt that prefabrication and portable
architecture are inextricably linked.
The whole premise of prefabrication, which hinges on
the use of factory-made components, is the speed of
erection to achieve greater economy, to maintain quality,
and to decrease the amount of skilled labour on site.
Issues of design, fabrication and transportation related
to the need to maintain continuity of the market by
controlling ranges of sizes and number of repetitive units
are important.
Here lies the fundamental problem of standardisation. In
his early writings like his ‘Memorandum of 1910’ Gropius
indicated two manufacturing processes for the mass-
produced house.3 The first model assembled a house as
a whole unit in a variety of types like a car.The second was
the manufacture of components that would follow rules of
integration to achieve variability in house designs from
the different combinations of its parts. Gropius did not
foresee that in the repetition of large units or of total
dwellings the risk of technology exploiting its mechanical
potential through soulless multiplication of identical units
without the saving grace of variability and individual
choice.
In the 1960s and early 1970s there was intense interest
in dimensional co-ordination and modular sizing as a
means of encouraging interchangeability and cost
benefits, resulting, it was hoped, in economies of scale.
This was not a new idea. The Romans, according to
Kurent, had developed a series of modular sizes for
Transportable Environments: Design
bricks and tiles in their need for standardising such
elements for their military building programme.4 In reality
the Government programme for dimensional co-
ordination, with its over-emphasis on standard details
and design data, was not a success as the BRE (Building
Research Establishment) dimensional rig, with
unrealistically large joints between the elements,
illustrated.
The main economic argument for the procurement
of standard modular units also proved to be
fallacious. Fundamentally, the argument that mass
production adopted from the automobile industry
and the mistaken belief that standardisation would
reduce costs of manufacture in the building industry
were myths.
Maximum variability can now be achieved through new
techniques of manufacture that can create almost any
component at the press of a button. Therefore,
customisation can offer numerous solutions for portable
architecture, ensuring that each component and building
is tailor made for a specific purpose. As a result Dimensional co-ordination rig at the BRE, Garston, 1971
interchangeability of components, an important
characteristic of portable architecture has been achieved
without modular coordination and standardisation. They
are compatible because they have been designed as an
integrated family of components and not based on a range
of standard sizes.
Another constant dilemma in the use of standardisation
and industrialisation is the possibility of dehumanisation
of built form. In 1917 a war correspondent describes the
colonisation of the Nissen hut:
Overnight you would be occupied by an immense
creature of the tortoise species…in a week or two
you would find a valley of them.5
Building systems have often been seen as a useful
device for bringing order into an unruly building industry
and as such they are covertly political.
117
Alan J.Brookes

Bridge at Cardiff Docks, Brookes Stacey Randall Architects

118

Many of Buckminster Fuller’s proposals for mass
housing, although well intentioned, were more
successful when applied to the individual unit than
when set in an urban context. The introduction of
technology transfer seeks to uplift and broaden the
outlook of the building industry by introducing a wider
range of applicable products and building methods
that will increase the variability within portable
architecture. The experience of Brookes Stacey
Randall Architects include development of gaskets
for a series of interchangeable cladding panels and
the use of superform materials for stiffening sheeting
products. Richard Horden in his Yacht House has
demonstrated that such an approach can be applied
to one-off houses and other structures.
Case study examples
In 1995 Brookes Stacey Randall, with engineering
support from Ove Arup, were responsible for the
design proposals for a series of modular platform
buildings for the west end of London Underground’s
Central Line.The brief was to erect the modular station
during a 48-hour weekend track possession on seven
stations, each with different geometry, some curved,
some straight, some single platforms and some
double platforms. All had a common zone of 4 metres
into which a series of ‘H’ frames for the main structural
supports could be inserted. Pre-assembled sections
of glazing and structure are connected on the platform
with the variable edge dimension adjusted by the edge
zone oversailing the central section. These are then
winched via the ‘H’ frames into their final position.
Prefabricated platform accommodation units are
delivered into the pre-arranged position on a service
1 H.G.Wells, Anticipations of the reation to mechanical and
scientific progress upon human life and thought, Chapman, 1992.
2 See Paul Elek, Homes for the People, Granada Publishing
Ltd, 1945.
3 Walter Gropius. ‘Programme for the establishment of a
company for the provision of housing on aesthetically
consistent principles.’ Memorandum to AEG, March 1910.
Transportable Environments: Design
trench using pur pose-made trolleys. These
accommodation units offer flexible arrangements that
can be tailored to any combination of seating, vending,
help points, mess rooms and offices. In this way a
complete station could be prefabricated off site,
transported to site using the railway and built within
48 hours, including all necessary signage (roundels),
lighting and accommodation units and also providing
a dramatic improvement in the quality of the station
environment.
Similarly, the Boathouse at Streatley, on the River
Thames, whilst not strictly a portable building, shows
the need for innovative design and assembly when
building on an inaccessible site. The bridges for the
Cardiff Docks (Architects: Brookes Stacey Randall;
Engineers: Atelier One), which touch the graving dock
lightly on slender legs, are reminiscent of a ‘water
boatman’ insect and illustrate all the issues of
transporting a factory-made unit (with all finishes
completed in the factory) to be placed into position in
one weekend.
To ensure that standardisation does not inhibit the
variability of portable architecture the designer must
understand the whole concept of prefabrication in
relation to moveable buildings. We must look back
to the method and reasons behind the development
of standardisation and prefabrication and its
purpose. Once this is understood, we can then look
forward with optimism in search of other transferable
technologies, materials and manufacturing
techniques to continue the diverse programme of the
portable building. As Wachsman has said, ‘The future
is everything.’6
4 T.Kurent, ‘The Roman Modular Way’, Official Architecture
and Planning, London, December 1971.
5 ‘The Nissen Hut on the Western Front’, The Architect and
Builders Journal, 1917. See Robert Kronenburg, Houses in
Motion, Academy, London, 1995, p.59.
6 Herbert G.Wachsman, The Dream of the Factory Made
House, p.262.
119
 A Structure, a Village, an Exploration
Linda Nelson Johnson
Arizona State University
Introduction
One of the primary objectives of an interior designer
is to develop a space that facilitates specified functions
while attending to physical, emotional, and
psychological comfort. This personal comfort relates
to volume, color, texture, shape, line, materials, cultural
connotations, sound, function, and other variables.
Design is dictated by these variables and,
subsequently, a design language evolves.
The interior design students at Arizona State
University employed portable structures to study
human responses to specific environmental
conditions. Portable architecture was ideal for this
study. It was utilitarian, allowed for the development
of sensitive architectural expression, and produced
a festive atmosphere during the testing experience
which encouraged participation by onlookers. Due
to the portability of the structure, students were able
to assemble their environments in several locations,
Structure 1 attracting a variety of people.The membrane structure
also allowed students to respond to structural form in
an atypical manner. Without limits, they explored
multiple profiles and materials.
Purpose
The purpose of this exploration was to study human
response to stimuli. Students’ knowledge and research
were combined to develop hypotheses that were then
tested through the design and construction of a small
environment. Observation of human responses to the
constructed environments facilitated students’
120
understanding of environmental influence on
inhabitant behavior. Through this exercise, students
began to develop their own language and philosophy
of design. This budding philosophy and language
inherently included response to a basic human need,
comfort.
Objectives
One of the objectives of this study was to develop a format
that allowed students to construct an environment with
the express purpose of testing human responses to
given conditions. The actual experience of observing
and recording human interaction with environment
proved to be invaluable. An excitement for design was
instilled in the students as reactions of participants
proved or disproved students’ hypotheses.
Another objective was to encourage students to explore
structural form and materials. Portable architecture
became the tool to facilitate this exploration.The unusual
form and relatively few built examples of portable
architecture encouraged the fantasy aspect of
brainstorming and allowed the unusual to become the
expected. This new design attitude encouraged
exploration of materials, textures, and color as
components of the final design.
Background and rational
Few designers are attuned to human responses
stimulated by environmental conditions. It is important
for design students to explore human behaviors related
to design variables such as texture, color, sound, light,

and space. Awareness of these variables establishes a
foundation for human sensitive design. The interior
designer that responds to the physical, psychological,
and emotional wellbeing of the unique person within
the space establishes a comfort zone for the inhabitant.
Information gained during this project through research,
construction, and observation will become an integral
part of students’ personal design philosophies and
subsequently encourage human-sensitive design.
Portable architecture allowed students to assemble their
environments in several locations, attracting participants
of different interests, talents, backgrounds, and cultures.
Its plastic form encouraged artistic expression and the
creation of interesting and stimulating volumetric spaces.
The festive atmosphere inherent to portable
architecture—relating to festivals, carnivals, circuses,
etc., —created an excitement whenever and wherever
erected. When they were grouped into a village, the level
of excitement escalated and a carnival atmosphere
ensued. This undertone of fun encouraged observers
to leave the ranks of ‘wall flowers’ and become willing
participants.
Process and procedures
The assignment given to the students consisted of
seven elements.
1. Research design implications of at least one of
the five senses.
2. Develop design concept statement.
3. Design a portable structure large enough for
one person in either a vertical or horizontal
position. Relate the interior and exterior design
of the structure to chosen research topic. Design
the structure in such a manner as to test a
hypothesis resulting from research. When
complete, the structure must be erected in one
hour or less.
4. Explore materials and forms. The membrane
and interior elements must be made of textiles
Transportable Environments: Design
or utilize the weaving process. Construct the
portable structure.
5. Test the hypothesis through observation and/
or questionnaire.
6. Compile study results.
7. Synthesise study results and apply to current
interior design.
Within the portable structure village, four of the five
senses and their impact on interior design were
explored. Two structures were constructed to
investigate aspects of sound, two focused on sight and
color, one related sight to stress caused by chaotic
versus orderly environments, and four explored the
sense of touch. An environment made by one of the
teams (which had six-members) was developed to
experiment with smell, sight, and sound. Several of
the environments will be discussed here to illustrate
the variety of structures within the village. Each
structure has been given a number to simplify the
Structure 2
discussion.
Structure 1 Sound: anxiety
Concept: Familiar sounds subtly connect to bridge
unfamiliar surroundings.
Inspiration: The seashell, one of many sound systems
of nature.
Hypothesis: When exposed to different sounds
within a constant environment, physical, emotional,
and psychological responses will be altered.
Testing: While in the space, the participant was
exposed to a variety of sounds. Reactions of the
participant were visually observed and documented
through a questionnaire.
Observations: Within a constant environment,
behavior was altered in direct relationship to various
different types of sound. Soft, soothing sounds
tended to relax the participant and, as a result, the
person was less likely to experience feelings of fear.
Harsh or threatening sounds appeared to make
people uneasy and more fearful within the
environment. Structure 3
121
Linda Nelson Johnson
Structure 2 Sight and Sound: Sacred
Space
Concept: Repetition of graceful form and meditative
tone creates pure thought and repose.
Inspiration: Tibetan prayer flags.
Hypothesis: By repetition in the form of visual and
audio cues, the senses of sight and hearing will
respond and the mind will become more relaxed, thus
allowing it to embrace clear thought patterns.
Structure 4
Testing: Participants were observed as they interacted
with the space. A questionnaire documented written
reactions. An attempt was made to determine whether
specific design elements encouraged meditation.
Observations: The hypothesis was supported.
Repetition and soft music facilitate the creation of a
calming, relaxing experience. The shapes of the
structural elements were strongly associated with
ships and sailing. Perhaps this association influenced
participants’ responses to the space.
Structure 3 Sight: order versus chaos
Concept: Weaving the web of chaos and order.
Inspiration: Spider web.
Hypothesis: Some people will find an orderly
environment pleasing, while others will appreciate a
chaotic space.
Testing: Line was used as the primary element to
create two environments—chaos and order.
Participants were observed as they interacted with
and moved through the space. Written responses
were documented with questionnaires.
Observations: Subjects with educational
backgrounds in music, design, architecture, and
theater appeared to have a personal affinity for these
structures. A majority of those who preferred the
chaotic environment over the ordered environment
were from this group. In general, participants from
engineering, business, biology, and computer studies
were unable to discern a difference between the two
structures. If they indicated a preference, they could
not verbalize their reasons for their indicated
Structure 5 preference. A majority of the participants chose to
122
enter the ordered environment first. However,
approximately half of the subjects preferred the
chaotic environment and half the orderly environment.
Structure 4 Sight: color
Concept: Multiplicity: Choice of colors.
Inspiration: Fiber art.
Hypothesis: Despite freedom to choose any color,
choice is influenced by personal childhood
memories, culture, or other previous experiences.
Testing: Subjects were given seven large wood
triangles composed of sixteen pieces. It was possible
to disassemble and arrange pieces in any manner.
Subjects were also given fabric triangles of red, green,
white, black, yellow, purple, blue, and orange and
were asked to create a structure. Participants were
observed and completed a questionnaire.
Observations: People chose colors that directly
related to cultural background and life experiences.
The imprint of colors on formative years is very strong,
illustrated by a preference for colors in the subjects’
childhood homes. It was observed that participants
spent more time erecting the structure than choosing
the colors. The study supported the findings of
psychiatrists and psychologists who have reported
that response to form seems to arouse intellectual
processes while reactions to colors are impulsive and
emotional.
Structure 5 Sight: color
Concept: Color stimulates and expresses our deepest
impulses.
Inspiration: Sculpture composed of knitted copper wire
reminiscent of a sea creature and ocean waves.
Hypothesis: Colors used in environments evoke
emotions and people will react to colors similarly. Blue
waves evoke the idea of wind or water and red waves
relate to fire or flames.
Testing: The participant entered the space composed
of white muslin-covered wavy, vertical elements
flooded with white light and remained in the
environment for about one minute. During this time,

the light changed to red, then blue, and back to white.
Subjects then responded to the environment through
a questionnaire.
Observations: Findings supported the hypothesis. A
majority of the participants described the environment
flooded with red light as warm. Other descriptors used
were fire, hot, anxiety, and excitement, all relating to
fire, fear, or intensity. Coolness was the word most often
used to describe blue, followed by relaxing, calm, and
peaceful. These adjectives related to water, ice, or
relaxation.
Structure 6 Touch: tactile wayfinding
Concept: E: Explore the everyday world of the visually
impaired. Y: Your sense of touch will be your guide. E:
Experience your world in a different way.
(E+Y+E=EYE)
Inspiration: Fiber arts and wood sculptures selected
form American Craft magazines.The environment plan
was based on the Braille form of the word ‘eye’.
Hypothesis: Blindfolded individuals, relying on the
sense of touch, would be able to identify objects.
Testing: Individuals were blindfolded before entering
the environment and, for safety, were individually
monitored. As the participants made their way through
the space using a rope as a guide, they were asked to
touch and identify objects.
Observations: Most people were able to identify the
objects correctly. However, a majority of the
participants responded negatively to the loss of sight.
Structure 7 Touch: harsh versus serene
Concept: In the forbidding land of skeletons stands a
lone twisting and turning tree. Still flaming within, it
emulates the vast mysterious, yet serene, land.
Inspiration: Twisted remains of a tree.
Hypothesis: When given a choice between textural
and smooth surfaces, individuals will respond most
positively to smooth textures because they reflect a
sense of peace and comfort.
Testing: Two identical skeletal structures were
constructed of rebar. The membrane of one structure
Transportable Environments: Design
was made of smooth fabric of a similar color to the
natural materials woven into the second skeleton.
Participants experienced each space and then
responded to the spaces by completing a
questionnaire.
Observations: The hypothesis was disproved. A
majority of the participants preferred the textural
structure. In fact, many did not see the difference as
smooth versus texture but translated the intention as
man versus nature. This response directly
corresponded to the various natural materials woven
into the skeleton.
Structure 8 Sight and Touch: feeling a
space
Concept: The magnificent vision of feeling a space.
Inspiration: Fabric sculpture.
Hypothesis: Stronger reactions are elicited from
those who participate in environments than those Structure 6
who simply observe. As participants penetrate and
explore the atmosphere through sight and touch,
they will be reminded of past experiences.
Testing: Subjects entered the environment through
slits in fabric panels. As they moved through the
consecutive spaces, each space became smaller
and more restrictive. Participants were observed and
their impressions documented through a
questionnaire.
Observations: All participants responded to the new
environment by assimilating the new experience to
past feelings. However, men and women reacted
differently to the same materials and forms. Men
tended to recall sexual events while women focused
on birth or the feeling of being hugged.
Structure 9 Sight, smell, and touch: sight
impact
Concept: Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr Seuss.
Inspiration: ‘Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for
a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.’
Hypothesis: Sight is the predominant sense in
experiencing interiors. Structure 7
123
Linda Nelson Johnson
Testing: The environment contained four rooms: blue,
red, and yellow with a white transition space in the
center. Touch, related to comfort levels of personal
space invasion, was tested in the blue room. Molded
body parts, contained in the walls of the room,
protruded into the space. The red room contained
items that were naturally green but painted red. This
room tested if visualization would dominate over past
associations. Purple grapes, combined with the aroma
of lemons, permeated the yellow room testing if smell
would overpower visual impact.
Obser vations: The blue room proved to be
uncomfortable to a majority of the participants. Of
those, more women than men felt uneasy in this
space. The red room supported the hypothesis that
visual impact is stronger than past associations.
Almost all subjects reported that the room was red
even though the objects within the room were green
in their natural state. In the yellow room, a majority of
the participants identified the smell of lemons. This
indicated the dominance of olfactory rather than
Structure 8 visual senses, disproving the hypothesis in this
instance.
Structure 10 Sight and touch: comfort
versus aesthetics
Concept: Just as a caterpillar enters a cocoon and
becomes a butterfly, a transformation takes place
when one enters an environment.
Inspiration: Cocoon.
Hypothesis: Due to exterior appearance, assumptions
are formed concerning interior comfort. Given a choice
of soft or rough exterior materials, most people will
choose the soft exterior because it looks comfortable
and warm. Conversely, a rough exterior appears
uncomfortable. However, a soft interior within the
rough environment will override the initial negative
impression of the exterior.
Testing: Participants chose one of two environments,
soft or rough exterior. However, when the choice was
made and the environment entered, the participant
Structure 9 discovered that the interior was very different from the
124
exterior. Subjects were observed and their
impressions documented through a questionnaire.
Observations: The student observed that most people
chose environments that feel good rather than look
good. In general, comfort is more important than
aesthetics. Some responses were influenced by the
negative connotation related to the coffin form of the
environments.
Outcomes and implications
All students related observations from their
independent studies to current interior design
concerns. They employed their findings to analyze
critically contemporary interior design. Some
carried the exploration further and began to create
spaces that illustrated their findings. The following
is a discussion of a few examples of preliminary
designs.
The designer of Structure 1 integrated the relaxing
qualities of flowing water with the spiral of the shell to
create an outdoor space overlooking the ocean. Like
the walls of a shell, the vertical stones capture the
sounds of the ocean that pour into the environment.
The texture of the material (stone) and the spiraling
plan are direct influences of the portable structure
constructed for the study.
Structure 2 investigated sacred spaces. In the
preliminary design of a meditation pavilion, the
designer employed the elements of repetition and
spiral plan previously used in the portable structure.
The spiral, a symbol of creation and growth of the
universe, is designated with wooden columns. These
columns form a transitional space for the ceremonial
preparation of entering and leaving the pavilion. The
circle, used since antiquity for contemplation or
meditation, represents a centering device for the mind.
Repetitive columns provide order to both the interior
and exterior spaces.

The designers of Structure 4 made a very important
discovery during their follow-up research. Their
intentions were to apply findings to special design
aspects for the blind. They discovered that interior
design for the blind was simply design for a person
who happens to be blind. Design for the physically
impaired encompasses the individual’s preferences
and needs in the same way as design for the able-
bodied client. For example, textural interior materials
(as illustrated above) create a more interesting
interior for both the blind and sighted.
Results collected by the designer of Structure 7
instigated an investigation of furniture design
particularly of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The
student was impressed by participants’ positive
reaction to the natural materials of one of the
pyramidal structures. The design of a space within a
space, created by furniture (illustrated above)
represents early design exploration. This design was
influenced by position, shape, and spatial relationship
of the portable structures. Future investigation of
textural materials and methods of construction would
incoporate the student’s observations from the
previous study.
Conclusion
In this investigation, portable architecture was
employed as a vehicle to study the affects of the
Transportable Environments: Design
environment on the emotional, physical, and
psychological well-being of inhabitants. Through
this exercise, students not only learned about
human behavior, but also explored the potential of
portable architecture. Even though portable
structures have been used throughout history,
contemporary architects are only beginning to
explore portable architecture as a viable structural
form. This study brought new knowledge to the
students concerning the multitude of design
possibilities inherent in portable membrane
structures. The expression manifest here will find
its way into future structures by these fledgling
designers. Vast design possibilities of portable
structures were imprinted on their minds.
It is the hope of this writer that designers of portable
architecture consider the explorations reported
here, especially concerning human behavior and
Structure 10
comfort. Even though the studies highlighted in this
paper represent a small population sample, the
findings underscore basic human needs. These
needs not relate not only to function and human
safety, but also to emotional and psychological
comfort. Good design refers to design that is not
only aesthetically pleasing, but also more attuned
to human needs. If we truly desire to design for the
human inhabitant, we must listen to our conscience
and to the reported observations of these future
designers.
125
 Sustainable Portable Housing, Cave Cay, Bahamas
Huy Ngo, Glenn Hill, David Driskill and Joe Aranha
Texas Tech University

Staff housing
Architectural system assembly
Background—Scope of Project
Cone Enterprises of Lubbock, Texas, recently
acquired the island Cave Cay in the Bahamas for
development. The scope of the project is to include
five phases of development. The first phase is the
design and construction of a marina, general store,
manager’s housing, renewable energy plant, and
water desalination plant. This phase is about
completed. The marina is to include ten boat-slips
initially, and be expanded to one hundred boat-slips
in future.The second phase is to design and construct
six staff houses and a mess hall, and the island’s main
fuel depot and distribution system, during the Summer
of 1997. The third phase includes the design and
construction of the guests’ lodge/bungalows and the
owner’s private residence. The fourth phase of
development is the 1000 foot (300 metres) aircraft
runway and hanger facility. Texas Tech University’s
Architectural Research Center was asked to review
the development plans and architectural proposals
for their sustainability and to design sustainable and
transportable staff housing for phase two.
Site and contexts
The site is the island of Cave Cay in the Bahamas,
which is situated approximately 160 miles due east
of Miami Beach, Florida, USA.The island is part of the
Great Guana Cay island group extending from 28th
to 27th N in a South-East to North-West direction. The
island itself is approximately 9000 feet (2.7 km) long
and at the widest point is approximately 1800 feet (0.5
km) wide. The highest elevation is 70 feet (21 metres)
and it slopes down to sea level at the perimeter beach.
Native vegetation includes wild bushes no taller than
5 foot (1.5 metres) high which can get relatively dense
in certain parts of the island. Indigenous to the island
is a small population of sea birds and other small wildlife
which resides in bushes and the sub-surface
environment.
The wettest months are from May to October and the
winter period is relatively, but by no means completely,
dry. The area experiences no great extremes of
temperature; winters are warm and sunny and
summers are hot, but without excessively high
temperatures, such that heat stress is rarely felt.
Temperatures do not reach above 100°F (37°C) and
rarely does it reach as low as 60°F (15°C). There is a
large number of hours of sunshine around the year. Daily
sunshine hours average from seven to nine, with more
hours in the driest months of the year.
In most cases, prolonged spells of rain are rare and are
usually associated with hurricanes or tropical storms.
Hurricanes occur between June and November and
are most frequent in the months of August and
September with the worse cases being 10 to 20 inches
(250–500 mm) of rain over two to three days.
Staff housing goals and objectives
The first goal for the staff housing is for a building type
that is transportable. One objective of the project is
that it must utilize a standard steel shipping container
as the basic structure and packaging element for
shipping the project to the site. All building

126

components, such as interior partitions, doors/
windows, metal roof, decking, and shower/toilet stall
must be designed to fit inside the physical dimension
of the container. The staff quarters must be easy to
assemble and disassemble in order to utilize the local
labor to construct the housing units.
The second goal for the staff housing is responding to
the sustainable issues, such as ecology, climate, life-
cycle costs, energy efficiency, water conservation and
recycling. The staff housing relies predominately on
renewable energy, because there are no external
sources of energy on the island. These housing units
must capture, generate, convert, store and recycle
water and electrical power. The materials and
methods of construction must be resistant to the harsh
salt-water environment of the island, and when
appropriate use materials manufactured from
recycled sources.
Staff housing design issues—architectural
programmatic requirements
Spatial Requirement—Each staff housing unit must
house two private staff quarters. Each individual staff
quarter will have its own shelf space and a small closet
space. A centrally located bath and water closet space
will be shared between both occupants within each
housing unit. Kitchen and dining space is not part of
the housing unit because it will be housed in its own
separate modular unit for all occupants to share.
Vernacular Architecture—Tropical vernacular
architecture is the primary architectural language
associated with this region and climate. It is a
requirement that the staff housing should maintain a
similar image and aesthetic relationship to the given
context.
Metal Shipping Container As A Structural System—
The client specifically requested the design team use
pre-built metal shipping containers as the structural
Transportable Environments: Design
system for the staff housing. Each metal shipping
container is a 8 foot (2.4 metres) tall, 8 foot (2.4 metres)
wide and 20 foot (6 metres) long standard size unit
with a rigid metal frame as its underlying structure.
Marine plywood with exterior fiberglass coating acts
as an in-fill enclosure system. At the four corners of
these containers, tubular and angular steel provide
vertical support for the stacking of containers. In
addition, these corners are specifically designed for
an external hoisting device to lift the whole unit from
one location to another. At the bottom of the container,
standard I-beams provide extra supports to the marine
plywood floor surface. The staff housing will be built
and assembled in Lubbock, Texas, USA and will be
disassembled and packed in the container for
shipping to the island. Once the containers reach the
site, they will be reassembled into staff housing by the
local resort staff.Therefore, issues of ease of assembly
and disassembly must be carefully addressed.
Metal Containers As Shipping Devices—Each metal
shipping container will be use as a shipping device to
transport all attached architectural system to the site
for assembly into staff housing quar ter. All
architectural-related systems—doors/windows/
walls, interior partitions, exterior decking, water closet
and shower stall, roof structure, and roof membrane—
must be designed to fit within each container for
shipping.
Sustainable design issues
Climatic Design Issues: Cooling, Ventilation,
Humidity, Daylighting, Shading, Salt Air and Water
Environment, Building Geometry and Orientation
The project should be ecologically friendly. Therefore it
must be designed to take advantage of the natural
environment as much as possible. Careful consideration
must be given to those issues related to maintaining
desired environmental comfort. First, cooling and
The steel shipping container is used as a structural basis
ventilation need to be addressed at the whole building to which various components and systems are added
127
Huy Ngo, Glenn Hill, David Driskill and Joe Aranha
Photovoltaic and electrical system
Water catchment system
Staff housing floor plan
128
level because of humidity and high moisture level in the
air. Second, because of abundant sunshine throughout
the year, each housing unit must provide some level of
self-shading for cooling purposes.
Renewable Resources: Electricity; Energy from the
Sun and Wind for Lighting, Power for Appliances, and
for Energy Equipment. Water Resources; Sea Water
and Rain Water for Bathing, Washing, Water Closet
Cave Cay Island is in a remote part of the Grand
Bahamas, and as a result, there is no external source of
energy (electricity, gas, oil) into which it can tap to meet
its energy needs. As a result, the staff housing should be
‘energy self-sustaining’.They must be able to capture or
generate, convert, store, and recycle energy sources
for their own use. Water is also another critical resource.
The island has no fresh water resources. All the water
used on the island must be brought from off island or
created through desalination on the island. The staff
housing must provide energy to desalinate it’s own water.
In addition water that can be captured or recycled reduces
the need to use energy to produce it.
Sustainable building materials: longevity
and durability, recycle building materials
The island is in a remote location and the need for low
maintenance dictates the need to use materials that
have a relative long life cycle. Furthermore, due to the
salt air and water at the site, it is imperative that building
materials used for the staff housing must be durable
and resistant to mildew, woodrot, termites, rust, and
wind. Keeping in the context of sustainability, the staff
housing must also use recycled building products as
much as possible.
Staff housing design response
These architectural, portability, and sustainability
design issues identified for the staff housing require
many levels of architectural design integration. The
design approach that one takes is very critical. The
design of the staff housing can only be dealt with
successfully if it is understood in terms of complex
interaction and interrelationship of its building
systems and context at the whole building level. It has
always been a difficult task for architects to address a
variety of complex design issues. In this case, the
building not only has to be transportable but also
sustainable. The degree of complexity and challenge
is high, but the design team recognized that with this
challenge there is a unique design opportunity to
demonstrate that a whole building design approach
to transportable building can also result in buildings
with qualitative value and sustainability.
Architectural spatial response
The architectural program dictates that each unit must
contain two individual staff quarters, each with its own
entry and a shared bath facility. Because of the
physical dimensions of the container the quarters are
placed at the end and share a centralized vanity.
Closets for personal belongings were placed back to
back to serve as a sound buffer.The vanity-closet units
are constructed as interior cabinets made from 3/4
inch (18 mm) marine plywood and painted with a vinyl
co-polymer paint. It became apparent that the shower
stall and water closet could not fit physically within the
container due to inadequate space. Therefore, it was
decided that these spaces would have to be attached
on to the outside of the module. Such attachment could
be assembled and disassembled with ease for
transportability and maintenance. To expand the
living space for the staff a shaded deck was also
designed to attach to the outside of the container on
the South side.
To be sensitive to the site and regional architectural
vocabulary, the design team retained the tropical
vernacular architectural image. Some of the design
features include: deep overhangs, gable roofs,
ventilated roof, elevated floors, high operable

windows, bright color scheme, and many openings
for indoor/outdoor spatial relationships. Up to three
or four staff quarters modules will be clustered together
to create a central courtyard arrangement. The
shaded deck will be facing into the courtyard so that
the private shower and water closet will face away from
the common space. This is very consistent with the
traditional dwelling arrangements commonly found
throughout the region.
Portability response
As discussed earlier, the staff housing quarters will
be designed, constructed, and disassembled in
Lubbock, Texas, and then shipped to the island for
reassembly. Each container will house all building
components for shipping. The exterior doors and
windows were designed to be shipped installed. They
would be covered with the plywood for shipping. The
center cabinet module that creates the shelf/closet
space and vanity area were made to be set in place
before shipping. The doors to the vanity slide out of
the way so the trusses and roofing material can utilize
the full length of the container for shipping. All of the
structural roof components, the outdoor decking and
the external construction system for the shower and
water closet fit within the container’s physical
dimensions.
Once the shipping unit reaches its destination, its cargo
will be unloaded in preparation for assembly. First, the
container will have to be connected to concrete piers
poured in place at the four corners. The rigid tubular
and angular steel corners of the container will be the
source for anchoring the whole unit to concrete piers.
The protective plywood would then be removed to
expose the windows and doors. Once the unit is
anchored in place, the next step is to begin the
assembly process for the rest of the related
architectural systems. Pressure-treated wood beams
are installed along the top length of the unit for
supporting pressure-treated wood trusses and ‘Snap-
Transportable Environments: Design
Lock’ standing seam, coated metal roofing.Vinyl doors
and awning windows are installed all around for view,
daylighting, and ventilation. They are built as a unit
and placed into position. The awning/window unit
varies in configuration—some awning windows are
stacked vertically and some are stacked horizontally.
The shower/water closet unit is approximately 4 foot
×8 foot×8 foot (1.2 metres×2.4 metres×2.4 metres)
and is attached to the center and to the back of the
housing unit. The bottom shower/water closet basin
unit is a prefabricated self-supporting, foam-filled
fiberglass unit. It will provide adequate support for
dead and live loads, even though the entire unit will
be elevated above ground level to match finished floor
level. Durable copolymer vented shutters act as an
enclosure system for the shower unit for privacy. The
front deck will be attached to the unit on the opposite
side of the shower/water closet unit. The front deck’s
structure is pressure-treated lumber and is bolted to
the frame of the container with stainless steel bolts,
and a Trex wood polymer decking is applied as a finish
surface. The deck railing is made from stainless steel
cable and fittings used on sail-boats. The pressure-
treated wood columns attached to the piers take on a
dual role providing anchoring for the roof against wind
up-lift and at the same time providing load support for
the roof’s overhang.
In the final stage of assembly of the staff housing the
roof trusses, made from pressure-treated wood, will
be attached to a wood beam running the entire length
of unit with stainless steel anchors. The ‘snap-lock’
coated metal roof is screwed to the end and snapped
together. The overhang of the roof protects the
shower/water closet units, but is not attached or
connected to the roof. Instead it will be anchored to
the wall of the staff housing quarters. Running
around the perimeter of the roof is a coated metal
gutter, PVC drain pipes, and stainless steel fittings
that make up the rain catchment system for non-
Concrete piers, vinyl doors and windows, wood polymer
potable water usage. decking, fiberglass shower with copolymer vented shutters
129
Huy Ngo, Glenn Hill, David Driskill and Joe Aranha
Sustainable design issues responses
Since the island is in a remote location of the
Bahamas, it is not feasible to design a conventional
housing facility that utilizes traditional energy sources.
It was decided that the staff quarters had to rely
predominately on renewable energy sources. The
design team recognized that to address issues related
to sustainability and energy efficiency successfully,
these issues must be addressed at the whole building
level, and expanded to wider building design
concerns. Such integration of energy issues at the
early stage of the design process helped inform the
design team on the degree of relationship between
different architectural issues
The response to the climatic condition of the site had a
significant impact on the design of the housing.
Fundamental design principles of tropical architecture
were studied and incorporated into the design at an
early stage of the design process. The issue of cooling
is fundamental to maintaining the desired level of
thermal comfort. As a result, there were several design
concepts that were implemented to deal with this issue.
First, cooling can be achieve by utilizing the constant
14 mph breeze on the island for ventilation. Awning
windows all around the livable spaces make it possible
for movement of air to take place even when it is raining.
A fiberglass screen with vinyl frame soffit all around the
underneath side of the overhang allows air to pass
through for ventilation purposes, but prevents
indigenous insects from gathering underneath the cool
shaded roof line. This continuously vented soffit is
incorporated with ridge and end vents to provide
continuous ventilation of the roof cavity. The elevated
floor allows air to circulate under the structure, carrying
away moisture and built-up heat.
The extreme sunlight at certain seasons could pose
problems to maintaining thermal comfort. Over
exposure to solar radiation could increase interior air
130
temperature as well as reducing the life cycle and
durability of building materials. As a result, it was a
priority that the roof should be designed to provide as
much shading as possible. Appropriate roof
overhangs provide shading to livable space, walls,
windows, doors and attached space such as porch
and shower/water closet. A radiant barrier film and 4
inch (100 mm) rigid polystyrene placed in the attic
insulates the space below from the roof and reduces
the flow of heat into the space from the coated metal
roof surfaces. The roof overhangs and the front deck
not only serve as a sunshade, but provide the building
and the occupants with shelter from the rain and
enable them to open the windows during rain storms.
Two renewable resources were determined to be
essential to the usability and sustainability of the
facility: electricity and water. Due to the relatively
benign nature of the environment, there is no
demand for heating and cooling energy use. Food
preparation and cooking will be provided in a
communal kitchen with its own power and water
sources. Therefore, the only electrical energy use in
the quarters is for small electric appliances and
pumps. Electricity is needed for lights, pumps, fans,
a radio/tape deck and a small appliance. The
electricity will be generated through harnessing the
on-site energy of the sun and wind. Electricity is
generated from the sun and wind by a power plant
that is designed to utilize photovoltaic modules and
a wind generator. Solar and wind energy is captured/
converted into electricity and stored in the batteries
located on the top of the vanity area. A DC regulator
and a fuse box distribute electricity to lights, pumps
and fans. The photovoltaic modules are located on
top of the metal roof for maximum exposure to the
sun and the wind generator sits on top of a 30 foot (9
metre) tower.The equipment that controls, stores and
converts electrical energy is located in the attic space
for protection from the sun, wind, rain and salt. End
use equipment such as lighting fixtures are DC units
strategically placed where most effective.

There is no conventional water supply system to the
island. Water distribution to the housing for utility
needs such as washing, bathing and the toilet will
be obtained from the rainwater catchment system
designed into the architecture. During times when
rain water is not available desalinated water can
be pumped into the cistern. Desalinated sea water
for drinking is provided to the occupants at the
kitchen.
Prolonged spells of rain on the island are not rare
and are usually associated with hurricanes or
tropical storms. When this intense rain does occur,
10 to 20 inches (250–500 mm) of rain over two to
three days is possible. If this rainwater can be
captured and stored it would provide water for a
variety of household purposes.
The roof was designed for shading purposes and
to protect interior spaces from the exterior
environment, but also to serve another special
function—as a device to catch rainwater. Rainwater
is drained away from the roof through gravity to the
gutter systems which then empty water into a water
cistern located beneath the housing unit. If water is
needed for general purposes such as washing, the
toilet, or cleaning, the rainwater stored in the cistern
is pumped through a filter to a pressure tank. The
pressure tank provides adequate pressure for water
to reach the shower, vanity and toilet. There is an
additional water line that passes through a solar
batch water heater if hot water is needed. The batch
water heater is a polypropelyne tank that has been
painted black and is exposed to the sun to absorb
solar radiation
Many of the materials and methods of construction
were selected for their sustainability. The very act
of recycling old shipping containers to serve as the
structure of the housing was a sustainable decision.
However, sustainability was not the only criterion
used to evaluate the appropriateness of certain
Transportable Environments: Design
building products. The design team recognized that
the selection and integration of building materials
must be done at the whole building scale,
expanding such issues into wider architectural
concerns. Issues of durability and longevity of
materials, aesthetics, architectural design
integration, size and availability, and ease of
assembly were used to select appropriate building
materials and construction methods.
Among one of the more interesting sustainable
materials was the TREX wood-polymer lumber.
This product is made from binding recycled plastic
grocery bags and sawdust from wood product
manufacturers. It is more resistant to moisture, salt,
termites, ants, rot, decay, UV light than wood, and
is an ideal product to be used in this tropical
climate. It has outstanding workability
characteristics similar to wood. There are a wide
range of evaluation criteria which the design team
used to evaluate different materials, and in this
case, TREX was an ideal product for the porch
because it responded well to the overall building
design criteria.
Vinyl windows and doors were used rather than
wood or aluminum. Vinyl fenestration systems were
selected for the project because of their durability
and resistance to salt, rust, rot, termites and mold.
The shower/water closet attached unit is also
constructed out of durable materials that resist the
harsh coastal environment. The base of the shower/
toilet stall is a composite fiberglass and polystyrene
foam made like a surf board. Exterior vinyl shutters
are used as partitions that resist not only the salt air
environment, but also constant exposure to water
during bathing. The shutters were stiffened with
TREX to provide structure. The metal roof was
chosen for its ease of installation, long life and
durability. All of the connections use stainless steel
for its durability and resistance to salt-water
conditions. Fully assembled staff housing
131
Huy Ngo, Glenn Hill, David Driskill and Joe Aranha
Conclusions
This paper describes a unique case study that
represents a different approach to the design of
portable architecture. The approach is to design
portable architecture, while expanding this issue to a
wider set of architectural concerns. Cave Cay’s
housing provided a unique opportunity for the design
team to redefine the whole concept of what is ‘portable
architecture’. This unique project not only dealt with
portable issues but also expanded such issues into
other design concerns such as sustainability and
energy efficiency. Traditionally, portable architecture
is often perceived as building with a low qualitative
value, lacking in those things often held as
fundamental in architecture. We do not share this
perception and in this paper we attempted to illustrate
the significance and potential of designing
sustainable transportable buildings.
132
The central issue of this project is the need for
designing portable architecture that is sustainable.
What the design team also see as important is the
need to expand portable design issues into wider
building design concerns. Such a holistic whole
building design approach has a higher degree of
challenges, and in some cases, the challenges are
great. However with these challenges, there are
greater design opportunities for innovative and
creative thinking that may come out of such integration.
We try to show how we can discover remarkable
application of ideas, in particular the idea that portable
buildings are significant and perhaps more influential
to future ecological responsive architects than one
might think at the moment. Thus the whole general
concepts of what is portable architecture should be
redefined. Like every other building type in
architecture, it too should be rigorously studied and
explored.
Wearable Environments
Marie-Paule Macdonald
University of Waterloo
Introduction
North America was originally inhabited by nomadic
people whose way of life made efficient use of local
materials in situ. The romantic notion of a natural
nomadic state of existence is a recurrent theme in
Western culture. Examples range from Jean Jacques
Rousseau to Velimir Khlebnikov, to late twentieth-
century tendencies of Jack Kerouac’s novels, Robert
Frank’s photographs, or the road film directed to mass
culture, from Fellini’s La Strada to Agnès Varda’s
Vagabond to Frank’s Candy Mountain, to Gus Van
Sant’s My Own Private Idaho.
The avant-garde poet from the Russian revolutionary
period, Velimir Khlebnikov, wrote a text dating from
1920–1 describing in detail a vision of transparent
portable dwellings,
1. The idea is this: a container of molded glass, a
mobile dwelling-module supplied with a door,
with attachment couplings, mounted on wheels,
with its inhabitant inside it. It is set on a train
(special gauge, with racks specially designed
to hold such modules) or on a steamship, and
inside, without ever leaving it, its inhabitant
would travel to his destination. Expandable on
occasion, the glass cubicle was suitable for
overnight camping. Once it had been decided
that the primary building unit would no longer be
an incidental material like brick, but rather these
modular units inhabited by individuals, they
began the construction of framework-buildings
whose open spaces were filled in by the
inhabitants themselves with their moveable
glass cubicles. And these units were able to be
transported from one building to another. Thus
was a great achievement attained: it was no
longer the single individual who traveled, but his
house on wheels, or, more precisely, his booth,
capable of being attached on a train or steamship.
Just as a tree in winter lives in anticipation of
leaves or needles, so these framework-
buildings, these grillworks full of empty spaces,
spread their arms like steel junipers and awaited
their glass occupants…. Every city in the land,
wherever a proprietor may decide to move in his
glass cubicle, was required to offer a location in
one of these framework-buildings for the mobile
dwelling-module (the glass hut).1
Some of Khlebikov’s proposals betrayed the
problematic ideals of the revolutionary context he
proposed that ‘the form and dimensions of all dwelling
units were identical throughout the entire country’.2
While the modules were conceived as standardized,
they could be assembled into different arrangements
of urban dwellings. He envisioned bridge-buildings,
underwater-palaces, steamship-buildings, filament-
buildings, single rooms connected in a single strand,
field-buildings, etc. For example ‘the poplar-tree
building; a narrow tower sheathed from top to bottom
by rings of glass cubicles. There was an elevator in the
tower, and each sun-space had its own private access
to the interior shaft, which resembled an enormous bell
tower 700–1400 feet high (210–420 metres). The top
of the building served as a landing platform.’3
133
 Astronaut suit, NASA: NASA photo S-71–29731

134

Khlebniknov lived a nomadic life in a revolution whose
radical housing crisis imposed an existence of
wandering on an impractical poet with a great love of
nature. Among the proletariat, Khlebnikov roamed
from emergency shelter to cots in shared quarters
arranged by friends. He could have put one of his own
glass huts to good use, but then the technology did
not yet exist.
Projects from the economically buoyant 1960s proposed
mobile dwellings as an almost realistic option. During the
‘anti-architecture’ wave of the 1960s, designers melded
technological gadgetry with the idea of a revolutionary
way of life. Groups such as Superstudio, Coop
Himmelblau and Archigram, and individual architects like
Hans Hollein, proposed living environments pared down
to a minimal bubble or capsule, equipped to plug into a
power grid. Hollein proposed an Enviro-Pill, a pill that
would alter one’s environment. Archigram member
Michael Webb’s Cushicle and Suitaloon are prototypes
for this contradictory condition of the individual in capitalist
society divesting her- or himself of all but a minimum
survival kit of commodities. These radical projects of the
sixties implicitly and ideologically criticized capitalist
consumerism. The film by Jacques Doillon, L’An 0,
proposed a vision of society ‘after the revolution’ whose
inauguration was celebrated by a ‘Shower of Keys’ or ‘Rain
of Keys’ —the key being the quintessential symbol of
capitalist property and thus of the tyranny of property
regimes which must be continuously administered,
inventoried and guarded. In Doillon’s film the city’s
inhabitants spontaneously throw their keys out the window,
and citizens freely roam, exploring and passing through
Western civilization’s varied city- and landscapes.
An ‘end of the century’ and ‘end-of- millennium’ sensibility
is more aware of the obsolescence of the futuristic vision.
Futuristic, sci-fi scenarios proposed by visionaries of the
1960s—the plastic bubbles and high-tech gear—are
so familiar to the popular consciousness that those
prospects appear dated, having been completely
absorbed into a recycled, pop visual vocabulary. As
Transportable Environments: Design
William Gibson has remarked, ‘Well, Technology ‘R’ Us,
at this point…. What I find alarming when I’m doing
interviews is people who say, ‘Technology, Bill. Good or
bad?’ as though we could put it back in the box! We’re
such fabulously artificial creatures that we live four or
five times longer than we do in the wild. I’m always amazed
that anyone could say [noting that it’s the most
technological of people…who ask most often]…. “Can
we not go back to nature?” Well I guess you can, but you
won’t like it../.’4
Antecedent prototypes
Prototypes from the 1960s were self-initiated
vehicles for developing ideas about socially
responsive form, for fun or to test alternatives, or to
reject traditional, bourgeois or capitalist dwelling.
Archigram’s visionary projects for ‘Instant Cities’
include Webb’s Cushicle (1966–7) and Suitaloon
(1968), the Living Pod (1965) by David Greene,
Gasket Homes (1965) by Ron Herron and Warren
Chalk, and the Hornsey Capsules (1965–6) by Peter
Cook. Two seminal ‘personal enclosures’ are
Michael Webb’s projects, the Cushicle and Suitaloon.
The Cushicle was an intimately scaled translucent
capsule to live in, its curvilinear interior a free-form
chamber, a pre-engineered, customized micro-
environment. Its sensuous title synthesized the
pleasurable connotations of popsicle, bicycle, and
cushion. A primal living space, it was portable and
inflatable, accommodating one or perhaps two
intimately associated individuals, housed within a
membrane whose central element consisted of a
high-tech chaise longue, like the banana-style
dentist’s chair, equipped with the requisite
appliances. Simple demonstration prototypes were
fabricated for the 1968 Milan Triennale, in their
Milanogram exhibit.
The social context for this work was the fascination for
a demountable living environment, and for an ‘instant
architecture’ responding to the desire for immediate
135
Marie-Paule Macdonald

The Inuit World by the Inuit artist Kanangina, West Baffin Eskimo Co-op Ltd.

136

gratification. The images that originally represented
these projects, while cartoon-like, are still powerful,
prompting one to ask, did these gadgets fulfill one’s
needs as living environments? How did they work
exactly? What were they made of? The Suitaloon
grafted itself onto the doorway of the larger capsule.
What were the fastenings and connections, were they
zippers? Was it super adhesive? Velcro? (Velcro was
factory-ready in 1973). New synthetic materials,
plastics and polymers were the obvious materials.
Since these projects were drawn up, advances in
technologies in the polymers and plastics industry
have been so numerous that, in contrast to the
visionary projects, rather little of the technological
literature on plastics from 1965 is relevant today.
Another Archigram member’s work, David Greene’s
Logplug and Rocplug projects, forecast an invisible
environmental control system that reflected a desire
to return to nature, the garden, to innocence, however
artificial. His designs for GRP (glass reinforced
polyester, or fiberglas) ‘rocks’ that concealed a power
grid outlet were juxtaposed with collages using photos
of popular culture leisure commodities like camper-
trailers, tents and holiday vans, demonstrating the
desire that already existed for an instant ‘natural’
landscape by the urban masses who congregated in
rural areas for vacations, destroying them in the
process.
Over the course of the last decades the issue of
disposability has metamorphosed into recyclability.
The Fordist model of continuous accumulation that
prevailed in mid-century faced the problem of finding
no place to throw away to. Ecological issues have
returned with great force, as the consequences of
destroying the finite resources of the planet have
become more obvious.
While Webb, Greene, Kaplicky and radical architects
were envisioning portable ‘personal enclosures’,
scientists were designing working prototypes for
Transportable Environments: Design
space travel. They were analogous ‘real’
undertakings, the environments invented for space
travel and for the lunar landing planned of 1969, in
the design of the command space capsule, the lunar
module, a long series of astronauts’ suits and related
equipment, such as the spherical rescue suit. The
space suits were made of multiple layers of synthetic
materials, some 15 layers, and the skills of
seamstresses as well as scientists were needed to
create these soft environments.
Both space travel missions and cultures in Arctic
environments have in common a need for a rigorous
inventory and keen awareness of the essential items
needed for survival. An engraving by the Inuit artist
Kanangina, The Inuit World, from a document
produced by a studio in Cape Dorset, Baffin Island,
describes in diagrams and text, the finite number of
items: tools, shelter, clothing, that are essential for the
traditional Inuit way of life in the often hostile Arctic
climate: items like the ikaja, the sealskin tent, the
umiaq, a sealskin boat, the igimaq, a harpoon, etc.
Traditionally the Inuit lived seasonally, in portable tents
inland in the summer, and near water using the
elegant, minimalist igloo in the winter.
Buckminister Fuller’s work, his Dymaxion series and
the geodesic dome, remains the key inspiration for
radically light, assembled architecture.The US pavilion
for Expo 67 in Montréal, a ‘pop’ masterpiece, stands
out in the Canadian context. World Expositions
institutionalized ephemeral architecture, since the first-
class exhibition pavilions must be demounted. The
‘Biosphere’ used acrylic as its transparent cladding
material, and a welder’s accident touched off a
spectacular fire which destroyed the skin and left the
metal frame standing poetically derelict for years. The
structure has now been renovated by the Montréal
office of Blouin, Faucher, Aubertin, Brodeur, Gauthier
and Desnoyers Mercure, into an ecological interpretive
centre, exploiting its riverside location to focus on the
significance of water for environmental issues.
137
Marie-Paule Macdonald
Reassessing plastic
Plastic is a material that is at once extremely familiar
and an index of the new. In the last twenty years plastic
products—polymers and composites—have entered
into the vocabulary of materials in an extraordinary
way. A new phase of the ‘Plastic Era’ began in 1979
when, for the first time, more plastic than steel was
produced in the world. Petroleum derived, plastics
come from a finite resource without necessarily being
natural or ecological materials. While plastic has been
able to appear natural, it has come to be appreciated
for its qualities of unnatural smoothness and a
fundamental artificiality.
Architectural offices designing and building
convincing ephemeral, demountable, or tensile, soft
structures include Frei Otto, Renzo Piano, Herron
Associates, and Future Systems. Another designer
in plastic is Gaetano Pesce, whose projects are a
hybrid of artisanal and industrial production. In 1969,
Pesce’s almost menacingly happy UP2 chairs for B &
B Italia were made of fabric-covered polyurethane,
and compressed into a flat package. The large chair
anthropomorphically puffed up and out into its final
shape after the ripcord was pulled. In contrast, Pesce’s
pessimistic underground interior project for his
scenario of an ‘Age of Contamination’ is the dark
obverse of the ‘happy, carefree’ sixties image, set in
an unredeemably polluted future.5
In the public consciousness, there are contradictory
‘received ideas’ about plastics: plastics are cheap and
fall apart, they are not durable materials, they do not
wear well, they fade, crack and yellow with exposure
to UV light, and fall apart and disintegrate. Another is
that we are filling up the landscape and landfills with
plastic products, with detritus that is unbiodegradable;
flotsam and jetsam washes up onto our shores that
will remain litter forever. Sylvia Katz suggested (circa
1990) that, ‘during the last five years there has been
more progress in materials development that in the
138
previous twenty. Such is the scale of the plastics
revolution.’6 The growing plastics industry has made
this material supremely ubiquitous. Katz writes of a
bottle molded in PET (polyethylene terephthalate), a
kind of packaging that appeared in the late 1960s and
is now everywhere in Western society, as ‘transparent,
cheap, recyclable, non-shattering, soft, warm to the
touch, and sparkles’, and ‘a bottle made of several
layers of different types of plastic, each with its own
different function…[and] blow-molded forms a
sandwich of polypropylene ethylevevinyl (PP/EVOH/
PP) [which] has many of the properties of the PET
bottle…but is squeezable as well. Five layers of this
multi-layer extrusion—a kind of polymer lasagna—
(PP/EVOH/PP/EVOH/PP) produces a high-barrier
plastic…“shelf stable” at room temperature, and later
put in a microwave oven.’7 New plastics can be long
lasting or biodegradable, as a matter of specification.
The ultimate test of plastics as a material for dwelling
environments may be determined by problems
related to off-gassing and users who have developed
human allergies and sensitivities. These problems
have mushroomed in recent years, particularly in
reaction to harsh adhesives and to carpet materials.
The Greenpeace organization has prepared a
critique of polyvinylchloride based on the industrial
production of the substance, and is recommending
alternative materials, synthetic as well as natural.8
Demountable homes
An essay by Cedric Price, ‘Homes and houses’,
provides a stimulating reflection investigating domestic
space. Price writes, ‘Housing, when judged by its end
product, the house, has always been of the wrong type
in the wrong place for the wrong time. This is not new.
The house is an imprecise tool for habitation, and its
usefulness has always been related to its capacity to
change, to be exchanged or to expire. The architect
should be concerned with the design of an
indeterminate procedure that would allow a house to

be available and usable in a variety of forms.’ Price
proposes a check-list ‘for those of us who remain
convinced that the house is worth designing’, enquiring
into the rubrics—housing, houses, house, home:
Housing: an assumed continuous societal
need? a constituent of social servicing? a
desirable expensive extra? an alternative to
subsidizing people? a market-controlled
consumer product? a ‘natural’ resource of a
‘developed’ country? a method of population
control?
Houses: a national asset shown by population
and affluence counts? an artefactual
conglomerate signifying a social grouping? a
series of commodities? a prerequisite of a static
society? a collection of land-anchored products?
House: a 24-hour living toy? a commonly desired
possession? a container for continuous or
intermittent human activity? an attractive form of
public and/or private investment? an heirloom?
a guarantee of respectability? a store for personal
belongings?
Home: a non-locational self-choice collective
living condition? a convenient socio-
administrative unit? a displacement tendency?
a person-to-person multipurpose exchange
condition? a collection of houses, and other
useful containers? a statutory unit? a privately
financed hospital and restaurant for friends?9
A week-long event in 1994 by Kenneth Hayes and Barry
Isenor, Demo Home, presented a reworking of minimalist
space in a temporary installation about domesticity.The
project referenced the ‘vast spaces’ of minimalist
sculpture, using ‘found’ unleased commercial street
frontage in a concrete-frame tower.The work showcased,
in a series of nine assemblies, a variety of familiar plastic
and recycled plastic products. Nothing was natural but
the contents of a momento mori, a box of composter red
worms kept in a large black plastic box. Elemental
furniture included raw slabs of recycled polyurethane
Transportable Environments: Design
foam set up as a furniture grouping, large-scale found
Styrofoam packing stacked on industrial shelf units in
an assembly called ‘Primitive Accumulation’, and a large
painting/curtain/screen/colour chart made of re-used
polyethylene bags scotch-taped together.
Demo Home re-examined the commodity status of the
domestic environment, set apart from the populist vision
of home. Home can be an assemblage, something
temporary and related to lifespan. It can be a container,
a moveable receptacle containing objects. As something
manipulable, the dwelling object containing appliances
and dwelling space affords important psychological
satisfaction, yet it is not the iconic ‘home’.
Domestic occupants
What kind of occupant would prefer a portable home?
Can a dwelling with a life-cycle and a depreciation time
really function as a home? Cedric Price has asserted
that, ‘The ages of a building are five: use, re-use, mis-
use, dis-use, and ref-use’, and asked, like Fuller, how
much the architecture weighs. Françoise Choay
maintained that since the advent of the industrially
produced city and suburb, architecture cannot truly be
grounded, in the sense that it no longer makes
significant durable contact with the ground:
Abandoning the illusion of conquering entropy
by the durable solidity of a world built for this
purpose, we lost a category of plastic arts, those
that provide a foundation for us in space and time.
However this loss of rootedness is not without
compensation. It could also seem a liberation
from biological constraints, a freedom and a gain
of energy to be otherwise expended. This was
the message carried by technically minded
[architects] who, during the 1960s, invented
temporary structures that were inflatable or
tensile, and imagined ephemeral
agglomerations, plugging in or unplugging
instantly from technological systems.10
139
Marie-Paule Macdonald

Mobile Inhabitable Cell model, 1995, Marie-Paule Macdonald

140

In North America, this perceived rootlessness
bears a healthy relation to the contingency of
settlements. The condition impressed Jean Paul
Sartre during his first North American visit, where
he observed the temporary-looking wood sheds
where workers in mining and industrial cites lived.
It is expressed in the attitude of the younger, or
poorer or homeless, or temporarily displaced. A
journalist of the popular press wrote, ‘my parents
wanted a suburban house, my older sister wanted
a Mustang, I need a storage locker and a sleeping
bag….’ It represents the out-of-mainstream by
choice or necessity. Instability is perhaps what the
disenfranchised have in common with those
racking up frequent-flyer points.
Edward Said examined the condition of exile as it
relates to dwelling, commenting on Theodor Adorno’s
celebrated lament on the loss of the ability to dwell, as
the call of the exiled intellectual:
One fragment, number 18 in Minima Moralia,
captures the significance of exile quite perfectly.
‘Dwelling, in the proper sense,’ says Adorno, ‘is
now impossible. The traditional residences we
have grown up in have grown intolerable: each
trait of comfort in them is paid for with a betrayal of
knowledge, each vestige of shelter with the musty
pact of family interests.’ So much for the prewar
life of people who grew up before Nazism.
Socialism and American consumerism are no
better: ‘people live if not in slums, in bungalows
that by tomorrow may be leaf-huts, trailers, cars,
camps, or the open air.’ Thus, Adorno states, ‘the
house is past [i.e. over]…. The best mode of
conduct, in face of all this, still seems an
uncommitted, suspended one…. It is part of
morality not to be at home in one’s home.’11
Said cautions, ‘even for the exile who tries to remain
suspended…that state of inbetweenness can itself
become a rigid ideological position, a sort of dwelling
Transportable Environments: Design
whose falseness is covered over in time and to which
one can all too easily become accustomed.’ In the North
American tradition, Said equates marginal and
intellectual with ‘someone who stands as a marginal
figure outside the comforts of privilege, power, being-at-
homeness (so to speak)…learning to make do in
circumstances of shaky instability…a ship-wrecked
person who learns to live in a certain sense with the land,
not on it, not like Robinson Crusoe, whose goal is to
colonize his little island, but more like Marco Polo, whose
sense of the marvelous never fails him, and who is always
a traveller, a provisional guest, not a freeloader,
conqueror, or raider’.12 There may be, then, a growing
demand for dwellings for this culture of homelessness,
suggesting sites and potential clients—from the
homeless to the encampment of a theatre troupe, Die in
Debt, camping out and performing under the Gardiner
Expressway in Toronto.
Portable and miniaturized commodities—the notepad,
fax, walkman, cellular phone, the microwave, miniature
generators and photovoltaic cells—usher a more fluid
attitude towards territory. Information is condensed into
tiny packages. An encyclopedia squeezes into a CD-
ROM, a lifetime of medical records fits on a credit card.
With access to information and transmission through
centre-less web systems like the Internet, the
daydreams of a perpetually rambling individual, or the
ideal of living well with a minimal number of
possessions, seem ever more realistic and convenient.
Webb’s Cushicle, described as a ‘personalized
enclosure’, seems a logical extension of the relentless
commodification invading everyday life, including
dwelling.
In the wake of Khlebnikov’s futurian city, the Wearable
Environments project, involving collaborative work by
Bill Burns and the author, modelled three-dimensional
scaled prototypes, realizing a series of portable
environments to be suspended on found surfaces or
custom frames. The form that the capsules take were
inspired by the ‘soft’ shapes of anti-architecture and by
141
Marie-Paule Macdonald

Camp Construction, Cartier, Ontario, Canada, 1996–7, Steve Topping

142

the plastic forms created by post-minimalist sculptor
Eva Hesse: a squashed irregular spherical capsule.
The pod may contain a core and a central structure,
like an apple. Another version could split into segments,
with membranes like an orange. The capsule consists
of a translucent or translucid material making up thick
composite walls, built up in layers of synthetic sheet,
film or textile. Translucent membranes might contain
magnifying lenses, to allow for more careful observation
of small creatures, insects or birds. The pod could be a
suspended space in soft transparent plastic with
doubled or multipled walls, filled with transparent
insulating gel, and membranes along which a range
of tubes for services and structural blades are threaded
for quick assembly or dis-assembly. Other kinds of
models used cast, extruded, sewn or injection molded
plastic to build model prototypes for the body and head
gear. Another type is a backpack/jacket/pod
combination, equipped with a baby-sling and
protective bubble. These wearable environments
envisioned life on a landscape in a minimal capsule-
like portable environment combining the ideas of a living
pod, a library capsule, and a pharmaceutical module,
all incorporating views, lenses, or some ‘concentrate’
of a natural landscape, so that the natural environment
would not be disturbed by the individual who inhabits
it. The various-sized capsule or module would include
ultra-light wearables with interchangeable snap-on
elements that provide visual or other information about
miniaturized perceptible environments.
Lo-fi and Hi-fi: Steve Topping, Vincent
Thériault, Norman Richards
Lo-fi: Over the winter of 1996–7, SteveTopping, a Toronto-
based, self-taught visual artist, built an encampment near
Cartier in northern Ontario. His method of travel continues
the American tradition of riding the rails.This mode of travel
involves going to the train yard, finding a freight train that
is travelling in the direction one wants to go, and climbing
on as it is leaving or stowing away, inside or on top until it
leaves. While hopping freight trains requires extremely
Transportable Environments: Design
light luggage, Topping packed enough material to
assemble a winter shelter, adequate for the minus 30
degree weather of northern Ontario, in his backpack and
carry-on luggage. Except for food supplies, he brought in
the cladding material and tools for his hut structure when
he arrived in Cartier. The forest and a previous
encampment provided the branches and a metal flue.The
skin of the hut is a sheet of plastic from Western Tarpaulin
Company, consisting of three layers, a clear woven glass-
fibre layer sandwiched between two transparent layers.
Topping carried the plastic tarpaulin and aluminum-
coated paper bundled and tied around a bow saw, and
carried twine, additional building and camping supplies
in a backpack, and made the first of a series of voyages
into the forest to build his portable encampment. The
structures used branches bent into traditional arc shapes
and tied, with the plastic laid on top. The camp was build
over the found cylindrical flue which Topping transformed
into a fire container. He built his structure into a paraboloid
form, and placed the heat source at one end and lined the
arched ends with reflective metallic-coated kraft paper,
so the shape refocusses heat at each end of the interior.
The camp was not only built of materials that could be
carried by one person, but once assembled, could be
moved in one piece—by two people—to a new site. To
date Topping has used the encampment as a place to
observe the Halle-Bop Comet.
Hi-fi: Designed as a high-technology life-raft, the
Esperanto, an egg-shaped survival craft by New
Brunswick-based inventor, Vincent Thériault and his
company Ovatek Ltd., is intended for use if vessels
capsize in rough, cold Atlantic waters, where hypothermia,
high winds and multi-storey tall waves, as well as the
danger of violent impact against the sinking vessel are
design factors. The egg, of smooth fibreglass-reinforced
plastic, approximately three metres long and weighing
263 kilograms, is ballasted and can become completely
enclosed except for two air vents. Once again the
paraboloid shape is used to conserve heat, in this case
generated by the occupants of the craft, for maximum
interior energy exploitation.13 Through his firm called
143
Marie-Paule Macdonald

Personal Pod made by Norman Richards

144

Dogbite, Norman Richards’ work is inspired by the tent
designs of Charles William Moss, whose work is both
mass-marketed in camping stores and collected by
institutions like the Museum of Modern Art. Since
graduating from University of Waterloo School of
Architecture, where he worked on a portable assemblage
designed to shelter a ‘nomadic club’, composed of a
series of ballasted tensile structures using highly refined
connections, Richards has continued to design an
architecture of composite, light, simply connected
technological assemblies. Richards uses materials that
are culled from camping suppliers, mountain climbing
equipment, and automobile equipment. The personal
enclosure pod, used as a dressing room in a clothing shop,
uses a black nylon textile, the aluminum alloy tubes
manufactured for Moss tents and a variety of fittings familiar
to camping and climbing equipment: Fastex buckles
made of a patented material, Delrin 500, whose
durometer—or combination of density and springiness—
allows the two tongs to be squeezed together and slip
into the buckle readily. The shock cords, familiar from
mountaineering or bungee-jumping, are attached
through grommets in the nylon to modified swiftclips,
adapted from a shock cord tie-down system.The elegant
1 Velimir Khlebnikov, ‘Ourselves and Our Buildings, II, Remedies
from the yet-to-be-city of the Futurians’, Letters and Theoretical
Writings, transl. Paul Schmidt, ed. Charlotte Douglas,
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1987, p.350–1.
2 Ibid., p.351.
3 Ibid., p.353.
4 William Gibson interviewed in Eye magazine, Toronto
weekly, Sept. 9, 1993, p.11.
5 Gaetano Pesce, ‘Reconstruction of an Underground City
and a Habitat for Two People in an Age of Great
Contamination’, in Italy: the New Domestic Landscape, New
York, Museum of Modern Art, 1972.
6 Sylvia Katz, ‘Plastics in the ‘80s’, in The Plastics Age, London:
Victoria & Albert Museum, 1990, p.145.
7 Ibid., p.146–7.
8 Greenpeace, PVC: Toxic Waste in Disguise, 1992.
9 Cedric Price, ‘Homes and Houses’, AA Files 19, 1987, p.30.
10 Françoise Choay, L’Allégorie du patrimoine, Paris, Le Seuil,
Transportable Environments: Design
tent structure can be assembled in twenty minutes and
packs into a wad that is a light, minimal cubic volume.
Conclusion
Pressures on ecological systems, sensitivity to time and life-
cycles in urban settlement, the obsolescence and the need to
revise social frameworks for wellbeing, and issues of personal
liberty have led to a reexamination of the dwelling unit and its
possible incarnations, a key theme in heroic modern
architecture, and the focus for innovative projects by radical
architects of the 1960s. In a radio interview in 1985 on Radio
France, the sociologist Alain Touraine suggested that during
the 1960s societies moved forward very quickly and
experimented with many ideas, traversing a high point from
which many possibilities were visible. He characterized
subsequent decades as a period of traversing valleys, where
there have been no clear path and no long-range perspective.
Astheso-called‘developed’culturestrytore-connectwiththeir
natural environment, we observe that individuals wish to dwell
differently in different seasons, and that a range of kinds of
homes,someportableandlight,designedfordifferentseasons,
situations, times of day and night, or phases of life, augment
and interchange the possibilities for dwelling.
1991, p.194. (Author’s translation from the original French text:
‘En abandonnant l’illusion de vaincre l’entropie par la durable
solidité d’un monde édifié à cette fin, nous perdrions une catégorie
des arts plastiques, ceux qui nous enracinent dans la terre et
dans le temps. Mais le désengagement de ces attaches ne
serait pas sans compensation. II peut aussi apparaître comme
l’affranchissement de contraintes biologiques, comme une
libération, et un gain d’énergie à dépenser autrement.Tel était le
message des techniciens qui, durant les années 1960,
inventaient les structures temporaires, gonflables ou tendues,
et imaginaient ces agglomérations éphémères, branchables
ou débranchables à l’instant sur des réseaux techniques, qu’ils
baptisèrent’. Instant City ou Plug-in-City.)
11 Edward W. Said, ‘Intellectual Exile: Expatriates and
Marginals’, Grand Street, 47, Fall 1993, vol. 12, number 3, editor
Jean Stein, New York: Grand Street Press, pp.113–124.
12. Ibid.
13. Equinox, no. 87, June 1996 (Toronto, Canada), p.19.
145
 Whaur Extremes Meet—The Story of a Line
Gavin T.Renwick
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee
Wendy Gunn
University of Manchester
I’ll ha’e nae huaf-way hoose, but aye be whaur
Extremes meet—it’s the only way I ken
To dodge the curst conceit o’ being right
That damns the vast majority o’ men.
Hugh MacDiarmid
‘A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle’ 1926
‘Whaur Extremes Meet’
Whaur Extremes Meet functioned as a meeting point
for different opinions—a place for the mutual
illumination of blind spots, to use George Davies’
expression (1986). Quoting Murdo MacDonald, ‘It was
an instant college building in the sense of a place
where a company of people can congregate,
essentially provisional (i.e. meeting necessity) in a
society in which channels of communication between
people have either been severed or have became
clogged with irrelevancies’.1
The structure, through being recognised for its
purpose rather than its appearance, enabled people
to wander in and out, participating in a conversation
of which their own circumstances were part. It enabled
meaningful and relevant conversation about their city
without the usual constraints of preexisting
bureaucracies and institutions. Specialists and
politicians were involved but only through
recognising that they had no special power there and
their roles were open to scrutiny, not only by others
but by themselves. Generally speaking the
collaborative team recognised the restrictions of
conducting debates according to conventional
polarities and attempted to challenge environmental
146
perceptions that posit these elements as
irreconcilable (art or architecture, aesthetics or
technology, tradition or modernity, freedom or society,
rural or urban).
The bio-climatic discussion forum was designed and
constructed in Istanbul. It was assembled,
disassembled and transported overland and built in
Athens, Belgrade, Budapest, Prague, Berlin and
finally Glasgow. It acted as a catalyst through providing
a focus for formal discussions. Additional events and
workshops were organised by the inhabitants of each
city ranging, for example in Istanbul, from a local
council meeting (one of many convened in the
structure) to a performance art group utilising the
structure as a framework for a public performance.The
formal discussions included ‘The Effects of Rural
Migration’, in Istanbul, ‘Environment and the City’, in
Athens, ‘Nationalism v. Internationalism’, in Belgrade,
‘A National Architectural Language?’ in Budapest,
‘The Effects of Totalitarianism on City Planning’, in
Prague, ‘The Development of Potzdammer Platz’, in
Berlin, and in Glasgow ‘The Design of Public Space’
and ‘Community Involvement in the Design Process’.
Research for the project was initially conducted in the
Cankurtaran area of Istanbul, where the project team
lived and worked. The area is situated between the
Sea of Marmara and Sultanahmet, bounded by sea
and the walls of the Topkapi Palace. During 1989 and
1990 the inhabitants were mainly from the Black Sea
and Eastern Anatolian regions of Turkey. The site’s
geographical isolation from the city gave it an
autonomy and sense of community that defied its

social isolation by the Istanbul bourgeoisie.
Conventional design briefs seem to encourage the
abstract definition of space and isolation of function
over a design evolving from an investigation of the
social processes of surrounding context, the realities
(the potentials) of climate, the process of habitation.
The impetus, development, design and programming
of this project was therefore done in total collaboration
and specific to context. The collaborative team
developed an intuitive understanding of each given
public place in each of the project’s locations, through
research and documentation of the processes of
habitation and movement patterns. Our then naive
optimism drove the idea of collaboration to a logical
conclusion, defying our specialisms and attempting
to negate our professional egos through developing
the design by drawing in unison, consciously
attempting to challenge the quantitative methodology
and metric measurements that conventionally
describe and conceive environment through
impersonalised abstract theory. By extending the
collaboration to include a structural and
environmental engineer (from project sponsor Ove
Arup & Partners) and local craftspeople at a relatively
early stage in the design development we managed
to integrate environmental and structural
technologies that remained responsive to context.
The task was to develop an appropriate technology
that was responsive to seven physically, culturally and
climatically diverse locations while meeting the
restrictions of a limited budget. Essentially a day-time
structure, having no electricity, artificial heating,
cooling or lighting, its servicing was self-contained,
and autonomous from any generated energy source
in each city. Its fragmented construction was adaptable
to different climates encountered. Adjustable louvres
controlled the light and solar gain to the internal space,
permitting wind to pass through the structure aiding
stability in adverse weather conditions while still
allowing visual and audio contact between discussion
in the group and the passing public. Gaps between
Transportable Environments: Design
each segment allowed air movement to alleviate heat
radiation inwards. Learning from Turkoman nomads,
water-filled tanks encircled the structure, acting as
counterweights and climate control. The stack effect
of the design was used to draw air and evaporation
through the structure.
Sponsorship and research funding for the project
included: The European Cultural Foundation, The
British Council, The Scottish Arts Council, Strathclyde
Regional Council, Glasgow District Council, Eminonu
Belediyesi, Ove Arup & Partners, Emlak Bankasi, John
Walker & Sons and British Rail International.
‘The Story of a Line’
A thread was pulled tightly and then secured against
the wall. Another thread followed and another. We had
constructed a three-dimensional drawing using
lengths of thin black cotton. From one corner of the
room to the other the thin black lines began to thicken
in a process that traced a route from Istanbul to
Glasgow, from East to West. Memories of our journey
overland through Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade
and Athens returned our thoughts to the action of
drawing. Involving both gesture and speech in a
situated context, it initiated our first tentative steps in
creating three-dimensional form. Overlaid onto the
European map, the tracings with threads became
darker and more pronounced as they interspersed,
interacted, and interconnected with one another. This
was a physical act involving not just our mind but also
the body engaged in a way of doing, that was both
deliberate and non-intentional, placing each thread
on top and over another thread. I placed a thread, you
placed another over and over, until the lines began to
merge and a form could be sensed. I recorded this form
by inscribing in ink a moment, that reminded us of past
experiences. Memories of our train journey in early
January 1990, travelling overland stopping at Berlin,
Prague, Budapest, Belgrade and Athens returned our
thoughts to drawing, the act that initiated our first
147
Gavin T.Renwick and Wendy Gunn
tentative steps in creating three-dimensional form. At
the border points of East and West Berlin, Belgrade
and Athens, Athens and Istanbul we seemed to
encounter both tension and disinterestedness in the
changing circumstances and events that followed the
fall of Communism. As we encountered significant
events, I could not help thinking that what we were
witnessing was a series of end points. The spectacles
seemed to be nothing more than performances
conveniently re-enacted for the attention of the media.
I realised that any understanding of the significance
of these changes had to be concerned with the non-
spectacle, and the non-visible aspects of the everyday.
The lines disappeared and form and content began
to permeate the surface of the paper.
From an inscription on a Turkish Mosque, I looked at a
postcard of Lake Van. On the card Urartu script was
juxtaposed with an insert of the building’s front
elevation. Though crudely portrayed, it nevertheless
indicated to me that the script inscribed on the stone
walls of the building entailed a certain relationship
between image and text that was similar to the use of
Islamic script and painting in the Turkish miniatures
that we had studied in Istanbul. In order to understand
the cosmopolitan nature of this secular Islamic culture
it was important to visit the towns and villages outside
its urban centres. We undertook a journey to the Black
Sea coast, to Eastern Anatolia, to the Iraqi and Iranian
border towns. By bus, by foot, by hitching lifts in lorries
and cars. On the return journey by boat I remember
looking down to the lower deck to see an open-backed
lorry full of people. They said that one of the major
problems in Istanbul today is the influx of migrant
workers from rural areas of Turkey.They said that over
two hundred families were arriving every day causing
great stress to the infrastructure of the city.
Returning to the studio we began to work with the
technique of collage as a way of drawing, tearing and
pressing down each layer of paper, translating
thoughts, memories and ideas from one type of
148
language to another. There were many lines on the
page but only some that could have meaning. Its
weight, its direction said much more with less. Each of
us was fighting with predetermined approaches,
methods and responses and the difficulty lay in
allowing some ideas to be forgotten, in order to
respond to our new context and a new way of working.
We continued to draw by shifting between the
immediate and local to think of the relationship
between this formal practice and a larger situational
context, involving a continual process of
communication with individuals and groups in Athens,
Belgrade, Prague, Berlin and Glasgow by means of
fax and telephone. I was concerned with your need to
know, before you could discover.You were concerned
with my discovering without knowing. At issue was the
need for plans, a need to prescribe a final form. On a
larger scale you placed great emphasis on knowing
exactly what was going to happen prior to the event
actually happening. It is essential, you said, for the
construction, essential for the craftsmen, essential for
local planning authorities in gaining permission to
build—but what was it exactly, that was so essential?
The convergence of lines seemed to begin a process
from which a sense of clarity emerged. Each sketch
made it possible for a discussion to happen, an
exchange of knowledge to take place. But I would
always take the view epitomised by the comment of
Deleuze and Guattari, that ‘The ground-level plane
of the Gothic journeyman is opposed to the metric
plane of the architect, which is on paper and off site’.2
I knew that I would have to reconsider this position,
since while we could never be off site, there was to be
more than one site and there were to be only temporary
locations. We listened to reports of the Velvet
Revolution, the stories of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we
listened to accounts of the shootings of left-wing
polititians in Ankara, of Ceaiçescu and his wife being
shot in Bucharest, all in Turkish time on Turkish radio.
We made. We listened and constructed while using
communication technologies to explain the meanings
of these lines to bureaucrats, to artists, to architects,

to planners, to historians, to journalists, to politicians,
to social scientists. As we adopted many ways of
explaining the project to many individuals and groups,
casual drawings used by us during conversations
became a way of documenting a situated action, a way
of representing non-verbal thought. A flow, ephemeral
and fluid. A line that was drawn in two and three
dimensions on bill tabs, on account books, on
wrapping paper. Some lines remained flat against the
paper; others ceased to be related to the paper at all.
The environmental engineer sent a graph from
London, indicating pathways of the sun’s
movements, variations in temperature, rainfall and
wind force in each of the cities participating in the
project. In parallel we looked at a map depicting
territorial divisions demarcating new political
boundaries, but in contrast nothing is more
deterritorialized than matter and movement.3 As the
line becomes recognisable as a form, a
transmutation of form takes place. In this process
mistakes were made along the way but became
incorporated to convey the feeling of the object as it
penetrated the space. You tended to perceive the
object from an external viewpoint rather than from
the inside looking outwards. My technique was to
move the eye through, relating things to other things.
By repetition, we developed a vocabulary that
enabled us to find diversions away from the notion
of a finished and complete object towards finding,
as Strathern would say, ‘partial connections’.4 The
line enabled us to embody experience. It allowed us
to conceive of variation. If you do it wrong, you start
again or you utilise the mistakes, building on each
fading layer. We discover parts, fragments, marks
that seem to make sense, some marker of what we
may know. To take my and your sketches out of the
studio and into the city I took them to the photocopy
booth. I remember the man questioning me, asking
if these drawings belong to a child. I said no, these
drawings are not the work of a child. He laughed and
apologised. These enlarged and reduced
Transportable Environments: Design
photocopies allowed us to see afresh the level of
understanding that had been reached.
Drawings that get lost in the making
The metal-worker was recommended by a sculptor.
She had mentioned he had experience of working on
creative projects. It was a small-scale family business
working mainly on different types of welding. His work
placed emphasis on the strength of his fixings and
fastenings, not on the quality of his craftsmanship. We
made our first visit with a model, a reduced projection
of what the structure was going to look like, a kit of parts
that came together to make a greater part of an
incomplete whole. Our Turkish was inadequate to
communicate in verbal discussion the meaning of
these drawings or the model. Our hands, our bodies
became animated when trying to emphasise to the
translator what exactly we wanted to do. Always these
negotiations returned to the financial costs and the
time limitations imposed by specific deadlines. Our
concern was to achieve the right forms in mild steel
and aluminium. On returning from the workshop we
would continue our discussions and drawings,
working into the early morning hearing the first call to
prayer by the Imam from the nearby mosque.
The model could be taken apart section by section,
detailed to show each craftsman the relationships
between each of the materials, wood, aluminium, steel
and canvas and the extent to which their individual
skills was required. The metal-worker, the wood-
worker and the canvas fabricator saw it as a starting
point, not an end point to aim towards. Initially the
model and technical drawings were left with the metal-
worker. He seemed only to refer to them when we
visited with the translator. We discussed, and we
visited. He would ask the translator a question
addressed to you and then we would discuss; then,
you would speak to him through the voice of the
translator. Initially I found this relationship difficult for
he had problems addressing questions directly to me.
149
Gavin T.Renwick and Wendy Gunn
How could I begin to explain that I had previous
experience of basic welding in addition to spending
a year studying casting techniques in a foundry in
Scotland? One day we realised that in this process of
negotiation the drawings and model were not
necessarily the focus of the metal-worker’s concerns.
It became clear that he was becoming frustrated by
this elongated process of communicating when he
laid down large sheets of paper on the workshop floor
and asked you to draw each section of the aluminium
roof. This was how the templates were made. Eight in
all, one by one. You were drawing on the ground with
chalk, to find the right curve.You asked, is that the right
curve? We discussed and the mark was redrawn to a
point that we could agree. The line referred back to
that first sketch that seemed to gain a form of
permanency through all these interactions. The chalk
line was imitated by means of the metal-worker’s
bandsaw retracing that line that was first apparent in
the early sketches. The importance of getting the right
curve was essential to the bio-climatic functioning of
the discussion forum. Each of the sections had to be
carefully shaped and angled in order to respond to
climatic change, in each of the sites where the structure
was located. The roofing section altered to act in
different ways, functioning at its extremities, both as a
natural cooling system and a form of temperature
control in Athens and a wind tunnel in Glasgow.
But what of this structure’s buildability? This was a
question addressed to us in the initial stages of its
development and a question that I have heard
repeated on numerous occasions to students by
architects and teachers. In response, I recall a
conversation with a construction engineer who
reminded me that the question is not one of
buildability, but perhaps a matter of asking whether it
is worth building in the first place.
In Istanbul we were immersed in a context where it
was still possible to mend things even if we thought
them beyond repair. It was possible to go to the local
150
cobbler and get a pair of shoes repaired that would
be perceived as unrepairable in Britain. We became
aware that it was possible to collaborate with
craftsmen working in more experimental ways than
was possible in specialised manufacturing
processes. It was interesting to compare the means
of production and to discover how greater
sophistication in the use of technologies seemed to
be leading to restricted notions of what could be done
with materials. The issue here is not only whether a
British counterpart would be willing to undertake such
a service but also whether he would have the skills to
enable him to undertake such a repair. Is the Turkish
craftsman, then, engaged in a process that is akin to
what Claude Lévi-Strauss called bricolage? Lévi-
Strauss explains the concept as the ability to:
perform a large number of diverse tasks; but,
unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate
each of them to the availability of raw materials
and tools conceived and procured for the
purpose of the object. His universe of
instruments is closed and the rules of his game
are always to make do with “whatever is at
hand,” that is to say with a set of tools and
materials which is always finite and is
heterogeneous because what it contains bears
no relation to the current project, but is the
contingent result of all the occasions there have
been to renew or enrich the stock or to maintain
it with the remains of previous constructions or
destructions.5
The set of the ‘bricoleurs’ means a construction cannot
therefore be defined in terms of a project (which would
presuppose besides that, as in the case of the
engineer, there were, at least in theory, as many sets
of tools and materials, or ‘instrumental sets’, as there
are different kinds of projects). An object is to be
defined only by its potential use or, putting this another
way and in the language of the ‘bricoleur’ himself,
because the elements are collected or retained on

the principle that ‘they may always come in handy’.
Such elements are specialised up to a point, sufficiently
for the ‘bricoleur’ not to need the equipment and
knowledge of all trades and professions, but not
enough for each of them to have only one definite and
determinate use.
They each represent a set of actual and possible
relations; they are ‘operations’ but they can be used
for any operations of the same type.6
A time/motion bar chart was faxed to us, from a leading
firm of engineering consultants in London with
recommendations that alternative dates would have
to be arranged. It was envisaged that it would not be
possible for us to complete the project within the
designated time allowed. I remember a local Istanbul
architect suggesting that in order for the project to
succeed you must utilise the resources and ways of
doing that already exist within the context in which you
are working. To come to a place with a predetermined
plan that has a prescribed conception of the way things
should be done would be working against the flow
necessary for an exchange of knowledge and skills
to take place. The challenge alongside designing and
building was also to learn how people worked together,
how people made things in Istanbul, from buying tools
and nuts and bolts in the local tradesman’s market to
negotiating the use of public space in the city centre
with local politicians. In these interactions we gradually
involved ourselves with the everyday.
Translation and interpretation
The rawness of the unfinished welding on the metal
surfaces was offset by the highly polished crafted
beauty fashioned by the woodworker.
A taxi collected us from the metal workshop and drove
us to the carpenter’s workshop. It was a large
basement in the Asian side of the city. Amidst low-cost
housing units, we discovered a workforce of around
Transportable Environments: Design
twelve, immersed in the construction of shop-fittings
for the rapidly developing Western-influenced
shopping units in Beylgou.Yilmaz took great care with
the quality of his wood-finishing. By touching the
surface of each unit, it was possible to understand that
he was a master craftsman using his ability to impart
something of himself to give the forms constructed a
uniqueness and specific identity.
We had produced a kit of parts. The difficulty lay in
understanding the possibilities inherent in the
physical structure’s incompleteness. But it cannot be
finished.That is it for the moment.The rest will happen:
the dwelling, the people, the places and the actions.
Allowing for these factors and time to flow was as much
a consideration as the practicalities of construction.
The structure was not conceived as an object to be
viewed from an external vantage point, but only
functioned at its points of interaction between
participants and the specific contexts in which they
were involved.
In the late evening the metal-worker came to the site,
enclosed by the walls of Topkapi Palace, positioned
in one of the oldest communities still existing in the
city. The glow from the metal-worker’s blow-torch lit
the newly created public park, attracting local people
and children, who came to watch all the activities with
interest. They knew, that there was a possibility to get
involved for we had spoken to the local people during
the course of living and working in the area. Many
hesitated and in fact withdrew their participation in
formal discussions for fear of speaking out in a public
context. It should be explained that this was the first
opportunity for public debate to be held in an open-
air public space for ten years, and most people were
reluctant to speak openly unless they had some
institutional or political affiliation. Yet by chance a few
individuals from the local community overheard the
dialogue while passing through the structure.
Professionals were discussing the clash of interests
in the area between developers who wanted to buy
151
Gavin T.Renwick and Wendy Gunn
land for the provision of hotels to meet the demands
of a growing tourist industry, and local councillors who
were faced with the problems of inadequate housing
stock for the existing community. These few passing
individuals interrupted the course of professional
rhetoric, changing the nature of dialogue to include
their voices that had never been allowed to be
represented before, asking blatant questions about
the future of their homes.
The art of persuasion by visual means
The use of image and text in the process of negotiation
became easier as the drawings became more
realistic and less abstract. It tended to be that, in order
to convince people, we had to reassure them that we
knew exactly what the final product would look like.
‘It’, the bio-climatic structure, often became the focus
of aesthetic concerns, even though we explained on
many occasions that it was actually a part of a larger
overall project. The problem for us, as creative
practitioners, was to shift the focus of analysis beyond
a critique of the aesthetic qualities of physical form to
reconsider the techno-social relations integral to a
situated context.
Instead of cutting away the words from the sheets of
drawings, I became interested to find out at what point
script transforms itself into image, and at what point
lines come to have meaning beyond the immediate
context of the line itself. Often I would reverse the page
to study the text as an image.This was a similar process
to how I would interpret Islamic script without
understanding it as a language to be read. As the lines
themselves communicated significant points of
understanding, the words also began to record
instances of speech that was usually untranslatable
beyond the context of the situated action.7 Image and
text merged to form a diagram that evolved through
recording a series of movements, our movements as
both participants and witnesses to a series of events.
The challenge was to perceive these events not as a
152
spectator would perceive a spectacle. Responding
to these diagrams specific gestures were recorded in
facsimile and letters by participants in each of the cities
involved. In Berlin the administrative body demanded
an exactness of weight, height and what shape the
structure was. This precision was deemed essential
prior to locating the structure in a site situated in
Kreutzberg near to the remnants of the Berlin Wall.
The graphic forms adapted themselves to such
contexts; they became integral to the processes of
explanation, decision-making and conversation.
Munn describes a similar process of the casual use of
graphic forms among the Walbiri people of the
Northern Territory of Australia in their everyday
conversation and storytelling. ‘In these latter contexts,
meanings referring to daily experience and tradition
are regularly pumped into the graphics, and so
graphic forms enter into the Walbiri imagination as a
kind of visual language for ordering meanings in
general, rather than simply as a fixed set of forms for
representing or referring to totemic ancestors.’8
A continuous process of explanation was required
where speech and drawing became intertwined. Each
group, each individual, asked for different ways of
describing the meaning of such research. Each
retelling of the project was different, allowing us to look
at the material in new ways. Munn describes how the
Walbiri peoples of Central Australia interweave
graphic elements and narrative action. She explains
that a story is recounted by drawing repeated graphic
elements on the sand, each configuration being
directly related to the flow of narrative action.9
Every element of the structure was conceived to be
used by individuals and groups that had little or no
knowledge of the physical process of building.
Construction workshops were organised involving
architectural, engineering and fine art students.
During the course of building they were involved in a
process of continuous assembly and dis-assembly;
the action itself was to be the focus of their attention.

There was no inside or outside. The surface of the
structure was both open and closed, allowing for an
awareness of an interface between internal and
external domains, public and private, formal narratives
and passing conversations. An external pathway
allowed direct entry into the discussion area as a
participant or allowed for passing observers to look
and listen to specific discussions without direct
involvement. Ten seats were situated within close
proximity of each other suggesting that something
was about to happen. We attempted to suggest that
the structure required a presence to have meaning.
In this respect the structure acted as a catalyst for such
action to take place. It also seems relevant here that
activity proceeds from a static centre, as in the case
where thought proceeds to speech to an active outer
form. Witherspoon discusses the Navajo conception
of beautifying the world through art. He says: ‘The
balance here between the static center and the active
ends seems to express the cultural emphasis on
restrained aggressiveness, controlled movement and
activity, and refined adaptability. Once it has served
its purpose it has no value.’10
An intermingling of lines had led to the development
of a kit of parts that had no other use than as a point
where interaction occurred between people, place
and action. The bio-climatic structure was never
perceived as a complete object in its own right for there
was more than one way of interpreting its meaning as
an object. Its traces were in the memories of those who
were involved, for there was no permanent record of
its being. This was deliberate. The structure left no
physical imprint on any of the sites in which it was
constructed. It was built to function independently of
the existing infrastructure of the city. There was no
artificial light, heating or water supply. As the structure
moved from East to West it could be conceived as
gaining a series of coats, responding physically to
changes in the social, physical and political contexts
in which it was situated. In parallel to the accumulation
of physical layers, the gestures of the discussion
Transportable Environments: Design
participants became less animated and their speech
became less expressive. Emphasis was placed on
the non-event or, as Lévi-Strauss would say, the
concer n was with ‘transient’ and ‘natural’
phenomena. 11 During the collaborative design
process mistakes became a way of setting up new
possibilities, detours and new ways of thinking about
constraints. Leaving the traces of past marks on the
paper allowed relations to be established until an
accumulation of interconnections led to the mistake
becoming incorporated and adding to sets of new
limitations. The earliest marks reflected a certain
hesitancy and awkwardness that was related to the
beginnings of a collaborative working process. They
did not express a sense of tension and decisiveness.
These early images reconnected with the essential
concepts which gave impetus to a form of portable
architecture that included the performative aspects
of tradition.
Exploring the value of the visual image in
understanding and memory
‘Differential relations always select minute
perceptions that play a role in each case, and bring to
light or clarify the conscious perception that comes
forth.’12
Clarifying thoughts in image allowed a synthesis to
occur, as the memories of discussions and
experiences indicated a transformation in European
social, political and historical conditions. The
continuous exposure to a succession of events and
the visible remnants of change required us to find a
means to document that did not replicate the nature
of the event itself but rather an experience of an
involvement at points of transition. Any translation
required concentrated periods of production. We used
recycled things collected during our journeys,
memories of meetings with individuals and groups,
paper, words, texts, photographs and drawings and
combined them with materials that we found in the
153
Gavin T.Renwick and Wendy Gunn
markets of Istanbul. The collaborative process,
involving the artist and the architectural designer,
moved towards recognising the limitations of the
knowledge systems that our particular disciplines
offered, and we began to perceive ourselves as
creative practitioners working collaboratively. Many
years of training led us to see in particular ways, limiting
our capacity as individuals to look beyond this way of
seeing. The problem with such research is that in the
face of the unknown there is always a tendency to
retreat back to what is already ‘known’ and to the power
relations that enable us to restore a spatial order.There
was no final drawing that could be said to be an image
of the final form; you reminded me of that fact. There
were no final visualisations, no details. Our awareness
of the final structure only came into being when we
realised that what we were dealing with was a series
of elements that could undergo transformation. At this
point there was a mutual understanding.
Building, craftsmanship and the poetics
of construction
Each element had to meet the criteria of, firstly, being
able to be assembled by individuals or groups that
had little experience of building, and secondly,
allowing participants to become aware of the
relationship of their bodies to the immediate
environment. Each action had significance for it
enabled a relationship to be established that placed
emphasis on the performative aspects of the building
process itself. There was an existing set of elements
specific to the environmental conditions of each site.
In parallel to the changing formal qualities of the
structure in each city, differing narrative styles and
topics for discussion were adopted by the various
groups involved. Importance was given to expressing
a rhythm in the overall project that allowed for certain
features continually to repeat themselves while other
aspects were continually changing.Through historical
research we studied traditional techniques of
environmental control in the Turkish nomadic yurt
154
alongside methods used to preserve water by
nomadic tribes in desert regions and their potential
use in a contemporary context.The study of the Turkish
yurt influenced our basic ideas of construction, mobility
and notions of dissolving the boundary between the
built form and the surrounding context. Overlaying
technical drawings, we would draw as a method of
questioning and response similar, but not identical,
to speaking. A walk into the city led us to discover ideas
about fixings and fastenings from the tent-like
structures used by local market traders, learning ways
of weaving and knotting with rope that could be used
to lace canvas onto steel tubing.
The use of water was integral to the environmental
strategy adopted by the artist and architectural designer,
in collaboration with environmental and construction
engineers Battle/McCarthy (formerly of Ove Arup,
London). As wind passed over the water troughs situated
one metre below the structure, moisture was carried into
the main discussion area, keeping participants naturally
cool in temperatures in Athens and Istanbul which were
reaching in excess of ninety degrees centigrade. By
contrast in Glasgow, the water troughs acted as dead
weight protecting the structure from high winds. Both the
environmental engineer and the construction engineer
had been involved in the research project from the early
conceptual stages of its development. During a three-
day workshop in Istanbul they responded by providing
a set of possibilities utilising existing scenarios and
research material that we had collected and collated
during our nine-month stay. Central to their concerns was
the final monitoring of the environmental technologies
involved in this socio-technical experiment,
documenting its performance in each of the sites visited
for future use in building design.
Whaur Extremes Meet was an attempt to provide another
way of exploring socio-technical relationships beyond
expounding the problems inherent within the built
environment, as being re-presented through
contemporary critical analysis.

Commenting on the way Navajo art expresses beauty
as a dynamic force, Witherspoon explains that:
…it flows to one and from one; it is found not in
things, but in relationships among things.
Beauty is not to be preserved but to be
continually renewed in oneself and expressed
in one’s daily life activities.13
As the line underwent transformation it extended itself
beyond the realm of two dimensions to three. A larger
movement occurred outside of the local context, a
movement that attempted to traverse boundaries of
knowledge and language. Individuals involved in
each of the discussion groups were interested in the
relationships between their specific dialogue and its
relation to other individuals and groups in different
locations as the structure moved from East to West.
By recounting the narrative recorded in each of the
locations visited we established a reality that placed
emphasis on differing perceptions of environments
at particular moments in time. On returning to Britain
opportunities to present the research material have
allowed us to tell many stories utilising the collated
documentation of the research in the form of drawings,
transcriptions of dialogue, photographic and video
records. It was interesting to find that the resulting
materials were resistant to being re-presented as
1 Murdo MacDonald, Variant, 1990. The first part of this
essay ‘Whaur Extremes Meet’ written by Gavin T.Renwick
was also published in ‘Ephemeral/Portable Architecture’
themed issue of Architectural Design, September/October
1998. The second part ‘The Story of a Line’ was written by
Wendy Gunn.
2 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattori, A Thousand Plateaus:
Capitalism and Schizophrenia, London, 1988, p.368.
3 Ibid, p.415.
4 Marilyn Strathern, Partial Connections, US, 1991.
5 Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, London, 1989.
6 Ibid, p.18.
Transportable Environments: Design
exhibits in their own right. When asked recently to give
a paper on new approaches to critical practice we gave
a performance that placed emphasis on the
relationship between narrative and the visual material
resulting from this research process. One member of
the audience criticised the project of Whaur Extremes
Meet as not having developed beyond this one
particular collaborative work. My response was to say
that the important factor in recounting the
significance of this form of portable architecture is
its connection with the ongoing present of everyday
life. We need to reconsider what we are actually
doing when we are re-telling ‘the same old story’, and
reflect for a moment on Munn’s description of Walbiri
iconography.
Since the sandgraphs disappear as the scene
is changed, the visual, extrasomatic channel is
no more time binding than the verbal and
gestural ones; all are characterised by “rapid
fading”. A particular story can never be looked
at as a unitary whole, and no retelling is likely to
reproduce the exact arrangements and scene
cycles again. No doubt, this feature in itself
reinforces the binding act of narration, for the
graphic stories produced at one time cannot be
used mnemonically later to evoke the larger
narrative content.14
7 Lucy A.Suchman, Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge,
1987, p.50.
8 Nancy D.Munn, Walbiri Iconography, Chicago and London,
1986, p.212.
9 Ibid, p.69.
10 Gary Witherspoon. Language and Art in the Navajo
Universe, USA, The University of Michigan Press, 1977.
11 Levi-Strauss, p.30.
12 Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque,
London, 1993, p.30.
13 Witherspoon, p.178.
14 Munn, p.78.
155
Technology

We need buildings which fulfil their task today and will do so tomorrow, which, in other words, do
not age in adhering to their forms and this becomes a drag upon the economy as well as the visual
environment. But in order to build adaptably we must try to build as lightly, as movably, as possible
and with the greatest perfection technically available.
Frei Otto and Peter Stromeyer, American Institute of Architects’ Journal, 1961

Prototype transportable structure:

The Development of a Lightweight Military Structure Daniel Fish, Neil Burford and Fraser Smith
 The Development of a Lightweight Military Shelter
Neil Burford, Daniel Fish and Fraser Smith
University of Dundee
Synopsis
The School of Architecture at Dundee University was
asked by a local company J.T.Inglis Ltd, to assist in
the design of a new shelter primarily for use by the
military.
The design has to meet the requirements of the
Ministry of Defence (MOD) Tentage 2000 brief. It must
be able to resist extremes of weather, be of significantly
less weight than existing designs and be quick and
easy to erect and dismantle. It is desirable that the
shelter can be carried by not more than 4 men, which
sets a weight target of not more than approximately
100kg. It should not rely too heavily on driven pickets.
Clear internal dimensions of approximately
10m×6m×3m height are required. Other
requirements are low radar signature, ease of repair
and the minimum number of separate parts.
A study of existing designs showed that the various
types of rib-supported dome and arch tents gave the
best characteristics in terms of weight and useful
internal space but were difficult to make strong enough
in the larger sizes. It was also apparent that the
principles of anticlastic curvature, currently used for
many of the large permanent architectural canopies in
order to increase rigidity and reduce fabric tensions,
were not being applied in the design of temporary
portable shelters such as are required for military,
camping, expedition and disaster relief purposes.
The design arrived at incorporates a novel patented
lightweight fabric-reinforced truss and anticlastic
158
curved panels of specially developed proofed
polyester cotton fabric. The truss incorporates a vinyl
ester resin/glass composite ‘pultrusion’ and novel
aluminium epoxy glass hinges. The tent is supplied in
one piece, including all its rigid parts, and may be
erected in 12 minutes and dismantled in 8.The weight
is approximately a third of existing equivalent designs.
Introduction
J.T.Inglis & Sons Ltd, are a long-established Dundee
canvas proofing company who have confidence that
their canvases have many advantages over the newer
plastic- or rubber-coated continuous filament
synthetic fibre fabrics which are increasingly being
used for permanent architectural structures and the
commercial tent hire trade. Canvas is a material which
relies on the close packing of the threads to be
waterproof. This water resistance is enhanced by the
threads being made partly of natural fibres which
swell slightly when wet and which bulk out and pack
together to produce a water- and weatherproof
material as well as providing a vehicle for the proofing
materials. The tight packing of the threads gives the
material sufficient shear strength to allow it to be joined
by stitching. Stitching, if correctly done with a suitable
seam design and thread, produces a strong,
waterproof, quickly made seam.
Unlike plastic- or rubber-coated materials the threads
which make the material waterproof also give strength
so that for a given weight canvas is generally
considerably stronger than coated material.
Weatherproof canvases can be made which are often

significantly lighter than the lightest coated fabrics.The
canvases are useable in their loom state but of course
their properties can be improved not by laying on a
pastry-like heavy layer of plastic or rubber, but by
proofing or impregnating the fabric with chemicals
which impart fire and rot resistance and also improve
water shedding and reduce water absorption. The
process can also significantly improve the
dimensional stability of the fabric and give improved
resistance to UV degradation.This process of proofing
adds much less to the overall weight of the material
than a plastic coating. Although canvases are
waterproof they are porous and some air can pass
through them. As a result of this and the slightly hairy
insulating surface they are less prone to condensation
problems.
In an effort to improve the image of their materials the
company decided to enter into a development
programme in which the modern skills of anticlastic
form finding and patterning were combined with their
more traditional materials and methods of fabrication.
A particular field which seemed ripe for improvement
was the development of more advanced shelters for
the military services and to this end they approached
the University of Dundee School of Architecture.
Form
A study of existing tents showed that the lightest
structures appeared to be ones involving pure tension
and compression. A simple example of this is the old
army bell tent. Its relative, the ridge tent, involves a
horizontal ridge beam, which improves internal space
at the expense of a heavier and more complicated
structure. Both forms enclose space in an awkward
and clumsy fashion, giving poor headroom at the
edges, and usually involve internal poles and quite
large tension forces being led down into the driven
picket ground anchors. The ratio of internal space to
area of fabric is low. Many commercial camping tents,
however, enclose space in a more useful fashion by
Transportable Environments: Technology
building a rather complicated tubular metal structure.
Unfortunately the resulting structure is slow to erect
and involves many separate and easily lost parts.
These tents generally have large flat panels which
are structurally as effective as a suspension bridge
with straight cables.
A compromise that the more exacting requirements Comparison of the ratio of internal space to fabric between
of the climber or backpacker have produced is the a conventional tent form and an arched shelter
flexible rib-supported dome or barrel vault tent. These
are supported on a series of slender ribs which are
elastically bent into arches from which the tent is
suspended or thrown over—in some cases both. Such
tents are light, capacious for the amount of fabric
involved, and are relatively fast and simple to erect.
They are however not particularly rigid and it has been
found that the scale laws do not allow the form to be
increased in size much beyond perhaps 1.4 metres
in height. Ribs which are slender enough to be bent to
the desired radius of curvature are insufficiently rigid
to support the weight of canvas and applied wind and
snow loads that have to be met as the tents become
larger.
Some means of stiffening such ribs was needed. Two
lines of thought were explored. The first was to see if it
would be possible to stiffen the rib with a series of struts,
the struts set at right angles to the rib and pointing down
into the tent and braced with wires holding the rib into
the desired curved shape. In view of the complexity of
this system, the number of separate parts required and
concerns over its durability, the option was not
developed. The alternative option was to develop an
idea that a diaphragm or web of fabric, tailored into an
elliptical form corresponding to the desired form and
shape of the final structure and to provide the most
advantageous internal space requirements, would
stiffen the rib in a similar fashion to the wires and struts.
This principle differs from the wires and struts in that
when the rib is forced to the shape of the fabric
diaphragm the length of the internal edge of the web
is less than the external edge connected to the rib.The Optimal shelter form
159
Neil Burford, Daniel Fish and Fraser Smith
rib trying to straighten causes the webbing on the
inside edge of the web to try to straighten which has
the effect of tensioning the individual bias-cut fibres
within the web.This effect is much increased if the two
ends of the rib are pulled apart by their fixing to the
ground. As a result, any induced loads from snow and
wind normally resulting in the collapse of the web due
to compression, in this instance, merely result in a
reduction in the pretension, thus maintaining a rigid
trussed support system.
Without the presence of the taut pre-tensioned web
the pultruded rib on its own would be unable to resist
applied loading.
Initial experiments were carried out using light chains
in order to explore the relationship between the shape
of the outer and inner curves. Triangulating the chain
model with strings indicated that the truss would be able
to carry shear loads.The co-ordinates of this model were
lifted off and used to pattern a quarter-scale model web
in tightly woven sailcloth. When attached to a 50×5mm
pultrusion the model immediately showed a significant
degree of stiffening. This first truss was made with
graduated stiffness; the centre region where it was flatter
was made stiffer by doubling up the thickness of the rib
so that it naturally bent to the desired flat arch form but
later experiments showed this to be unnecessary.
This model also highlighted some of the geometrical
problems which were likely to hinder the development
of a folding or collapsible rib. The main problem was
that in order to have a collapsible truss which would
fold flat it was necessary to release the web from the
rib in some fashion. In an effort to circumvent this
problem alternative solutions were tried. A web of
triangulated webbing and another of separate but
linked triangular panels, both failed to give much
stiffening. At this point it was realised that the web
would have to be attached to the rib at discrete
hanging points so that it could slide along the rib like
a curtain.
160
The fabric web-supported truss was to be the primary
support for the tent but it was considered that another
important feature of the structure would be the use of
anticlastic or double curved taut fabric membranes
between the trusses rather than utilising some form
of rigid secondary support. These membranes would
serve a double purpose. Not only would they be
relatively stiff and stable when keeping out the
weather but they would also prevent the rib from
buckling sideways under the compressive loads
induced in it. Fabric membrane theory shows that the
stress in a membrane is equal to the product of the
applied pressure and the radius of curvature of the
load-carrying threads. The anticlastic form means
that the concave upwards thread sthat stretch
between pairs of adjacent ribs can be relatively tightly
curved and hence can resist heavy downward wind
and snow loads without developing high stresses.
Wind uplift is resisted by the concave downwards
threads which are clearly curved to follow
approximately the shape of the rib and again the
relatively tight curvature keeps stresses low. The
tension forces in the membrane are transferred
uniformly into the rib by means of a Kaydor or bead
edge running in the grooves on the edges of the ribs
and, because of the anticlastic or double curvature
tension between the ribs, produces tension at right
angles over the arches.
Development of the rib
The rib is made in three pieces which are joined by a
special hinge which is described later. The overall
length of each rib is 9.73 metres. The centre section
is slightly longer than the two outside pieces so that
the rib may fold into the centre to give an overall
length of the folded-up tent of 3.3 metres.
A number of different materials were considered for
the rib. But after discussion with various potential
suppliers it became apparent that a fibre-reinforced
pultrusion was the most likely contender. The problem

was that, however effective the use of a fabric web
was, the maximum bending strength possible was
required from the rib while still being able to bend it
elastically to conform to the required cross-section
of the tent. In order that the rib could get the maximum
support from the main membrane on either side of it,
the membrane was secured to the rib by a Kaydor
bead running in a re-entrant groove on each side of
the rib. The Kaydor bead also gave a watertight and
weatherproof seal between the membrane and the
rib. There was a third re-entrant groove in the middle
on the underside of the rib carrying the proprietary
nylon sliders which connected the web to the rib.
The section had to resist torsional and bending forces.
The width of the section was not limited, however the
requirement to bend elastically to a particular minimum
radius defined by the internal space requirements
meant that the thickness of the rib was limited.This was
determined by the maximum linear extension or
compression that the material of the rib could withstand
without damage. In the event it was realised that a glass
fibre pultrusion would only allow a slightly thicker
section than one with carbon or Kevlar fibre
reinforcement, making it easier to incorporate the three
luff channels already mentioned. The weight penalty
of this thicker section was not great and the increased
strength of the larger section even of slightly weaker
material was an advantage. Finally a section was drawn
up which, when bent to the smallest radius of the
desired tent cross-section, gave a maximum extension
or compression of 0.4% in the outer fibres. The
pultruders suggested that we should not exceed 0.5%
Initially the pultruders were not happy at the problem
of producing the shape as drawn and suggested that
we use a half reversible section. The two halves would
be glued together and the central slot milled out. The
advantage of this was that it would be possible to
ensure that the longitudinal fibres would be totally
surrounded by a layer of woven glass cloth within
the pultrusion. In practice it was found that in spite of
Transportable Environments: Technology
taking considerable care it was difficult to produce a
secure glued joint. A reassessment of the position
by the pultruders convinced them that the section
could be made in one piece with adequate
reinforcement following round the inside the
grooves.
The design of the section with its combination of
continuous linear fibres, woven scrim reinforcement,
high glass to resin ratio, resin choice and tight
dimensional tolerances involved an extended
development programme.
The first pultrusion form
Development of the web
It was realised that a strong side wind load would
distort the truss. In order to provide resistance to the
shear loads the fabric of the web was made up as a
number of small panels with the warp and fill threads
on a 45° bias following round the curvature of the rib.
The material of the web is a 110g/sq.m. tightly woven
balanced weave polyester sail cloth which has a high
shear strength. The shape of the panels was defined
in a computer aided design (CAD) programme. The
panels were then plotted full size direct from the CAD
programme onto the fabric using a PC controlled
ORION plotter. For precision, a plain lap seam using
two rows of zig-zag stitching was used which is
normal sailmaking practice.
The web is connected to the rib by a series of
separate proprietary nylon slug sliders running in
the central groove of the rib. In this way the web may
be drawn back like a curtain to one end of the rib
without detaching it when the tent is erected or struck.
When the tent is erected, with the two ends of the rib
pushed slightly closer than their final spacing, the
web is drawn over from one side until it is near the
other end. With the web pulled as far over as is easily
attained a six-part pulley tackle is used finally to
stretch it tightly round the rib. It was an exciting
moment the first time the web was tensioned out and Final pultrusion form in one piece
161
Neil Burford, Daniel Fish and Fraser Smith
3D computer aided design drawings were used extensively to
model the components prior to manufacture
162
the rib curved itself over to a shape which checking
showed was precisely as designed. On forcing the
rib feet apart to the designed span the truss became
rigid.
Development of the hinge
After a number of false starts it was decided to write a
performance specification for the hinges that would
be needed in order that the tent could be folded up.
No attempt was made to limit the performance
specification in any way to what we felt would be
practical. The specification was as follows:
1) The hinge should have no sharp external
parts and should not trap the material or pick
up dirt.
2) The hinge must allow the rib to fold back
through a full 180° in one direction only.
3) The hinge must allow the rib to open out until
it is straight and then allow no further rotation,
thereby allowing the rib to be bent elastically
along its full length.
4) The pivot point(s) of the hinge must lie on the
neutral axis of the rib. (Two separated pivot
points are required if these are on the neutral
axis and if the rib is to fold back through 180°.)
5) The three grooves, one on each side and one
on the underside of the rib, must pass through
the hinge without interruption whether the hinge
is open or closed.
6) The hinge should develop the full downward
bending strength and torsional strength of the rib.
The finally determined design meets virtually all of
these requirements. Initially it was to be manufactured
from high-density glass-reinforced epoxy laminates
bonded together. This was also a cost-effective
method of prototyping the complicated cross-
sectional design without incurring mould or tooling
costs. However after making a number of prototypes
it was decided that the complexity of the final shape
and cost of bonding and machining were too high as
a viable production method. The current model is
therefore made of five aluminium precision
investment castings. The method is so accurate that
hardly any machining is needed prior to assembly. A
three-dimensional CAD system was extremely
valuable in modelling the hinge and determining that
the locking system worked.
It is a measure of the toughness and resilience of the
hinge/rib assembly that it is possible to half open the
hinges to 90° so that the end sections of rib are sticking
straight up in the air and then fold one upright end
section of rib over through 90° in one direction and
the other one through 90° in the other direction putting
a full 180° of twist into the middle section of rib without
failure.
Complete truss
The rib combined with its hinges and web and
tensioning system forms an arched truss which is
extremely light and and can be deployed or folded
away in a few moments.There is sufficient confidence
in the invention for international patent applications
to have been filed and a company formed with J.T.Inglis
Ltd, called Web Engineering and Fabric Technology
Ltd, to exploit the various applications of the invention
including this military shelter.
Form development
Initially the client was anxious to establish that a
feature of their tents was the use of arches inclined
in towards each other in pairs. This form superficially
has a number of advantages. Firstly it would appear
to be more stable since the pairs of arches support
each other and secondly the end of the tent is more
compact and better supported. However, it soon
became apparent that the sloping arch presented
more problems than it solved. The main problem was
that the panels between the arches were, of

necessity, oval in form and as a result it was
impossible to attach the panel to the rib without forcing
considerable curvature into the rib.
Final form
On discussing the problems inherent in the sloping
form it was agreed with the client that we would
abandon the inclined trusses and use equidistant
upright ones. The concern that with this form the tent
could collapse like a row of dominoes is false and only
the two end trusses need to be held upright. To do this
an additional shaped membrane called the anchor
sheet was added. The purpose of the anchor sheet is
to pull the end ribs outwards applying a uniform
outwards force over the full length of the rib.
Even with upright ribs the panels of fabric between
pairs of ribs are shorter in the middle than at the edges
so that the rib cannot lie flat on the ground when the
hinge is open. Folding up the tent relieves this stress
while when opening the tent out the rib has to ‘pop’
through the 180° position. This assists in shaping the
ribs and in drawing the web across.
The final form is shown in the images—the
exploded view highlights the main parts of the tent
as follows.
Centre panels
These are made of a specially developed 200g/
sq.m. 80/20 polyester/cotton canvas dyed to NATO
green and proofed by J.T.Inglis Ltd to resist rot,
mildew, water penetration and fire. The material
meets the fire resistance requirements of BS 5867
when tested to BS 5438 part 2A. The pieces are sewn
together using a double hooked lapped seam with
two rows of straight lock stitch. The anticlastic form
finding and patterning were carried out using the
tent form finding and patterning programme
SURFACE Version 2.0.
Transportable Environments: Technology
The two long edges of the panel which are secured to
the rib have 6mm Kaydor sewn along their full length.
This runs in the grooves on the two sides of the rib.
Where the centre panels come to the ground large
external sod cloths are fitted. These may either be
rolled up in hot weather for extra ventilation or
alternatively buried under snow or earth for additional
warmth and weather security.
Anchor sheet
Initial design form
The anchor sheets situated at each end of the tent hold
the end truss upright putting a distributed load into the
truss. The form finding, patterning, material and
construction method for this part are the same as for
the centre panels.The two outer corners of the anchor
sheets are fixed to pickets driven into the ground and
tensioned with 25mm webbing and cam buckles.
These are the main support for the tent and can be
supplied with an assortment of different pickets are
supplied for different circumstances and ground
conditions.
End piece
This shaped piece, which is formed in the same
manner and of the same materials, is hung from the Final design form: orthogonal views
inside edge of the anchor sheet using a series of
acetal resin bayonet buckles and Velcro. Making the
end of the tent detachable means that it is lighter and
easier to handle, cooler in hot climates and more
suitable as a vehicle repair or maintenance tent. As
with the anchor sheet the patterning seams are
geodesic lines radiating out to the rib. In view of the
taut double curved form a webbing-edged
horseshoe-shaped entrance is required. This is
closed by a double zipped internal flat curtain door
which allows entrance or exit without light escaping.
As shown in the diagram the entrance is protected
from rain by a porch supported on two light pultruded
masts. The porch is made of 70g/sq.m. fire retardant
polyester. Final design form: isometric view
163
Neil Burford, Daniel Fish and Fraser Smith
The shelter laid out ready for erection
The shelter erected by tensioning the web and the rib curving
into the predicted design shape
164
Analysis
At the present stage of the development the authors
consider that they have sufficient empirical
understanding of how the structure works to embark
on a numerical analysis. This is being carried out in
the department of Civil Engineering at the University
of Dundee. The analysis will give a clearer
understanding of the parameters which determine the
strength of web-supported structures such as this
military shelter.
Erection and striking
It has been found that with a simple technique it is
possible to erect the tent in approximately 10 minutes
and strike it in 8 minutes. Folding up is quick and neat,
the tent simply being rolled up complete with its ribs.
At first it was thought that the length of the folded-up
tent would be a disadvantage; however the elongated
shape makes it easier to handle and it has been
possible to fit the valise supplied with the tent with
Acknowledgements:-
J.T.Inglis & Sons Ltd, Riverside Works, Dundee DD1 3LU
R.B.J. Reinforced Plastics Ltd, Rickmansworth,
Hertfordshire WD3 1PE
carrying handles for six personnel so that, if needed,
it can be carried a significant distance.
Further development
The Light Weight Structures Design and
Engineering Unit at the School of Architecture and
Department of Civil Engineering, University of
Dundee, was established in 1995 to undertake
research in new lightweight technologies, systems
and processes and to apply these to design and
engineering problems as a means of finding cost-
effective innovative solutions to space-enclosing
structures. The Unit has recently been awarded a
£60,000 European grant to set up prototyping
workshops and develop software programs for the
design of innovative fabric structures with a
particular emphasis on assisting manufacturing
companies in Scotland. The project to develop a new
military tentage system won an Achievement Award
for Design at the Industrial Fabrics Association
International Symposium in Atlanta last October.
Salisbury Investment Casting Ltd. Dinton Business Park,
Dinton Salisbury, Wiltshire SP3 5RZ
Lt. Col. A.D.Forestier-Walker (Military Adviser and Project
Manager), Longbridge, Deverill, Wiltshire BA12 7DW
An Expandable and Contractible House
L.Jankovic
University of Central England
Introduction—Analysis of house user
needs
It has been predicted that the number of cars on the UK
roads will double in twenty five years’ time.1 Britain’s
roads are already congested today and journey times
for people travelling to work have increased over a
number of years. On the other hand, information
technology is enabling people more and more to
transport their ideas, rather than their bodies, to places
of their business interaction. 2 Communications
infrastructure is developing rapidly and will soon enable
full multimedia and video correspondence in real time
over large distances, and at a low cost.
Faced with congested roads and easy means of
transmitting their presence using telecommunications,
people will start working from home or nearer to home
in specially designed centres.3 This will bring about the
need for buildings to be easily refurbished, both in terms
of expansion of building services and
telecommunication facilities and in terms of space
required for business activities to take place from
the home.
These are not the only changes which will affect house
user needs in the future. Demographic changes taking
place in the UK today have a consequence of more
and more people being able to live longer into their
retirement.4 It is not uncommon for people to live for
twenty to thirty years in their retirement, and during
that time, they will go through the most dramatic
change of their physical ability. This change is often
from a full physical ability to being restricted to a
wheelchair, and requires a building which can adapt
to such change.
Demographic changes are also occurring at the
other end of the age spectrum. Recent forecasts of
several million single parent families requiring
homes in the future will bring about totally different
requirements for housing from those in their
retirement age.5 The need for low cost and gradual
expansion seems to be appropriate.
Regardless of age, house user needs are always
going to need low maintenance and low running costs.
This includes easy and low-cost refurbishment,
energy efficiency and an ability to make incremental
improvements of building performance at a low cost.
House users also need low capital costs, which can
only be achieved by mass production of buildings and
their components.
Conceptual solution
The user needs set out in the previous section were
used in the basic brief for the design of an expandable
and contractible house.6 The design is based on a
rectangular grid pattern of foundation stones, which
hold the ground floor slab and individual modular
frames. Not all of the foundation stones will be used
for all house configurations, but they will always be
installed for the maximum configuration at the outset,
in case this maximum configuration does take place.
The unused foundation stones will simply be buried
in the ground, until such time that they may be needed.
165
L.Jankovic

Different configurations of the house 1–4
One of the characteristic features of this design is a
central core, which is made of prefabricated cast
concrete elements. The core is fully modular and
consists of two different components with
permutations of presence and absence of openings
for doors and windows. The core elements also
contain recessed service risers, which can accept
printed circuit service components, which can be
added and removed according to the needs of
occupants. The full-size bungalow configuration can
have between 2 and 3 bedrooms, depending on the
internal configuration of partitions. In the full-size
configuration, the central core becomes an inner room
and a roof light is therefore provided as a permanent
feature of this design. The roof light is insulated with
transparent insulation to minimise heat loss. The
rooms are then positioned around the core as
satellites, with exterior wall panels made of thermal
insulation materials and partitional wall panels made
of sound insulation materials.The house can therefore
be expanded around the central core in a circular
fashion and vertically around the central core in a
linear fashion.
In the half-size configuration, parts of the central core
become exterior walls. Adding an extension to the
half-size configuration is made easy by prefabrication
of elements, their light weight nature, and a snap-on
method of installation. In its full configuration, the
expandable and contractible house provides at least
4 bedrooms or more, depending on the internal
configuration of partitions. It is possible to build an
estate of different houses on the basis of different
configurations of this design. This conceptual solution
exhibits a range of features and benefits.
Features
Building blocks principle: Building blocks are key
elements of a prefabricated building, which can be
combined with other key elements to form
reconfigurable buildings or different configurations
of a building. The expandable and contractible house
has been designed on this building blocks principle.
Ease of refurbishment: The house floor space and
services can be expanded and contracted according
to the needs of occupants or the housing association.
Prefabricated elements: Prefabrication of the
elements of the house ensures that the components
are made to the highest quality.
Minimum on-site time: Prefabrication ensures that the
house can be built in a few days.
Open architecture: The standardised prefabricated
components can be built from different materials,
starting from conventional insulation panels with brick
finishes and going to high-quality, low-energy panels
such as transparent insulation panels and others.
Upgradeability of performance: The house owner can
therefore upgrade the house during its lifetime from
less energy-efficient to more energy-efficient
components and the upgrades can take place as and
when required in small portions according to the
available budget.
Upgradeability of space: New rooms can be added or
removed according to the needs of occupants without
the extensive cost and effort of conventional
refurbishment.
Upgradeability of services: The slots in the central core
are used for plug-in service risers. This provides
enough spare capacity for new services and ease of
Upgradeability of existing services.
Recyclability: Individually prefabricated,
standardised building components will be made of
recyclable materials.
Energy conservation and use of alternative energy:
High-density core and low-density, high thermal
resistance envelope result in conservation of energy.
Solar energy apertures and energy-absorbing/
conversion surfaces enable the use of alternative
energy.
Preservation of traditional building shape: The new
expandable and contractible geometry does not make
the house look radically different from conventional
houses.

166

Benefits
Lower lifetime costs: Lifetime costs of the building
consist of the purchasing cost, running costs,
maintenance costs, refurbishment costs and others.
The expandable and contractible house has been
designed to minimise lifetime costs significantly in
comparison with conventional buildings.
Long-term sustainability: The upgradeability of space,
performance and services of the expandable and
contractible house allows for sustainable
management of a housing stock.
Lower refurbishment costs: Provision for indefinite
upgradeability of services allows for ease of
refurbishment at a minimum cost.
Lower energy consumption: The high thermal mass
core, lightweight high thermal resistance envelope,
and provision for absorption of solar energy makes
the energy consumption of this house low.
Increased revenues for manufacturers and builders:
The building blocks principle allows for a minimum
number of different components, which directly results
in increased efficiency of manufacture and of the
construction of this house.
Satisfaction of house user needs
The expandable and contractible house therefore
satisfies the need to work from home when traffic
becomes a great obstacle for physical travel to work
in the future. It does this by an ability to increase
accommodation space easily for a home-based office,
whilst it also allows for easy expansion of building
services and application systems to service this new
expanded space.
The house also satisfies the needs of a young family,
requiring an increasing accommodation space over
a number of years as the family grows. It also satisfies
the reverse need of an elderly couple, who have a
declining need for accommodation space, as children
Transportable Environments: Technology
leave home, and the couple’s physical activity
prevents them from using a larger space.
The expandable and contractible house also satisfies
the need for maximum energy efficiency. The central
core, made up of high-density cast concrete elements,
plus concrete slabs, provides a high thermal mass for
the house, which absorbs internal energy and solar
energy received and releases this energy back into
the house with a time delay of several hours. In this
way, the thermal mass smoothes out fluctuations of
temperatures in the house so that it is never too warm
nor too cold. This, in turn, makes the house more
energy efficient, as heating is required for a shorter
period of time throughout the year. This is further
helped with a high thermal resistance exterior wall,
which keeps most of the energy absorbed by the
thermal mass in the house.
The benefits of low investment cost houses and low
maintenance and running cost houses, which can
adjust to changing needs of their occupants, are easy
to understand. More people will stay in their houses
during their lifetime, as we will not need to move and
incur unnecessary costs in the process (on average,
a UK family moves seven times in its lifetime, at an
average cost of £3,000 to £5,000 per move).
Conditions required for expandable and
contractible house to succeed
The above analysis demonstrates satisfaction of a
Different configurations of the house 5–7
range of house user needs in the future. However, this
is a necessary but not sufficient condition for this
concept to succeed. Fully modular design will require
mass production in order to make the product
affordable and competitive. Mass production will
require manufacturing methods from the car industry
to be translated to the housing industry.7
The connection method for the house panels will need
to be designed and developed to enable the panels
167
L.Jankovic
to be secured and detached with ease. For this, an
investment into a new house model will have to be
similar in size to an investment in a new car model,
namely around one billion pounds per model.8 An
infrastructure will also need to be developed for
distribution and installation of a new expandable and
contractible house.
The expandable and contractible house will have more
chance of succeeding if its components are designed
to be fully recyclable. For this, a recycling operation will
An ‘estate’ of houses based on different configurations
need to be established on a large scale, as an integral
part of the infrastructure for delivery and lifetime
handling of the expandable and contractible house.
Mass production, recycling and ease of installation and
upgrading are not uncommon in the car industry. It will
not be inconceivable to apply the methods from the car
industry in production and delivery of the expandable
and contractible house.
The fully modular design of the expandable and
contractible house enables the concept of open
architecture to be applied in a similar way to that applied
by IBM when developing the IBM PC in the 1980s. This
way, existing, deteriorating, or lower specification
models can be replaced by higher specification models
1 D.Bannister and K.Button, Transport, the Environment and
Sustainable Development, E&FN Spon, London, 1994.
2 P.Cochrane, ‘The Office You Wish You Had’, in Intelligent
Buildings Today and in the Future by Jankovic, L. ed,
University of Central England, Birmingham, 1993.
3 Wigley, ‘Employment Homeworkers Bill’, Parliamentary
Proceedings, 26 January, Hansard, 1996.
4 Help the Aged, ‘The Older Population’, Help The Aged.
168
to extend the lifetime and improve the performance.
Open architecture will enable new components/
modules of this house to be produced by different
manufacturers, and these components/modules will
have different performance parameters. In this way,
competition in the marketplace for improvement of
performance of this concept will be encouraged.
Conclusions
The author has analysed future needs of house users
and has developed a conceptual solution in the form
of an expandable and contractible house, which
satisfies those needs. Satisfaction of these needs was
then analysed and the benefits presented. The
conditions necessary for the expandable and
contractible house to succeed commercially have
been analysed and it was found that they are
comparable to those in the car manufacturing industry
and although the setting up of the infrastructure to
support the expandable and contractible house would
cost a lot of money, the benefits would outweigh the
costs and the prospect of low investment cost, low
running cost houses which can adapt to changing
user needs through their lifetime remain a very
attractive proposition.
http://www.vois.org.uk/vois-bin/chapter/hta?1., 1997.
5 Gingerbread. Offices, Gingerbread.
http://www.lonepar.demon.co.uk/office.htm, 1997.
6 L.Jankovic, Building adapted for change of layout, UK Patent
No GB 2 283 255 B. UK Patent Office, London, 1996.
7 J.Miles, Where’s the Henry Ford of Future Housing
Systems, The Royal Academy of Engineering, London, 1996.
8 Ibid.
Implementing Portable Architecture
Mieke Oostra
Technical University of Delft
Introduction
An excellent and well thought-out idea or plan is not a
guarantee for successful implementation. Therefore,
a design for a technical object should be accompanied
by a process design and a realisation strategy.1
In the building industry the object design is usually
the plans drawn by the architect. The process design
describes, step by step, the actions required to attain
the desired materialised result and is usually made
by the producer to organise the production in the
factory and the contractor to organise the work on site.
The realisation design considers the role of and the
impact on other persons involved in the realisation
process as well as the influence these people can
have. This realisation strategy has no official status in
construction, but it can be seen as a tactical device to
reach a specified goal.
To give the implementation of portable architecture
a fair chance of success, thought has to be given to
this realisation plan. Agents and management
consultants stress the importance of attention to the
interests and viewpoints from other stakeholders.2
Resistance to change cannot be eliminated, but it
helps not to antagonise people unnecessarily if the
steps to be made are well considered. Furthermore
it motivates people by explaining why participation
in the development of this idea can be interesting
to them.
Before concretising these propositions, the idea of
portable architecture needs clarification.
The idea of portable architecture is not new. Looking
at precedents three categories of portability can be
distinguished:
• portable by one person: for example tents, Cushicle
(1966/1967) and Suitaloon (1968) both by Michael
Webb
• portable with equipment like cranes, heli-copters,
trucks, cars: for example mobile homes, caravans,
Plug-in Capsule Home (1964) by Warren Chalk, Living
Pod (1965) by David Greene, SkiHaus (1990) by
Richard Hordon
• portable in parts after it is disassembled either by
man or machine (demountable buildings): for
example Renzo Piano’s travelling exhibition for IBM
Europe (1984)
These categories are also a rough indicator of the
period of time the construction remains in one place.
The buildings made portable by one person usually
remain in place only for a very short time, like one night
to several days, whereas demountable buildings are
semi-permanent. Assuming that men will not become
nomads again, this paper will focus on the last
category because of its importance for the entire built
environment.
Positive and negative motivation
When considering implementing the idea of portable
architecture in the 1990s, targets have to be made
explicit. Do certain architects strive to realise one or
more buildings in this manner or does the building
industry as a whole have to change? The first goal can
169
Mieke Oostra
be a step towards the second one. Two aspects have
to be taken into account when implementation is
required for the entire industry:
• the acceptability of change within the construction
industry
• the availability of means for change
In general, people prefer to keep everything the same
in order to be able to cope with everyday life. Human
beings are constantly looking for stability and
certainties. There have to be good reasons to make
change acceptable. These reasons are, however,
widely available; government and organisations
concerning the environment make clear that natural
resources are declining while pollution is growing.3
These negative reasons are still no guarantee for
action because they are conflicting with another
characteristic of the human species: its tendency to
look for luxury and comfort. This inclination is normally
justified with the argument that personal influence is
so little compared to the changes necessary. A
negative approach is not very productive here.
Douglas McGregor illustrated this principle with the
theory X and theory Y. Theory X has the following
assumptions:
• people are lazy rather than tired
• they have no responsibility and no ambition
• they need to be disciplined and stimulated in order
to get things done
• they need to be controlled
He formulated this theory as a psychologist and
business consultant to explain the reaction from
employees on the style of leadership based on
negative assumptions from management. As a
reaction to little possibilities for recognition and self-
development, the workforce will focus on the amount
of salary and make their days at work as easy as
possible.This will confirm the ideas management has.
170
To avoid this negative spiral McGregor proposed
theory Y:
• people will be motivated if their work is stimulating
and meaningful
• they should have the chance to use and employ their
talents
• they deserve responsibility and autonomy and
should be rewarded for this
Keeping this theory in mind helps to avoid being
trapped in a negative spiral. It is no guarantee,
however, that this will result in a smooth
implementation, but the participation will create the
right atmosphere where interested persons feel
invited to contribute. The idea that por table
architecture can be influenced by them and they can
participate in its realisation can be an important
motivator once people become interested.
Thus, in order to get things done punishment should
not be used—instead positive reasons need to be
given to invite participation.
Reasons for implementing portable
architecture
The environmental aspect is the strongest point of the
idea of portable architecture, namely, its basis in
redundancy rather than the principle of economy that
is so often associated with sustainable building.
Professor Taeke de Jong from the Technical University
in Delft states that economy has nothing to do with
sustainability.4 He uses the example of trees that
discard all their sun collectors (leaves) in the autumn.
It seems a waste, but these suncollectors can easily
be reused by nature. Waste in one respect is resource
in another respect. Building components can be
reused in a similar fashion at different stages relative
to their original form. Ideally, building components
should be reused completely, then less effort and
energy is lost in transforming the products. If there is

no demand for these products, these components
should be easily demountable and reusable. To
realise this principle of mountability and
demountability, new building products have to be
developed with some extra specifications. This goal
should not be very difficult to reach since similar ones
have been reached in the production of cars and
televisions. Manufacturers in these industries are now
enthusiastic because of the savings made, although
they were difficult to persuade initially.
There are other reasons to develop the idea of
portable architecture than the environmental aspect.
When using demountable building components it
becomes easier to change or renovate buildings, for
example. This is likely to become an important factor
in a rapidly changing society.
The simple idea of a new theme for architecture can
be interesting to designers as well. It gives them a new
focus on architecture itself.
And finally, a manufacturer should constantly
reconsider his strategy concerning new products in
order to maintain or improve business results.5 The
life-cycle of existing products can be prolonged by
product improvement, by increasing market share or
by market development.6 However, new products
should become more profitable eventually.7 For
producers the idea of demountable components can
be a way to distinguish themselves from competitors.
New building products
Americans have shown that even mediaeval French
castles can be portable by taking the buildings down
stone by stone and rebuilding them in the US.8 This
tactic is not recommended, however, due to the costs
in terms of time and money. The products needed for
portable architecture have some extra criteria to meet
compared to many building products now in use. They
must be easily mountable and demountable in such
Transportable Environments: Technology
a manner that other parts of the building are not
damaged. At the same time, people want to be sure
that criminals do not use this capability for unlawful
access. Furthermore it must be possible to take the
building components apart with regard to the different
materials used.
With the determination of criteria, processes for new
product development can start. It is important to
determine the role and possible influence of the
parties involved in the product development process
at an early stage in order to reinforce the chance of
success. Which institutions and/or companies will be
the right partners in order to realise a new way of
building?
The initiative for new product development usually
comes from the producer or the architect. These two
parties can play their role in different ways. The
architect can:
• describe to the producer exactly what kind of product
he wants
• co-operate with the producer in developing the
product
• give the specifications to the producer and let him
design the product
When the producer takes the initiative he can:
• ask the architect to develop a product with him
• ask an architect for advice during the development
process
• prepare a technique or product in such a manner
that the amount of work is reduced when an architect
comes with a certain demand
• develop a product on his own
In the past, producers relied mostly on this last strategy.
Now, with the rediscovery of the opportunities of
market forces, there is a tendency towards the other
categories. Thus there is a tendency to move from a
171
Mieke Oostra
producer-dominated market to a consumer-
dominated market.
Architect and producer are the most important parties
when it comes to taking the initiative. Large clients, for
instance the supermarket chain Ahold in the
Netherlands, can directly influence product
development as well. For the design of their stores they
have established relations with a number of
producers who have supplied specially adjusted
standard products. Clients can also influence
processes of product development indirectly by
choosing the architect.
Finally, contractors can have influence on the
development of new products as well, especially in
turnkey projects.
Why product developmenrt requires
attention
In order to be able to build according to the principles
of portable architecture new building products need
to be created. Not to lose unnecessary time and money
is in the interest of all parties involved and it is therefore
important to pay attention to the organisation,
planning and management of product development
processes.
In the Netherlands, producers, suppliers and
contractors are used to competing mainly on price.
Consequently, innovations mostly concern
improvements of manufacturing processes to save
costs and not to improve product development
because this is regarded as too expensive since the
profit margins on products are usually low.
Of course, there is some knowledge in the building
industry regarding product development and there
are manufacturers with experience in developing new
products, but their knowledge is not generally
accessible and often incomplete. In other industries
several studies of the processes of product
172
development have been conducted, but never
specifically for the building industry. There are,
however, some circumstances that make these
processes different from those of other industries.
First of all, due to changing the project team for every
building project, a manufacturer cannot be certain that
he will be able to use the newly developed product in
the next project.
Secondly, buildings are durable goods. This means
that clients, specially project developers who
professionally sell or lease buildings, are afraid to use
new and unspecified products. There is less
guarantee that these new products will perform like
well-tested older products. Also, insurance
companies, specially for housing, demand that
product risks are as low as possible. They even try to
prevent regular products being applied in an
innovative way.
Thirdly, there are a lot of different parties involved in
the building process.These parties often do not belong
to one company and do not have the same interests.
Therefore a manufacturer designs a new building
component and contractors refuse to buy new
equipment or refuse to re-educate their workforce in
order to be able to use this new product.
Essential knowledge for product
development
In order to stimulate and control the processes of
product development, some essential knowledge is
needed. Product development processes should be
tailored to the situation and the product being
developed. A proper distinction between different
kinds of products and their consequences on the
process is therefore important. Secondly, a conscious
choice of the most adequate organisation form should
be made. And finally, insight is needed into the various
rational, interpersonal and psychological factors
influencing these processes. Knowledge of these

factors will improve the ability to organise and guide
development processes of new products to make
portable architecture a success.
Different kinds of products
The processes of product development in the building
industry may vary with the kind of product that is being
made.9 There are some essential differences:
• Simple or complex products: Complex products
usually need more time and organisation in their
development than simple products.
• Products made in a small or a large series: Large
series will allow more money to be invested in the
design and development of the product. This is
especially rewarding in the development of complex
products.
• Project-bound products or standard products: When
developing a project bound product the client is known
and the product can therefore simply be tailored to
his wishes. Product development processes for
standard products need more time and money in the
design, e.g. the execution of market surveys etc.
• The uniqueness of the products: If the product is
significantly better in terms of quality, appearance,
technique etc. in the eyes of the client, he might be
prepared to pay extra money.
Among other factors, to know the differences between
the development of standard and project-specific
products helps to determine the possibilities of new
technologies within the building industry. Furthermore
it helps to discover differences between processes of
product development for new building components,
for example, investigating the possibilities of on-line
dialogue between producers and architects or
contractors. For simple standard products like timber
beams, the profile can be chosen from several
standards and the length can be tailored to the clients
needs if the maximum available length is considered.
These standard measures and the maximum lengths
Transportable Environments: Technology
can be transmitted quite easily. But if a complex
project-bound product has to be made, the exchange
of information will become more complicated.
Designer, producer and maybe other specialists will
have to discuss what is wanted and what is possible
at an acceptable price for the client. This can be done
at a distance as well, but the information flow will
become more extended and complex.
Organisation forms
A lot of schemes have been made to characterise
processes of product development. 10 It is an
indication that no single process is alike. There are
models to indicate the moments of evaluation, the
succession of intermediary products, the organisation
structure in individuals or groups of managers etc.11
All the models show different ways of looking at the
process of product development. They highlight
different aspects of the same processes. So choice of
a certain model depends on the aspect which one
wants to examine. This paper will deal only with the
activity model.
The activity model shows the working order from idea
to product. In this model different sub-processes can
be determined within the process, like a marketing
process, a design process, an engineering process,
an evaluation process, etc. Between processes of
product development the mix between sub-
processes may vary.
An activity model of processes of product development
can help to determine when certain equipment,
materials and people will be needed and when in
these processes specific methods and techniques
can be useful, for example, methods of organising
product development or techniques for creativity,
financial or quality control.
The difference between a serial and a parallel
development process is of utmost importance here. In An example of an activity model
173
Mieke Oostra
a traditional organisation a departmental structure is
combined with a serial development process. Ideas
and plans for new products tend to go from one
department to another, for example from the technical
department to marketing, from there to production and
so forth.This method takes a lot of time while introducing
misinterpretations and suboptimalisation. In a parallel
development process, however, different phases are
executed concurrently, hence the title ‘concurrent
engineering’.
In business management a growing interest in
‘simultaneous engineering’, a combination of a parallel
development process and teamwork, can be seen.This
concept of organisation used as the basis for a
company leads to what is known as matrix organisation.
In those companies people of different departments
are put together in a team in order to develop new
products. The goal of this type of organisation is to
shorten the lead time while making a better product.
The building industry has a long tradition of teamwork,
but in a characteristic form. Specialists are often
represented by different firms. If these independent firms
co-operate in product development, a range of
problems are likely to occur, such as collisions of
interests, disputes regarding product responsibility, or
problems with the sharing of profits and risks.
Processes of product development may vary as well
with the level at which one looks at it, i.e. at the level of
the individual, the team, the company or the group of
co-operating companies. Although there are
similarities between processes of product
development on all these levels, the mix of shared
factors may vary. Furthermore, factors can be added at
higher levels. For example, the individual is limited
when designing by the capacity of his brain. It can not
store all the information at once and therefore the
iterative process is a necessity. In a team,
communication becomes an important factor, but the
process will still have an iterative character.
174
Influencing factors
Furthermore there are different variables influencing
the process of product development. Knowledge of
these factors will improve the ability to analyse and
guide the development processes of new products,
including factors that are used to control projects like
time, money and quality.12 These are rational factors
and they can be categorised at the levels of individual,
team, company etc. For every level a distinction
between internal and external factors can be made.
The internal company level, for example, will be
influenced by factors like the control factors mentioned
earlier and aspects like knowledge, skills, culture of
the organisation, equipment, corporate strategy and
experience. External factors on this level are
essentials like market demand, market accessibility,
competition, regulations, resources, technology and
the economic situation.
Processes of product development are determined
not only by these rational factors. Therefore an
inventory of the social and psychological factors that
have their influence on the processes of product
development will be helpful. Knowledge of factors like
personal fears, habits, power, motivation, the ability
to deal with risk etc. can explain the non-rational side
of the development processes. Special attention
needs to be given to the different interests people may
have in the building industry and in the process of
product development. Neglecting these interests
reduces dramatically the possibility of developing a
successful product.
Final remarks
Finally one has to look towards the future and think
about what lies ahead. Reflection on future goals
is important for the continuation of a
manufacturer’s company, but also for the architect
who has to think of possible future environments
for people to live in.13 It is interesting that it is not

necessary to follow trends in other industries or
even in the construction industry itself. If the goals
are clear and constantly monitored, the company
or designer will not be affected so much by
changes in the market made by competitors.
Anticipation, and even creating change by
businesses and especially by designers seems
more profitable than waiting and following. 14
The tendency towards an information society
(computers and communication technology) will
have a big impact in the future. Information science
will allow a better exchange of information between
partners in a product development process. These
technologies can also be used as instruments to get
the product designed, calculated, and to produce
systems like knowledge management systems,
decision support systems and monitoring systems
for the entire process. In the production phase,
depending on the kind of product, certain
parameters, to be chosen by the customer, can be
communicated on-line. These are all promising
techniques because they can facilitate an
1 The division into three categories of object, process and
realisation design comes from Joan van Aken, professor at
the Technical University in Eindhoven. I have chosen to
replace realisation design by realisation strategy because
of its non-formal status in the building industry. There is
therefore no offical plan on paper available, but it is more a
tactical plan devised to convince other people. J.E. van Aken,
‘De bedrijfskunde als ontwerpwetenschap: de regulatieve
en de reflectieve cyclus’, in Bedrijfskunde 1994/1, p.16–26.
2 For example: J.G.Wissema, H.M.Messer and G.J.Wijers,
Angst voor veranden? Een mythe!; Of: hoe u
veranderingsbereidheid op de werkvloer vergroot, Van
Gorcum, Assen, 1993.
3 An endless list of reports on this subject appeared, the
important turning point being the publication of ‘The limits to
growth—a report for the Club of Rome project on the
predicament of mankind’, D. Meadows, 1972.
4 Taeke de Jong, H4 Cursusbundel Ontwerpmethodologie,
Onderzoekschoolbouw, Delft, 1996).
5 Philip Kotler, Marketing Management; Analysis, Planning,
Transportable Environments: Technology
augmentation of the application of project-bound
products.
When considering the implementation of portable
architecture, new products are needed. Since every
development process is different, it is not possible to
make a cookbook for the processes of product
development. These processes are however
composed of certain building blocks that are quite
similar. They can be put together in different ways to
suit the product and the situation. It is therefore
important to have knowledge about these different
building blocks, what is essential about them, how can
they be put together and what is a good layout for the
processes.
Equipped with a basic knowledge of the processes of
product development, the architect, the manufacturer
or any other person involved in the building industry
will be in a better position to orchestrate its processes.
Knowledge of these factors will improve the ability to
organise and guide development processes of new
products to make portable architecture a success.
Implementation and Control, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
1994.
6 See alternation of Ansoff’s product-market strategy,
F.Haselhoff, Ondernemersstrategie, een dilemma; De
moderne ondernemingsorganisatie in het spanningsveld
van doelmatigheid, overleving en zingeving, Alphen aan de
Rijn: Samsom Uitgeverij, 1977, pp.79–82.
7 Booz, Allen & Hamilton, New Product Management for the
1980s Booz, Allen & Hamilton, New York, 1982.
8 By virtue of chalk mortar instead of the current cement
mortar, according to prof. dr. ir. M.Eekhout Technical University
of Delft. [Editors note: such buildings, though since proven
to be moveable, cannot accurately be described as portable
as this process was not envisaged as an integral operational
feature of their original design.]
9 Mick Eekhout, ‘Tussen produktontwikkelen en de-
systematiseren; (1) Begripper’ in De Bouwadviseur, May 1994.
10 For example in: N.F.M.Roozenburg en J.Eekels,
Productontwerpen, structuur en methode, uitgeverij Lemma
b.v., Utrecht, 1991; Wim Muller, Vormgeven; ordening en
175
Mieke Oostra
betekenisgev-ing, uitgeverij Lemma b.v., Utrecht, 1990; Philip
Kotler, Marketing Management; Analysis, Planning,
Implementation and Control Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
1994; Glen L.Urban and John R. Hauser, Design and
marketing of new products, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
1993; Ronald Hamel, Over het denken van de architect; Een
cognitief psychologische beschrijving van het
ontwerpproces bij architecte, AHA BOOKS—Art, History,
Architecture, Amsterdam, 1990, are some examples.
Figures used in this paper are derived from these books
and the article by M.A. Saren.
11 A full summary of such models is: a succession of
176
moments of evaluation the organisation of persons and
boards the organisation of activities a succession of
intermediary products processes of transformation
a characterisation of the process (linear—cyclic/
converge—diverge) a combination of these models
12 Gert Wijnen, Willem Renes and Peter Storm, Projectmatig
werken, Het Spectrum: Marka, Utrecht, 1988.
13 Taeke de Jong, Kleine methodologie voor ontwerpend
onderzoek, Boom, Meppel, 1992.
14 With the new strategy described by Gary Hamel and C.K.
Prahalad, Competing for the future, Harvard Business School
Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 1994.
Lightweight Prefabricated and Precast Construction
for Remote Building Applications in Australia
David Morris
University of South Australia
The notion of portable architecture has a particular
significance in Australia because of the remoteness
of inland settlement. The dual tyrannies of distance
and dryness make the Australian ‘outback’ a vast and
sparsely populated frontier where prefabricated
construction technologies are particularly
appropriate.This paper will report on a range of current
prefabricated building applications in central and
northern Australia and will focus on the particular
technologies which attempt to solve the economic,
climatic, cultural, environmental and construction
difficulties associated with building in such remote
locations.
Australia
Australia stretches 4,500 km between the Indian and
Pacific Oceans and 3,000 km from north to south. It is
encompassed by 36,700 km of coastline along which
most of Australia’s 18 million people live. It has an area
of 7,682,300 sq.km, resulting in an overall population
density of 2 people per square kilometre. This
compares with densities for the USA of 26, the UK of
235 and Japan of 328 persons per sq.km.1
Climate
The concentration of population along Australia’s
fertile coastal fringes is due almost entirely to the
dryness of Australia’s vast interior.The major Australian
cities, Sydney and Melbourne, enjoy rainfalls of 1160
mm and 657 mm per annum respectively. In the central
Australian town of Alice Springs the rainfall is 225 mm
per annum. The driest part of the interior, in the north-
east of South Australia, the rainfall is below 100 mm
per annum. Ancient central Australian rivers such as
the Finke are absorbed by the inland deserts and lie
dry for most of the year.The land is arid, the landscape
flat, exposed and sparsely dotted by a flora of stumpy
mulga, saltbush and spinifex.
Distance and dryness limit the ‘outback’ industries to
marginal cattle grazing, mining and tourism. The
population is confined to stations, mines, isolated
towns and Aboriginal communities. The
unincorporated far north region of South Australia,
which is the driest inhabited area of the world, covers
an area almost three times that of the UK with a
population of 7019 resulting in an overall population
density of 1 person per 100 sq.km.2
Transport
Long distances and the sparseness of the inland
population make the physical links between inland
centres extremely tenuous. The sparseness of
population cannot support the making and
maintenance of high-quality roads and, as a
consequence, the transport of goods and people is
over unsealed roads and tracks which are made
treacherous by ruts, corrugations, bulldust and flash
flooding. In terms of building, transport is made
expedient by the use of lightweight materials and
lightweight construction systems. Few building
materials other than stone, aggregate, sand and clay
are sourced from local inland areas. Timber, steel,
glass and cement can only be sourced from the major
coastal centres.
177
David Morris
Before the European invasion, little more than 200
years ago, the indigenous people of Australia had
lived for 50,000 years as nomadic hunters and
gatherers always in transition so as not to exhaust the
supply of food. Their means of transport was on foot
and, as a consequence, they carried little more than
tools and baskets. The shelters of the central
Australian Aborigine were constructed from the brush
of saltbush, teatree and eucalyptus gathered from
around the camps and abandoned upon departure.
These shelters or wilchas provided shade and
protection from wind and dust in a climate where
temperatures range between—5°C and and 50°C.
John Manning: portable colonial cottage
Modern notions of transport came with the European
introduction of horses, oxen, camels and the wheeled
carts and drays for which roads and tracks were cut
and levelled. The first form of a truly transportable
shelter were the swags and tents carried on horse or
camel by the early inland explorers. This was followed
by the transport of prefabricated building components.
Early prefabrication
Prefabrication in the nineteenth century must be seen
primarily as an instrument of colonisation, a technical
means to the opening up of vast territories in Africa,
America or Australia to habitation, development and
economic exploitation. The sponsors of colonial
settlement encouraged the use of prefabricated
housing for obvious utilitarian reasons. The ‘Portable
Colonial Cottage’ produced by John Manning of
London in the 1830s was an advanced concept which
required a minimum of site work. It was the pioneer of
the fully prefabricated dwelling and was an essential
ingredient in the settlement of South Australia. Large
numbers of prefabricated houses were erected in
Adelaide and its environs. They were also found right
across the continent of Australia from Perth and
Fremantle in the west to New South Wales in the east
and Tasmania in the south. Prefabricated corrugated
iron houses produced in England and Scotland in the
178
later part of the nineteenth century were also imported
into Australia, though in fewer numbers than their
timber counterparts. Many of these houses were
commodious, well built, comfortably outfitted and so
durable that many survive as houses today.3
The feature that made prefabricated building systems
most effective as an instrument of colonisation was
that they did not require skilled builders or
tradespeople, nor complex tools or locally sourced
materials. The skills, workshops and materials
required for building could be competitively sourced
from the industrialised urban centres and, as a
consequence, obviated these requirements on
relatively remote and sparsely populated sites.
Steel
The term ‘corrugated iron’ remains in common usage
but now refers to thin gauge corrugated steel.
Galvanised corrugated steel has proliferated in
Australia as a utilitarian cladding for roofs, walls and
water tanks throughout this century. Galvanised steel
was cheap, light, easy to work and affix, and extremely
durable. The huts and sheds which facilitated
expanding agricultural and mining industries usually
employed corrugated steel as a roof cladding and
often as a wall cladding. The lightness of steel allowed
it to be rolled up and slung either side of a horse for
transport to remote or inaccessible sites. It remains
one of the most economical and durable claddings
for timber- and steel-framed buildings, and its
lightness makes it particularly suitable for remote area
applications where transportation is difficult.
Swags, tents, huts and sheds became the minimal
and simple architectural technologies appropriate
to the limitations of transport over long distances. In
general terms these technologies, in various evolved
forms, continue to be employed for remote
applications where transportability, simplicity of
erection, economy and durability are the main

requirements. Over the last 50 years galvanised steel
has significantly displaced timber as a framing
material for remote applications where
prefabrication is appropriate. This is par ty a
consequence of significantly depleted native forests,
but more particularly, because of the convenience
of steel construction in terms of strength and therefore
lightness, dimensional and structural stability,
durability in terms of rust and termites, and ease of
connection by welding, riveting and bolting.
In terms of sheet steel employed for cladding,
significant developments in the range, thickness and
stiffness of sheet have occurred, including the
application of zinc-aluminium (zincalume) alloy
sacrificial coatings and baked acrylic finishes.
Composite materials
To complement developments in steel there have
been parallel developments in composite wood and
cement-based sheet products. There is now an
extensive range of particle boards, fibre boards,
plywoods and fibre-reinforced cement sheeting
which in various combinations provide options for
lightweight internal wall cladding, structural bracing,
flooring for both wet and dry applications, and built-in
furniture.
Remote area applications
Adelaide is the capital of Australia’s driest state, South
Australia. Its one million citizens live along a fertile
coastal fringe 1200 km from the closest large city
Melbourne and 1500 km from Australia’s centre. 200
km to Adelaide’s north lies the Goyder Line beyond
which only marginal grazing can be sustained.
Adelaide’s relative isolation has required that it
maintain a broad industrial and technological base.
The city is well positioned both geographically and
industrially to meet the demands of remote building
requirements.
Transportable Environments: Technology
The School of Architecture and Design at the University
of South Australia has recently augmented its
essentially urban and Euro-centric perspective with
research and development into the problems
associated with remote and arid architecture. Recent
projects include prefabricated building projects,
Aboriginal housing and ecotourism. These projects,
while modest in scale, reveal a broad range of
prefabricated technologies.
In 1993, the School embarked upon a project to design
and construct University research and teaching
facilities on a disused mine site 50 km east of Adelaide.
The project called for teaching spaces, workshops,
stores and overnight accommodation for 30 students
and staff. The primary objective of the project was to
give students ‘handson’ construction experience.
The remoteness of the site required that the buildings
be prefabricated, which was undertaken in the
University workshops in Adelaide. Over two years, as
part of the architecture course, students prefabricated
toilets, showers, constructed walkways and decks,
installed waste water systems, and prepared the
design and documentation for the second stage of
prefabrication of workshops and stores. Because of Prefabricated hardwood framed ablutions facilities
the desired breadth of construction experience,
buildings employed native jarrah hardwood frames
lined and braced internally with 9 mm native hoop pine
ply and clad with zincalume corrugated steel.
Buildings were preassembled in the workshops prior
to disassembly and transportation to site.
Unfortunately the project fell prey to budgetary
rationalisation and the site was sold before the project
could be substantially realised.
The project formed the basis for a current commission
requiring the design and construction of visitor
facilities at a disused mine site at Moonta, 175 km
north-west of Adelaide.This project was designed and
documented and is currently being prefabricated by
students. The project employs prefabricated
179
David Morris
plantation pine stud frames lined and braced with 9
mm ply and clad with a variety of corrugated steel
profiles. Glass is mounted to the outside of jarrah
window frames to avoid the weathering of sills and to
simplify on-site assembly. The main visitor assembly
area employs prefabricated galvanised hot-rolled
steel columns supporting galvanised cold-rolled roof
framing. Cladding for the roof and sliding wall panels
is corrugated steel. Both mine projects make maximum
use of screw or bolt fixing for ease of onsite assembly.
The two projects revealed the importance of transport
strategies in deciding the extent of prefabrication as
opposed to on-site construction. In the first project
prefabricated wall panels were lined and clad before
transportation, necessitating particular care of
finished surfaces. The relatively small scale of panels
and the relatively short distance to site made it
expedient to transport panels vertically. In the Moonta
project the larger and more numerous panels and the
greater distance to site made it expedient to transport
frames flat and apply linings and cladding on site. This
has the advantage of having cladding arrangements
independent of framing configurations and allows a
continuity of cladding cover free of vertical joints.
Aboriginal housing
Australian governments have since 1967 seen
housing as central to their policies for Aborigines and
have had extravagant expectations of its social
benefits. It is doubtful whether those policies
adequately reflect Aboriginal priorities, and it is
uncertain how far those expectations are being
realised.4 Aboriginal housing is manifested in many
forms largely depending on the distance from the main
urban centres. Conventional brick veneer housing is
often preferred in locations where materials and
skilled labour are readily available. In remote locations
however, scarcity of materials and skilled labour, and
the limitations of transport, favour lightweight
prefabricated systems. In recent years, such systems
180
have almost entirely displaced on-site construction
of housing. The significant potential of such systems
is that they can be assembled on site with relatively
unskilled labour (often employing the communities
they serve).
Modular steel-framed panel systems
The principle supplier of houses in the Anangu
Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal Lands in the far north-west
corner of South Australia is Nomadic Enterprises Pty.
Ltd. The company supplies a prefabricated modular
steel-framed system in a variety of configurations from
small one-room shelters to large multi-room houses.
The system is adaptable to other building types
including shops, schools, community centres and
health centres. Approximately 50 houses are
supplied to the Lands per annum.
Nomadic Enterprises employ a 2.4 metre module
which enables building frames to be transported flat
packed across the width of a truck while permitting a
wall height option of 2.7 metres. The system
incorporates a concrete raft slab cast on site edged
by two cold-rolled C sections forming a 300 mm form
for the perimeter beam. Compressed fill is used to fill
the void and to support the slab within the perimeter
beam. Above the perimeter beam are fixed 50 mm
square hollow section steel columns at 2.4 metre
centres between which are placed cold-rolled steel
stud frames. Over columns and frames is fixed a steel
perimeter beam to which cold-rolled steel trusses are
fixed. All framing components are bolted together
through pre-drilled holes. Walls and ceilings are clad
or lined on site with baked acrylic (colorbond) profiled
steel sheet screw fixed to steel frames. Walls are
insulated with R2 and ceilings with R3 insulation batts.
Roof cladding is zincalume steel. Windows are
anodised aluminium.
Transport is by semi-trailer equipped with heavy-duty
running gear, good tyres and spares, long-range fuel

tanks and radio. In areas inaccessible to semi-trailers,
the lightweight building components can be manually
unloaded and carried on tray top, four wheel drive
vehicles.
Non-modular steel-framed panel systems
Similar prefabricated steel systems compete for the
Aboriginal housing market. One example by Stratco
employs structural steel stud frames of varying length
though of a standard 2.4 metres high to allow frames
to be ‘flat packed’. The Stratco system generally
employs an elevated steel flooring system on pad
footings. In all other respects it is similar to the Nomadic
system.
Lightweight precast panel systems
Recently, a new lightweight precast concrete housing
system by Innovative Building Concepts is being
trialed in three locations on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara
Aboriginal Lands. Design options to date are limited to
two-bedroom duplexes and three-and four- bedroom
houses.The system employs reinforced 2.4 metres high
125 mm thick concrete wall panels incorporating
polystyrene granulate which reduces the weight of
concrete by about 30%.The system employs a raft slab
with reinforced beams under each wall.
The slab is extended beyond the front perimeter wall
to form a verandah surface under a return verandah
roof. Panels, plumbing and electrical conduits are
incorporated vertically and serviced from the ceiling.
Panels are located on rods at their base and by a
continuous steel angle at the top. Joints are sealed
with an elastomeric polyurethane sealant over a
backing rod. The wall panels support prefabricated
cold-rolled steel trusses and the roofing and ceilings
are zincalume and colorbond steel sheeting.
In terms of precast housing technology the system is
conventional. The use of polystyrene granulate is
Transportable Environments: Technology
interesting particularly in the development of topping
screeds to cover and finish the panels. The system
controls quality by manufacturing most of the required
components in the one factory and sourcing the
remainder within the immediate vicinity so that
manufacture can be regularly monitored and
effectively integrated. Quality is also assured because
the on-site assembly is undertaken by the company
and not by independent contractors.
In terms of transport and assembly the system has a
number of limitations. A full load weighs 27 tonnes which
limits the site locations to those that are accessible by
semi-trailer. Panels require mechanical lifting and
assembly requires skilled labour, both of which must
be brought to site. In spite of these limitations, the
buildings are durable, well finished and economical.
While the potential advantages of prefabricated
building applications in terms of economy and quality
control are clear, the appropriateness of particular
system designs in terms of climate and culture are not.
The appropriateness of steel and concrete systems
for housing in central Australia where extreme daily
and seasonal temperature variations occur has not
been thoroughly evaluated.
Demountable prefabricated steel-framed
housing
Another prefabricated steel-framed housing system,
which adopts a different construction assemblage and
transport strategy, are designs by Troppo Architects
Pty. Ltd. for housing for the Kowanyama Aboriginal
Community Council in tropical Cape York peninsula
in the state of Queensland. Designs include simple
ground and elevated single-bedroom houses or
bedsits, elevated two-bedroom duplexes or double
dongas, and elevated 3/4-bedroom houses. The
tropical climate is characterised by warm to hot
temperatures throughout the year, high humidity and
summer wet seasons. Low-energy housing
181
David Morris
appropriate to tropical climates is elevated and open
to exploit both internal and external ventilation.
The elevated houses employ square hollow section
steel columns on pad footings supporting universal
beams as bearers and hardwood joists. All designs
employ welded rectangular hollow section structural
wall and roof frames. External claddings include large
and small profile corrugated zincalume steel sheeting
and external plywood. Internal linings include small
profile corrugated steel sheeting and painted or
varnished medium-density fibreboard. Ceilings are
large profile steel sheeting and floors are varnished
ply in bedroom and living areas, tiled and graded
cement sheet in the wet areas, and hardwood decking
in kitchens and on verandahs. Windows are, typically,
full-length louvred glass.
Demountable steel-framed 3/4-bedroom houses designed by
Troppo Architects These houses are designed to be transported either
flat packed like the steel-framed systems referred to
above or demountable (minimum size 4.3 metres) so
as to be transported as fully constructed sections. The
factors which allow demountable transportation are the
rigidity of the framing and the floor and roof planning,
permitting prefabrication in long narrow sections which
are clad, lined and serviced prior to installation on site.
The principle advantage of this system is that most of
the detailed fabrication is done in a controlled factory
environment ensuring a high level of quality control.
Both the raft slab and elevated houses still require
significant on-site work prior to the delivery of
prefabricated units. It is significant that in spite of
numerous tenders for the work from manufacturers
closest to the site the successful tenderer was based in
Brisbane 1500 km away, revealing that the economies
achieved from manufacture in large urban centres
counterbalances the costs of transport.
Future Aboriginal housing
The history of Aboriginal housing in terms of the
quality of on-site construction has not been a proud
182
one. Limited budgets, competitive tendering and a
high demand for housing meant that houses had to
be cheap and basic. Profits for builders and
subcontractors were marginal and the on-site labour
employed was often unskilled and poorly supervised.
Poor quality of workmanship often resulted in the
failure of basic building functions including the failure
of toilets, floor wastes, drains and water supply.
These problems were exacerbated by the fluctuations
in household numbers due to extended family
structures, ceremonial events, deaths, conflicts and
reconciliations which placed unusual demands upon
services designed for conventional and sedentary
nuclear family structures. The consequences
Aboriginal health are well documented and a national
disgrace.
In spite of substantial efforts on the part of the
Australian national and state governments to meet
the demand for Aboriginal housing there remain
seemingly intractable problems, particularly in terms
of health.There is no doubt that prefabricated housing
technologies have the potential to provide the quality
of workmanship that is not possible with conventional
on-site construction in remote areas. However, while
the direction of Aboriginal housing remains solely
focused on the provision of cost-effective conventional
housing, the full potential of prefabricated
technologies in providing appropriate solutions will
never be realised.
Recent research by Pholeros, Rainow and Torzillo5
reveals the need to provide housing and house
hardware which is robust and reliable. This research
identified that in most Aboriginal communities
breakdowns in basic water and waste systems
occurred frequently in all housing stock due largely
to the inappropriateness of specified hardware, poor
design and poor on-site construction. In many houses
major breakdowns were identified even prior to the
first occupancy. Once breakdowns occurred the

houses actually became health hazards rather than
potential health providers. The principles outlined in
AP Design Guide and Housing for Health are
achievable through appropriate design and
prefabrication combined. 6 Prefabrication
technologies alone are severely limited without a
broader understanding of the problem and the design
of appropriate solutions.
Portable precast concrete/prefabricated
steel-framed sheds
Renewed interest in Australia as a tourist destination
has sparked development ecotourism as a lucrative
national industry. A significant component of the
Australian tourist industry is focused on the natural
environment of remote wilderness areas. A recent
South Australian Tourism Commission report
Ecotourism outlines design guidelines for the
sustainable development of ecotourist facilities in
fragile natural environments.7 The first implementation
of such a development has significant implications for
the design of appropriate prefabrication technologies.
Desert Tracks is an ecotourist design commission
undertaken for Pitjantjatjara Tours by Paul Pholeros.
The work by Pholeros and others in preparing design
guidelines for improvements in health in the living
conditions of Central Australian Aboriginal
communities has been furthered by the technical
achievements of a totally prefabricated and portable
architecture for the Desert Tracks project which
requires no on-site construction.
A particular problem associated with the healthy
functioning of remote Aboriginal housing in central
Australia is the lack of on-site control of the grading,
plumbing and finishing of in-situ slabs for wet areas.
The Desert Tracks project required the provision of
general wash areas and showers in a particularly
remote and fragile desert environment. An appropriate
Transportable Environments: Technology
design solution was achieved by the total
prefabrication of a steel-framed shed integrated with
a precast reinforced slab forming a completely
portable building which could be transported to site
and lowered by jacks to the ground.
The two significant advantages of this system are that
the fabrication of all components, particularly the slab,
could be controlled in a factory environment where
the quality of workmanship could be exacting, and, Portable precast and prefabricated shed by Paul Pholeros
that the building could be lifted and transported to an
alternative site when the local environment became
exhausted from over use.
The development of total prefabrication systems has
potentially far-reaching implications for building
applications where housing and services may be
required for dispossessed refugees suffering the
ravages of famine, war or natural disaster, or to relieve
mass rural migrations into overcrowded cities. The
problems in terms of health are the same as those for
Aboriginal communities in Australia where the
effective supply of water and disposal of waste
depends upon effective and functioning hardware.
Portable steel-framed tents
The last example of a prefabricated building
application is a demountable steel-framed tent
structure designed by Troppo Architects as an
ecotourist shelter and currently used as short-term
worker sleeping facilities for the Kakadu Regional
Community Housing Association in the tropical north
of the Northern Territory. These structures were
originally conceived as shelters capable of being
transported in components by two people on foot to
gain access to otherwise inaccessible sites. Like
traditional tents, these structures are demountable
and portable.
The system employs a square hollow section steel
frame supported on five bearing plates (one in each Portable steel-framed tents by Troppo Architects
183
David Morris
corner and one in the centre) on shallow pads of
compacted dirt and dried cement. The floor of
hardwood decking and ply is suspended above
ground. The steel corner columns rise to 1.5 m above
the floor to which are bolted steel hollow section wall
frames. The frames support expanded aluminium
mesh screens and medium-density fibreboard wall
panels. The covering fabric is an external layer of 70%
shade cloth over a synthetic waterproof sail cloth. The
structure achieves structural stability through fabric
ties to ‘dead man’ footings which are usually logs buried
beneath the ground.
1 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Year Book Australia 1995,
Population Densities, 1991, p.92.
2 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Unpublished data, 1991
Census of Population and Housing, Basic Community Profile.
3 G.Herbert, The Dream of the Factory-Made House, MIT
Press, Massachusetts, 1984, p.15.
4 H.Ross, Just for Living, Aboriginal Studies Press,
184
Conclusion
Building requirements for remote sites favour
prefabricated building systems which overcome the
inevitable shortages of material and skilled labour.
Prefabricated buildings prove to be economical and
flexible, and are able to achieve a consistent level of quality.
The shortcomings of such systems seem to be due to a
narrow preoccupation with either cost or the technology
employed rather than a broader consideration of the
appropriateness of such applications in terms of the
needs of the people they serve.
Canberra, 1987, pp.151–171.
5 P.Pholeros, S.Rainow and P.Torzillo, Housing for Health,
Healthabitat, Sydney, 1993.
6 P.Pholeros, AP Design Guide, Nganampa Health Council
Inc., 1991.
7 P.Pholeros, M.Tawa and N.Opie, Ecotourism, South
Australian Tourism Commission, Adelaide, 1994.
Steel-Frame Modular Building Comes of Age
Keith Blanshard
Yorkon Limited
First choice for McDonald’s. First choice for Mobil. First
choice for Marks and Spencer. First choice for Dundee
Airport. First choice for St Margaret’s Hospital. First
choice for Forte. Why do an increasing number of
organisations today specify modular building
systems? Keen to accelerate their ambitious
expansion programmes as quickly, cost-effectively
and efficiently as possible, it is the certainty of the
modular approach that makes the real difference—
certainly in design, construction, quality and
performance.
This certainty, of course, can only be achieved if the
total process from design to handover is controlled,
using modern manufacturing processes and
products and trained personnel. It is this powerful
combination that modern-day users appreciate—
after all, they have come to expect this in the motor
industry, computer industry and entertainment
industry for example, so why not in the building
industry?
Before investigating the modular building industry, (as
represented by Yorkon in this paper), we must firstly
take a brief look at its history. Examining the
fundamental logic behind this type of building provides
an understanding of the simple, yet ingenious
thinking that has made modular building not only
acceptable worldwide, but increasingly preferred in
many markets.
So, where did it all begin? For Yorkon, there is no
question. As a member of the internationally recognised
Portakabin Group of Companies, our roots lie firmly with
the equally distinguished Shepherd family. The
innovative qualities of Mr Donald Shepherd, who sadly
died early in 1997, led to the invention of the Portakabin
building in 1961. Nearly 37 years ago, the Portakabin
building revolutionised construction sites around the
world. Site personnel were able to meet in the relative
comfort of this new method of accommodation,
manufactured off-site. No more wooden sheds!
Delivered by lorry, the building was easily positioned
by one man, using the unique Lodastrut leg system—
another Donald Shepherd invention.
Not surprisingly, this new portable building, which
arrived on site ready for use, was an immediate
success. More significantly, the scope of the building
was quickly recognised by organisations outside the
construction industry, creating widespread interest in
A contemporary Portakabin site office
this fast and cost-effective alternative approach to
providing accommodation. The concept was born: a
building manufactured off-site and transported as a
complete structure.
One of the earliest Portakabin projects outside of the
construction industry was for a breast screening clinic
at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, in
1967. The project was funded by an appeal, initiated
by consultant Dr Way, through the Newcastle Journal.
Dr Way wanted a complex of consulting rooms, waiting
rooms, labs and an X-ray unit which could be relocated
if necessary. Five Portakabin buildings, 32 foot by 10
foot, linked together proved ideal.
This interest also spread overseas—in fact,
Clackmannanshire open-plan office,
worldwide. A true demonstration of portability are Alloa, Scotland by Yorkon
185
Keith Blanshard

Visitors’ centre at Hunterston ‘A’ Power Station, Scotland by
Yorkon
buildings which can be airlifted by helicopter for use
by the Army on manoeuvres in the Alps. To increase
the availability of such portability worldwide and
remain cost-effective, a flat-pack version of the
Portakabin building was designed. Ingeniously, the
building still maintained its unique feature of being
erected and positioned by one man. Ease of siting
proved vital in the many, often remote, locations the
buildings reached—most notably, the Falkland
Islands. Following the war, the then Prime Minister,
Margaret Thatcher, ordered 600 buildings be sent
there for use as a garrison.
The Portakabin trade mark has become so well known
it is increasingly used as the generic term for the
industry that has sprung up in its wake. To sustain
market leadership, continuous and careful
development of the product was—and, of course, still
is—necessary. Early buildings were constructed of
timber and though stackable and linkable were unable
to offer large open-plan spaces, often requested by
the ever-increasing market. As customer demands for
speed, quality and performance grew, a move to steel
and modularity was inevitable, providing durability
and transportability without compromising on
performance.
A new generation of portable buildings evolved—
buildings pre-engineered from steel and transported
in modular form, ready for positioning on a prepared
site.
The advantages to the marketplace were incredible.
Here was a building solution to rival conventional
methods in terms of space and layout configuration.
Performance was proven and overall project
timescales were dramatically reduced. It is the
continual development of this type of building that now
forms the impressive range of Yorkon modular
buildings available today. Build quality, performance
and overall value comfortably meet the expectations
of modern-day users—providing portable
architecture which meets permanent building
standards. [Editor’s note: though many products from
the Portakabin range are undoubtedly portable,
Yorkon is primarily a prefabricated system used for
mostly permanently sited buildings.]
Without doubt, the most significant point in the history
of the modular building is the switch to new materials
and modern manufacturing methods. The move to
steel transformed modular building from a poor
alternative to a preferred building choice. Malleable,
strong and durable—the characteristics of steel are
recognised not only by end users but by
manufacturers. Its finite qualities enable larger
building layouts and multi-storey buildings to be
created, while maintaining structural performance.
The factory environment provides an ideal
environment for the production process—unaffected
by inclement weather and making use of production
line technology to provide jig-built accuracy. Trained
personnel, using familiar materials and practised
production techniques, add to the efficiency of the
factory processes.
This is modern-day building—using proven factory
techniques to meet set quality standards and complete
projects to specific customer requirements.
Considerable investment in manufacturing facilities,
prototype buildings and extensive testing add further
value to this technique—value from which our
customers are able to benefit. For example, prototype
Yorkon buildings have been developed and proven
in simulation tests, ensuring every detail of the
specification meets pre-determined quality and
performance standards. The galvanized steel
structure of the Yorkon Building System has been
tested to over twice the design load.
These are the standards we work to constantly—
always seeking and implementing new or more
efficient processes and methods as they become

186

available. Our customers know we cannot afford to
get these things wrong; they know our building
systems are mass produced and so have to be proven
to perform; they know we have tried and tested our
products. When buying a car, do they feel it is
necessary to question the way it was manufactured?
No. Customers are confident of the manufacturers and
their processes. Neither is it necessary when
purchasing a modular building—a factor our
customers are now accepting.
This overall control and efficiency which we as an
industry offer is what increasingly attracts
organisations like McDonald’s to the modular building
industry. Repetitive construction to pre-defined
standards is of paramount importance when the aim
is to open around 100 restaurants a year.
Having created a series of proven restaurant designs
with Yorkon, McDonald’s can simply select the
restaurant type for each project and be confident the
finished building will meet their exact specification. It
does not, of course, apply only to the building structure,
but also to the internal fitting out, —the majority of which
is now also completed within controlled factory
conditions. Restaurant seating and tables are
positioned, the kitchen is fully fitted, walls are tiled and
flooring is laid. Every item from the smallest hand drier
to the illuminated menu boards that span the serving
counter are in place and, more importantly, are exactly
as specified by McDonald’s. The positioning of each
and every light switch and napkin dispenser is exact,
all wiring is in place and plumbing installed, ready for
connection on-site.
Even the external furnishings are added at the factory.
Brick cladding, glazed panels and ‘drive thru’ hatches
are in situ before the modules are transported to site.
This extensive ‘finishing’ programme is part of a
tandem build process, which enables site preparation
to take place in parallel to the manufacture and fitting
out of the modules—thus reducing overall project
Transportable Environments: Technology
times. Once foundations are complete, it takes only a
matter of days—currently 9— for the modules to be
positioned, services connected and roof and signage
added.
Working closely together with the client like this
enables building partnerships to develop—
partnerships which are beneficial to both sides. For
example, long-term forecasts can be created,
detailing expected customer requirements. This not
only provides the manufacturer with a commitment McDonalds Restaurant by Yorkon
for the future, but enables the customer to control,
more effectively, their expansion plans.
McDonald’s, for instance, have taken this approach
in order to meet their ambitious growth rate. Confident
of McDonald’s commitment, Yorkon can plan ahead
and literally prepare restaurants ready for immediate
delivery. Obviously, this gives McDonald’s greater
management control. Restaurants are constantly in
production and stocks available. They can plan—and
alter—their expansion programme freely. Plus,
updates to restaurant interiors can be incorporated
as required.
More importantly, McDonald’s can take advantage of
the continuous development of the Yorkon Building
System. An increase in the number of module sizes
available, for example, gives more options when it
comes to building design. Indeed, our production
centre in York is currently home to a prototype
McDonald’s restaurant.
It is this flexibility in design, concentration on detail
and progressive approach for which modular building
is receiving its much-deserved recognition—and
attracting more new customers who do not
necessarily have contracts to fulfil on the scale of
McDonald’s. Organisations like British Aerospace,
Waltham Cross, Ciba Speciality Chemicals and
Zeneca may not require a repetitive building
application, but they benefit from the controlled
187
Keith Blanshard
efficiency of the factory process, the faster overall
project times and the quality end product.
A 2,000 square metre administration, sales and
marketing building is currently under construction by
Yorkon for Ciba at Duxford. Ask the company why they
chose Yorkon and their reasons are clear—for the
Head office buildiing for CIBA Speciality Chemicals by Yorkon value, quality, reputation and the speed at which they
operate. For Mobil, Esso and BP (relative newcomers
to the modular industry, each having adopted this
approach for the construction of forecourt shops both
in the UK and Europe) a variety of module size and
linking configurations, to suit the size of building they
require and the shape of their site, are important factors.
Mobil for example use eight modules—six to provide
an open-plan sales area and one partitioned off at
either end to provide staff facilities and store areas.
The forecourt shop at Dunstable measures just over
226 square metres and took just six weeks to construct
on site. This building has a flush external finish, which
Yorkon achieved by designing the wall and roof panels
to fit outside the steel frame of the modules—a design
feature unique to this application. Again attention to
detail and fast project programmes combined to
provide an efficient and cost-effective accommodation
solution.
An important aside to faster completion, of course, is
that organisations—particularly those in the service
industry—can begin to recoup their capital outlay
much quicker. The faster we, as designers and
manufacturers, provide our customers with their
building, the faster they can bring in money from their
customers. There is, perhaps, no market more
challenging with regard to project timescales than that
of the hotel industry. This was certainly a factor
fundamental to Yorkon’s partnership with hotel chain
Forte, who have a planned expansion programme of
1,000 new bedrooms in 12 months. Yorkon has
completed extensions to the Posthouse Hotels at
Brentwood and Lancaster at present and is currently
Forte Posthouse, Edinburgh by Yorkon working on a five-storey extension to the Edinburgh
188
hotel. Obviously the modular approach is working for
Forte.
What were the determining factors for Forte? There
were five clear objectives which were essential to their
expansion programme—which also apply equally to
other industries:
• reduce business disruption
• lower overall costs
• enhance quality and quality control
• reduce overall project time
• reduce project finance costs
The first factor, to reduce business disruption, is
obviously vital to a service industry like Forte—and
easily achievable by modular construction
methods. So much of the construction process takes
place off-site within the factory that the actual
working site is safer than usual and problems such
as plant noise and site deliveries are minimal.
During work at Brentwood all existing hotel rooms
were suitable for occupation throughout the
construction period.
Second, lower overall costs result from repetitive
construction details, standardisation of product and
bulk purchasing. Third is the possibility for enhanced
quality and quality control.
Enhanced quality, in this instance, led to the
development of a dedicated module to meet the
particular needs of hotel accommodation. Factors
such as increased acoustic performance were
covered. Quality control, as has been mentioned, is a
primary feature of the modular build process. Factory
conditions offer a controlled working environment;
buildings can be constructed to finer tolerances than
with traditional methods; operatives are trained and
inspection processes are in place. Indeed, members
of the Forte team were able to walk around their
completed hotel bedrooms at our factory, giving their

approval before the steel-framed modules were
delivered to site.
Fourth, speedy on-site work is again due to the tandem
build process. Finally, quicker turnaround of capital
outlay. As has been mentioned, because building
programmes are reduced, income—in this case, from
additional bedrooms—is generated more quickly than
usual. In fact, just weeks after their first payment to us,
Forte were receiving income from their extended
premises at Brentwood.
Aesthetically, of course, extensions to Forte hotels
must blend with existing facilities. For Brentwood, brick
cladding, specific matched windows and a flat roof
were required; at Lancaster, brick cladding, matched
windows and a pitched roof were required; at
Edinburgh, it was entirely different—a five-storey
building was required, erected on a stilted concrete
platform. Testimony, if it were needed, to the flexibility
of design possible from a modular building. A striking,
individual appearance can also be created, of course,
by making use of feature glazing, alternative
claddings, colour and roof options. The choices are
endless.
Let us then turn our consideration to transportability.
At the crux of the whole modular building process is
the unique ability to transport factory technology and
methods to the building site. In essence, we are taking
advantage of the ideals to create the best possible
solution—and then transporting it to site. And that’s
what makes modular building so effective. No weather
Transportable Environments: Technology
restrictions, no delivery delays, no shortage of
materials. Instead, purpose-designed, quality
controlled conditions, materials and specialist
products in constant supply. It is a modern-day process
to meet modern-day requirements. Combined with a
single source service, now increasingly available, and
championed by Yorkon, there is not, we believe, a more
efficient and in many cases better value for money
alternative solution. Our customers/your clients
receive the building they want, when they want it and
to an agreed specification and cost.
Modular building has, indeed, come of age and it
should be applauded for its incremental, yet
impressive, development, which is finally getting the
attention and recognition it deserves—not just in the
service industry, but in business, local government,
education, healthcare…and now, I’m pleased to say,
by CIRIA, the Construction Industry Research and
Information Association. The Association is currently
investigating the benefits of standardisation and pre-
assembly in design, specification and construction
to achieve better value for money. A document
detailing the Association’s encouraging findings is to
be released very soon.
It is this open-minded approach which we at Yorkon
would encourage. Consider the Yorkon Building
System as the palette from which others can work.
Recognise its options, its flexibility and its
performance and these can be used to advantage.
Clients will reap the benefits of pre-engineered,
modern-day transportable architecture, at its best.
189
 Possibilities for the Development of Building
with Pre-assembled Portable Components in the
Developing World
Prof. Antônio Jucá-Filho
University of Brasilia
Building industrialisation
The concept of building industrialisation on which this
argument is based was first elaborated by academics
of the Bartlett School, London. This was seen as a
gradual shift of labour time from on-site construction
to the manufacturing industries.
This concept denotes that the industrialisation in
question is a process that involves a network of
industries, rather than just on-site building systems.
Pre-fabrication, often identified with building
industrialisation, becomes, in the broader view, just
one line of development.
Pre-fabrication has assumed various forms, based
on physical and production characteristics such as
heavy or light panels, large or small scale of
production. Yet, this categorisation could refer to
industrial relationships, place of pre-moulding and
degree of pre-fabrication, i.e. closed systems, or open
systems, on-site or off-site pre-fabrication, total or
partial industrialisation.
Closed systems are those which utilise components
that are just compatible with themselves and they are
generally produced by one specific firm. Conversely,
with open systems, pre-fabrication is achieved
through the setting of standards of compatibility
between industries.
The idea of the degree of pre-fabrication concerns the
extent to which it is possible to build with a particular
190
system without the use of conventional building
crafting. The place where components are moulded
implies different conceptions for systems. A particular
line of development, independent of prefabrication
as pre-moulding, is the establishment of repetitive
mechanised procedures re-using moulds. This leads
to the development of systems defined as
industrialised moulding, which differs from pre-
fabrication because the fabrication of parts, mainly
structural, are done in the actual location that the part
will be used.
In any case, the use of the concept of industrialisation
goes beyond these lines of development for
construction, at the same time as offering a common
basis for a broader and better understanding of their
outcome. To some extent, most buildings in the world
today are pre-fabricated. Fittings, electrical, heating
and plumbing system parts, materials and simple
components such as bricks are, since the industrial
revolution, pre-fabricated. They are now largely
available in the developing world.
It is assumed that the various lines of development
lead to the transfer of labour time spent from on-site
construction to off-site industries, even when it is used
for in loco pre-fabrication or for other methods of on-
site fabrication.This includes conventional processes
which are confined by low levels of mechanisation
and where the cycle of production ultimately depends
upon the pace defined by craftsmanship, even when
tool machines are applied.

This general trend of labour transfer is represented
by a degree of pre-fabrication and defined by the
aggregated labour time spent on building materials
and components industries, over the same variable
in construction processes. The degree of pre-
fabrication tends to increase with the transfer of labour
involved in the production of parts outside
construction sites.
This formula, which should express the general trend
for the whole process, does not encompass the
different pace by which productivity evolves in
industries and construction sites. There are factors
which force the relative reduction of labour in an
inverse direction. The labour transferred results in
less labour overall, since industries require less
labour time to produce parts. Hence, the consistency
of this formula depends upon the long-term relative
effect of productivity over labour reduction compared
with labour transfer. However, on-site processes are
not homogeneous over time and are susceptible to
substitution of materials, components and
equipment, which produces in return, a further
reduction of on-site labour time. In other words, these
substitutions which incorporate the labour
transferred tend to simplify or eliminate various
preparations, transportation, assembling or fitting
procedures on site, so that they offset the referred
differential pace in the evolution of productivity.
Therefore, in substituting pre-fabrication for
traditional building, it is not just labour which is
transferred, reduced and re-absorbed, but a series
of changes in on-site processes which produce
further reductions in labour time.
This view of the ‘substitutions effect’ goes beyond
labour transfer, and has a role for the increase of
construction productivity.
Up to this point, it has been assumed that productivity
is measured with some unit of output per quantity of
labour as input, let us say, an hour to produce a
Transportable Environments: Technology
specific part. Substitutions of materials and
components have major effects on productivity and
this can be expressed by the ratio between the volume
of materials and components incorporated in
buildings over their volume when they first enter on
site.This is productivity defined as a reduction of waste,
which is significantly lower than in conventional
construction. This is specially important in developing
countries where the aggregated value of labour
relative to the aggregated value of material inputs is
lower, compared with advanced countries.
In the history of pre-fabrication and in the use of closed
and large-scale building systems, (especially in the
production of social housing) it is clear that there are
difficulties and inadequacies which are associated
with a series of factors such as financial discontinuities
to stabilise demand, oscillations in demand,
maintenance difficulties, rigidity of the system which
resists changes brought on by a broader demand and
flux in the demand over time. In addition, the built
environment generated by many pre-fabricated
systems was poor, resulting in the emergence of social
problems.
With open systems the problems caused by such
rigidities are improved, especially if associated with
architectural solutions compatible with social
needs.
The housing needs in developing countries involve
dwellings, infrastructure and other facilities such as
schools etc. It is observed that these needs are mostly
supplied by people building in stages according to
the level of public investment in infrastructure, which
often works as a guarantee and legitimisation of land
tenure in a process of consolidation of squatter’s
settlements or building of infrastructure and
equipment by small firms, subcontracted by large
ones or by governments. Focusing on the building
of houses, this process involves a multiple change;
i.e. several systems can be used according to the
191
Antônio Jucá-Filho
phase of house building. This system would present
an internal evolution related to the growing demand
for manufactured materials and components, which,
in the case of Brazil, becomes responsible for a larger
share of the demand for basic materials. The market
recognised the significance of this demand to a point
that the pre-assembling principle is now being
applied to plumbing parts.
Pre-assembled portable components
The principle of pre-assembling, which is literally self-
defining, is synonymous with the conception of
building industrialisation. Its development is
associated with spatial programs, emerging building
types, military equipment, temporary movable
buildings, use of new materials, new concepts for
folding structures and tent-like shelters. However, the
use of this principle has been mostly confined to
structures such as military bridges, types of roofs and
tensile buildings.
The motivation for the development of the pre-
assembling principle in spatial programs has been
to facilitate transport and local assembly. For
stationary spaces the main reasons are reduced
transport and labour costs. In other applications the
reasons are related to building speed and easy
mobility, for which the use of lighter materials is also
fundamental.
Perhaps the best example of pre-assembling for
dwelling appears in the traditional Mongols’ tent.1
Tents are portable by nature and people from all
corners of the world have developed tents, such as
North American Native Americans and Arabic
peoples, although most require assembly
procedures. Hence, the sophisticated pre-
assembling structure of the Mongols’ tent is
remarkable. It reveals that, in principle, pre-assembly
has long been applied to housing.
192
Possible developments
The lessons from failures in the use of closed and
large-scale system building for housing point to the
need for reassessment of the conventional building
process, to encompass a proper evolution, mainly with
regard to three interrelated areas:
• projecting;
• management;
• substitution of materials and components;
• mechanisation.
Conventional building processes are submitted to
changes in these areas following a sort of
spontaneous path of open industrialisation. Building
is not backward in comparison to the manufacturing
industry because it is different in nature, and this
comparison cannot be made. 2 As a business,
speculative building offers other relevant ways to
obtain profits besides reducing costs on production
processes. Commercial, financial and land use
strategies partially offset the interest in investment in
the improvement of building processes, and they are
further discouraged by the connected uncertainties
already mentioned.
Nevertheless, conventional building processes are
gradually beginning to use more pre-fabricated parts,
and the producers and users of pre-fabricated systems
are learning the value of the flexibility possessed by
conventional processes.
These lessons could be applied to the
development of pre-assembly techniques. In fact,
the re-design of parts should evolve towards the
increasing application of pre-assembled
principles to building parts or sub-systems; i.e.
electrical or plumbing parts, windows and doors,
structures for roofs etc., which could be made
available on the market.

Observation has revealed that the network of building
materials stores in developing countries has become
an effective way for ordinary people to have access to
innovative building parts. This is perhaps because,
as a network, it maximises access and diversity, which
is necessary to satisfy a broader demand, besides that
already perceived in the existing industry structure.
Extending this principle of a professional industrial
basis to the association between industries—
between national, foreign, or multinational firms, and
via joint-ventures—appears to be a path for this
development. Nevertheless, this rationale cannot be
beneficial for locals if there is a simplistic transference
of technologies which have been developed for
consumption paradigms of more advanced countries,
as this would restrict demand and profits. Conversely,
by rethinking the use of certain innovations (such as
in materials), or through an entirely new development
of more suitable products to local needs, broader
interests can be satisfied, perhaps not for those who
aim for fast profits, but certainly for those who wish to
‘farm’ the system for long-term benefits.
A final point is related to the consumption of energy. It
is observed that there is high consumption of energy
and natural resources related to construction,
particulary in housing, on-site and off-site production
and in the operation of dwellings. From the point of
view of the production of building components,
recycling appears an important area that needs to be
1 Editor’s note: usually described as a Yurt.
Transportable Environments: Technology
explored. It is possibly worthwhile to develop new
processes of recycling to obtain advanced materials
and building parts, such as advanced ceramics, which
may be used for structural components.
Conclusion
The basic guidelines to be observed in the
development of transportable pre-assembly building
parts are:
• to limit component size to small pieces, perhaps
modules;
• to reduce weight;
• to limit the need for special equipment;
• to promote compatibitity with conventional materials,
components and conventional building processes.
This latter point is important since it facilitates labour
adaptation and re-skilling, avoiding unemployment
resulting from technological advance. Employment
opportunities can be associated with efforts for further
diversification, especially in an expanding business
cycle, providing a positive employment factor.
If a technological leading edge construction such as
the space programme needs international
cooperation to finance it, then the insertion of more
countries into the pre-assembly process is desirable.
Development of these systems could lead to
comprehensive and sustainable improvements in the
developing world building industry.
2 Michael Ball, Rebuilding Construction, Routledge, London,
1988.
193
 Table 1.0 Base Building Energy Estimate. (Dollars per Square Foot perYear)

Table 2.0 Comparison Of Mechanical Systems

Table 2.1 Annual Energy Cost Comparison Of Base BuildingTo High Eff. Hvac.
(Dollars per Square Foot perYear)

Table 3.0 Energy Efficient Strategies

Table 3.1 Annual Energy Cost By Energy Use (S/S.F.).

194
Sustainable Transportable Classroom
Glenn Hill, Huy Ngo and David Driskill
Texas Tech University
Background
The Architecture Research Center at Texas Tech
University has initiated a program to reinvent the
elementary school from a systems approach. This
involves looking at the building type from a whole
building level. The design team is looking at the
elementary school from a variety of different scales
and values. The team is focused on the values of the
client, the user and the designer, and at the scales of
the public school district, the neighborhood, the
elementary school and the classroom. The first step
in this program is to reevaluate the transportable
classroom portion of the elementary school
infrastructure.
Many public school districts are experiencing rapid
growth and changing demographics of their
neighborhood elementary (primary) schools. The
most common solution is to turn to ‘temporary’
transportable classrooms to meet this need. These
‘temporary’ classrooms are often designed with little
concern for energy cost and long-term sustainability.
Unfortunately, these classrooms are not temporary
either. They often become a permanent component
within the Public School District’s (PSD) infrastructure
and are used continuously at different sites throughout
the school district. Even if they are retained for a short
period by the original PSD, they are sold to other PSDs
for continuous use in other communities. Many of
these classrooms have been in use over thirty years.
As one administrator put it, ‘They have become a
necessary evil’.
This transportable architecture type is in need of
reinvention. This reinvention can easily include the
use of renewable energy, and sustainable building
systems and materials. Unfortunately, most of the
architects for PSDs do not have the background and
expertise to incorporate daylighting and passive
heating and cooling strategies into the current
transportable building type. Also, many PSDs do not
use architects and engineers for transportable
classrooms; instead they bypass their services and
buy classrooms from building manufacturers who Transportable classroom
have established designs. Those PSDs that initially
used architects or engineers to design their temporary
classrooms 20 years ago are still building those same
classroom designs today. These classrooms when
originally designed did not incorporate sustainable
design principles and were designed as ‘temporary’
buildings. Unfortunately, these older designs have
never been updated.There is a definite need for a new
prototype that incorporates renewable energy
strategies and sustainable design principles.
The base building
The current ‘temporary’ transportable classroom is
fundamentally a 28×32 foot (8.4×9.6 metre) box
containing a classroom area, two restrooms and an
entry. These classrooms must meet state
requirements for elementary (primary) school
facilities.The foundation superstructure of the building
is a steel frame made of I beams and C joists. A floor of
wood joists 2×10 inch on 16 inch centers (50×250 mm
on 400 mm centers) and a plywood deck are built on
top of the steel framing. Wood-framed walls 2×4 inch Wall section of classroom
195
Glen Hill, Huy Ngo and David Driskill
Chart 1—Base Building Energy Use and Cost
Chart 2a—Base and High Eff. HVAC annual cost
Chart 2b—High Eff. HVAC annual energy cost
196
on 16 inch centers (50×100 mm on 400 mm centers)
are built on top of this wood deck. The walls are
insulated with 3.5 inch (90 mm) fiberglass batt. The
exterior of the wall is sheathed with plywood and is
finished with steel siding. The interior of the wall is
finished with gypsum board with a pre-finished vinyl
facing.The roof structure is constructed of steel trusses,
sheathed in plywood, and covered with a bituminous
built-up roof. The interior ceiling is hung acoustic tile.
The classroom is lit with inexpensive low-efficiency
fluorescent fixtures. Heating, ventilation, and air
conditioning are provided by a roof-mounted DX
electric heating and air conditioning unit.
These classrooms are moved from one location to
another by commercial movers. Large steel beams are
slid under the floor framing of the building. The building
is then lifted with jacks so that large wheels can be place
under these beams. With the wheels in place, the
building can be moved to another site as a single unit.
The extensive local road and transportation systems
allow for relatively easy transportation of the buildings.
Phase I: Energy analysis
The first phase of the reinvention of the classroom is to
evaluate the energy performance of the existing prototype
for transportable classrooms. We will refer to this as the
base building. This evaluation gives the design team an
understanding of how energy is used in this building type;
insight into the interrela-tionships between different
energy uses; and a benchmark for the performance of
alternative design solutions. Since any energy
performance of a building is regionally specific the team
began their study in Lubbock, Texas. The energy studies
will eventually be expanded to over 15 geographical
regions that utilize transportable classrooms.
Base building analysis
The first step in the energy analysis is to determine the
energy performance of this base building. The team
uses both Energy Use expressed in BTUs and Energy
Cost expressed in dollars to analyze the results. The
design team prefers to focus on Energy Cost in the
analysis. There are three reasons why Energy Cost is
preferred.The first is that BTUs equate all energy as equal
and do not differentiate between the value of different
fuel sources (coal, fuel oil, natural gas, electricity, solar).
Second, BTUs are not commonly understood by the
user and clients of the architecture, whereas dollars are.
Third, Energy Use does not take into account social and
industry subsi-dies expressed through such means as
industry regulation and demand charges.Therefore, the
results presented in this paper will focus on Energy Cost.
The energy estimate of the building determined by
computer simulation is shown in Table 1.0 (see p.194
for all tables), Base Building Energy Estimate. Chart
1.0 shows the percentage breakdown of energy use
and energy cost.1
In this case the percentages are equal for energy use
and cost. In past studies of standard permanent
classrooms the design team found the energy cost for
heating is significantly less than cooling, because natural
gas or fuel oil is used for heating.2 In the transportable
classroom electricity is used for both heating and cooling,
therefore their costs are comparable to their energy use.
When demand charges are present, cooling and lighting
are a significantly greater percentage of the energy cost.3
The cause of this is the demand charges impose a
financial penalty for the coincidental peak electrical
lighting and cooling demand. Lubbock, Texas, does not
have demand charges so the energy costs were not
impacted. However, this is why it is important to do the
energy simulations for the given site and building, and
not rely solely on previous experience with similar
architecture.
High Efficiency HVAC analysis
The analysis of the base building’s design and the
energy simulation revealed that the mechanical system

used in the base building was inefficient and did not
meet current standards of practice.The remedy for this
is relatively inexpensive and simple to enact; therefore
the design team chose to upgrade the HVAC system.
The HVAC system is upgraded with a higher-efficiency
unit and better environmental controls.Then the energy
simulation is rerun before continuing any further
analysis.The changes made in the mechanical system
are shown in Table 2.0.The results are reflected in Table
2.1. The overall energy cost was decreased by 22%,
bringing the annual energy cost from $1.53 per sq.ft./
yr. to $1.19 per sq.ft./yr. In Chart 2.0 It is seen that these
changes impact those areas of energy cost directly
associated with HVAC systems, such as Heating,
Cooling, and Fans. Of course, the HVAC upgrade had
no impact on Lights, Equipment, and Hot Water. The
percentage energy cost (Chart 2.0b) associated with
Heating, Cooling, Lights, and Equipment is now close
to equal, because of the HVAC improvement.
Low-Energy analysis
Additional studies are done using the High Efficiency
HVAC case as the new benchmark for evaluation.
Elimination Parametrics are used to study the
interrelationships between internal and envelope
loads, energy use and building systems. Hourly data
for typical summer, winter, spring and fall days, and
peak cooling and heating days are analyzed to reveal
time of day and coincidence of building loads. Then
additional energy simulations are done to test
alternative design proposals. From among these
studies a series of energy efficiency strategies
emerge. A building simulation is done and is referred
to as the Low-Energy alternative. This alternative
included the High Efficiency HVAC strategies (Table
2.0) and incorporated the most effective energy
efficiency strategies.These strategies and component
descriptions of them are listed in Table 3.0.
There are basically two different sets of strategies
reflected in the Low-Energy design. The first set is
Transportable Environments: Technology
thermal conductivity and solar transmission
improvements to the envelope. The second set is
lighting load reduction. The overall thermal
conductivity of the envelope was optimized for the
climate. Solar gain was controlled by increasing the
shading coefficient of the glazing, and introducing
shading of the windows. The building actually
performed better thermally without increasing the
number of windows, but in order to introduce
daylighting additional windows had to be added to
the design. The benefits of daylighting override the
liabilities of increasing the square footage of windows.
Using more windows to obtain better passive solar
gain were tried, but the increase of solar gain without
additional mass in the building increased cooling.
Most of the heating requirements for this building take
place in the evening hours, early mornings and late
afternoon, when direct passive solar has little benefit
without thermal mass to delay the heat distribution to Chart 3—Annual Energy cost of Base Building: High
the space. Little if any heating is needed, during the Efficiency HVAC and Low-Energy alternative
day time. The air temperature around the building skin
reduces heat losses, and solar gain to the building is
adequate to put the building in a steady state condition
during the day.
The results of these strategies are significant (Table
3.1). The annual energy cost is reduced from $1.19 in
the High Efficiency HVAC case to $0.85, a reduction
in energy cost of 29%. The major impact is in Lighting
and Heating with negligible reduction in Cooling. The
most obvious cause for the savings is in lighting. This
is achieved by increasing the efficiency of the lighting
by 45%, reducing the associated energy cost from
$0.25 to $0.14. Another significant reduction in lighting
cost came from the introduction of daylighting and a
3-stepped dimming control system to insure the lights
are turned off when adequate daylight is available.
The reduction in heating is a direct result of the
improved thermal performance of the envelope and
the increase of south-facing glazing for direct solar
heat. Unfortunately, solar gain offset much of the
savings in cooling energy cost derived from the Axonometric of classroom structure
197
Glen Hill, Huy Ngo and David Driskill
Structural insulated panel and spline
SIP wall
198
thermal envelope improvements. This is the reason
cooling did not improve as significantly as heating. Of
course, the windows were needed to get significant
daylighting performance.
The design team now has a clearer understanding
of how energy is used in this building type. It also has
a series of design strategies that it can implement. It
must be understood that these energy strategies are
not design solutions. These strategies point in the
direction in which energy cost can be reduced. It is
up to the design team to figure out how to do it. For
example, the design team chose a lighting level of
0.66 watts/sq.ft. as the reduced lighting load for the
low-energy alternative. The team did not know
exactly what combination of lighting fixtures would
exactly achieve this lighting level, but they did know,
based on previous experience, that lighting levels
of this kind are achievable. The same is true with the
daylighting strategy. There is an initial assumption
for simulation reasons that their are four windows 4
feet by 6 feet (1.2 metres by 1.8 metres) facing south
and two of the same size facing north. The computer
simulation is able to take this information and
estimate the daylighting assistance. These windows
should not be considered a solution. Their only
purpose is to test the feasibility of daylighting to
reduce energy cost.
The design team now takes what it learns from the
energy analysis and the low-energy design strategies
and integrates this knowledge with a larger set of
architectural concerns at a whole building level.
Phase II: Building systems
In the next phase of the project the design team
decides to explore conceptually the building systems
of the base building. This exploration, informed by the
earlier energy analysis and previous work with
transportable architecture, leads the team to consider
an alternative building system.
This building system is generically referred to as
Structural Insulated Panels (SIP). This system dates
back to the late 1950s, but until recently has been met
with scepticism by most builders and architects. The
rising cost of lumber and new technical breakthroughs
in production have made SIPs a reasonable
alternative to wood-frame construction. A structural
insulated panel consists of a core of rigid foam
insulation permanently bonded between two layers
of oriented strand board (OSB). They are cut to size
and shape in the plant and shipped to the job site
where they fit together with a simple spline.
The advantages in applying the SIP systems are three-
fold. First, SIPs offer a superior thermal envelope to
conventional frame construction. They have more R
value per inch of thickness and reduce air infiltration.
Second, they are structurally superior to a frame wall,
especially under the conditions experienced in
transporting a building. Because they are a
homogeneous wall system, they do not experience
the movement and shear stresses that conventional
framing does. The SIP is also much lighter per inch of
wall than conventional frame construction, which is a
decided advantage if you intend to transport a
complete building.
The redesign of the classroom using SIPs requires a
simple transformation of the base transportable
classroom. An 8 inch (200 mm) thick unit spanning 16
feet (4.8 metres) will replace the wood floor joists of
the base building. The size and amount of steel
needed in the steel structural frame is reduced,
because of the superior structural strength of the panel.
The 2×4 inch (50×100 mm) frame wall system is
replaced with 4 inch (100 mm) thick SIPs, replacing
an R-11 frame wall with an R-19 SIP wall. The multiple
steel joists in the roof structure are replaced with a
single structural beam spanning the breadth of the
building, and 6 inch (150 mm) SIPs span from the
beam to the outside walls.

This is just an initial concept and does not represent a
completed design. The team is in the process of
experimenting with alternative forms of daylighting
(light tubes, sky lights, clerestories) as an alternative to
the conventional side lighting. This is a good example
of how the choice of an alternative structural/enclosure
system is informed by the earlier energy analysis.
Phase III: The Whole Building scale.
The design team is taking what is learned from working
with transportable classrooms and trying to expand
that knowledge to the whole building level of an
elementary school. As mentioned earlier, the major
factors driving the use of transportable classrooms
are changing demographics within the school district,
and the rapid growth of neighborhoods. What if the
school district built permanent elementary schools
that expanded or contracted as needed? What if, as
one school system lost students it shared unneeded
classrooms with another school that is experiencing
growth? The design team proposes, instead of
building conventional school buildings with a fixed
number of classrooms, that schools should be built
that contract and expand as the need arises.
The design team proposes that a central permanent
core of architecture is built to house the lobby,
administrative offices, gymnasium, cafeteria, library
and restrooms. This core becomes the datum in which
the classrooms are added and subtracted. A
classroom designed and built around some of the
principles of the transportable classrooms serves as
this modular classroom. The end result is an
elementary school that changes in size as the need
requires. Classrooms are bought prior to their need,
1 The energy simulations were done using DOE2 developed
by Lawrence Berkley Labs for the U.S. Department of Energy
and Energy-10 developed by the Passive Solar Industries
Council.
2 David Finley, ‘Energy Responsive Elementary School
Design’, Master’s Thesis, Texas Tech University, Lubbock,
Transportable Environments: Technology
distributed upon demand, and traded with other
schools as needed. Of course, there are a number of
issues to be resolved. How is the electrical power and
HVAC distributed to each unit? How is an image of
permanency created, and how is the architectural
context of the neighborhood reflected in the building?
All of these issues and many others must be resolved
before this proposal is a reality, but the potential benefits
are great enough to warrant a continued investigation.
Conclusion
Axonometric of classroom module
The project team is very excited about the direction
this research has taken. As this paper shows there is
significant room for the improvement of the energy
performance of transportable classrooms. Those
energy issues are developed into knowledge and
strategies that inform, educate, and stimulate the
designer, expanding the criteria for architecture. But,
in order to take advantage of those opportunities, the
transportable classroom has to be reinvented. This
reinvention, in order to be successful, has to be at a
whole building level, encompassing architect, user
and client concerns. This approach leads us to new
technologies and eventually new concepts for
elementary school buildings.
Axonometric of school core
The significant factor in the success of these or any
solutions is the ability of the architects to integrate the
energy-related issues with other design concerns.
The most important energy-related goal for
transportable classrooms is that clients, users,
builders, and architects perceive new advantages in
comfort, productivity, constructibility, aesthetics, and
economics. Successful reinvention breaches the
barriers of convention and connects to a broader
Texas, 1990.
3 Steve Ternoey, et al. The Design Of Energy-Responsive
Commercial Buildings, New York, New York, Wiley-
Interscience, 1984. Huy Ngo, ‘A Synergistic Approach to the
Design of Energy Responsive Office Buildings’, Master’s
Thesis, Texas Tech Universit,. Lubbock, Texas, 1992. Elementary school core and modular classrooms
199
 ‘Portable Architecture’ exhibition, RIBA Architecture Centre, London, 1997

200
Endword
Extracts from the closing plenary session of the Portable Architecture Conference and
Symposium held at the RIBA Architecture Centre, London, Saturday 31 May 1997 at 4.30pm.
Robert Kronenburg (chair): Let’s start big—what is
the greatest problem of today?
Cedric Price: My greatest problem is understanding
young children—an example is a current television
programme which features furry characters with
televisions in their stomachs—it is incomprehensible.
Patrick Sheridan: It is the media—it has become more
powerful than anything else in the world including
architecture.
Norman Richards: I feel the car is a hugely
problematic issue because of its associated danger
and pollution and that portable architecture might be
a way of mitigating its use and necessity (general
assent).
Maurice Agis: I will not drive.
Cedric Price: I cannot drive.
Mark Fisher: I have no problems at all.
Chair: I realise that by starting with this question I have
fallen into the trap of concentrating on the limitations
of portable architecture when this conference has
been all about possibilities. Let’s take a different
approach. What is the most important new innovation
that designers of portable architecture are waiting for?
Nicholas Goldsmith: New materials will increase the
performance of portable architecture and in some
cases my practice is using materials like kevlar and
carbon fibre more and more. However, often price
means that we have to go back to something that
performs less well such as steel or aluminium. This is
not necessarily a problem as these are good cheap
effective materials.
Mark Fisher: Materials are unimportant. What is really
needed are cheap buildings not high-performance
buildings. I want to build portable buildings from
concrete, bricks and stone. The ultimate building is a
free building that enables you to spend all your money
on drink, food, holidays and the opposite sex. I am
concerned by buildings like Richard Horden’s Ski-
haus which use expensive construction materials
drawn from other applications. If designers are so
fascinated with yacht design that they use its
Maurice Agis: Colourspace
components, why don’t they just design yachts?
Cezary Bednarski: Buildings such as the Ski-haus,
if mass-produced, would pollute the environment in
which they were meant to be placed and beautiful
places like the mountains would be irretrievably
altered with man-made objects everywhere.
Chair: On the other hand, some people do not want to
spend all their money on wine, women and song but
specifically want to have such a thing as a beautiful
house.
Andreas Vogler: The intention of the micro-
architecture projects is not for them to be scattered
everywhere in all the beautiful places.They are meant
to increase the potential for people to enjoy these
difficult environments without affecting them Mark Fisher: Pink Floyd Rock Stage Set
201

Nicholas Goldsmith and Todd Dalland (FTL Happold):
Cadillac Mobile Communication Center
permanently. What is architecture anyway? I feel that
sitting in my seat on an airliner, with my little tray in
front of me, looking out of the window is an architectural
experience. It reminds me of the special experience
of being in the Ski-haus when it is sited in the Alps.
Cedric Price: If all houses were free would people
still want to buy them?
Chair: Definitely, yes. People would always want
something different to what had been provided. The
only way to respond to this would be to make all the
houses different.
Cedric Price: It is sometimes interesting to look at the
possessions that really rich people have as they can
have anything they want. It gives you an indication of
what is really necessary. For instance, there is a Saudi
Arabian millionaire who does not have furniture but
prefers to lean against a saddle.
peoples’ lives for the better—sometimes in life or death
situations? For example there has recently been a
South African initiative that encourages the various
factions in Northern Ireland to meet in a neutral
place—this idea might be more acceptable if you
could create a neutral forum in amongst the areas
directly affected by the issues.
Richard Lewcock: I have problems with the term
‘portable’ architecture as what we are primarily talking
about is ‘prefabricated’ architecture, most of which
never moves after its first deployment.
Maurice Agis: Structures that can be erected for a
short time and then removed forever are also portable
architecture.
Cezary Bednarski: Portable architecture moves from
place to place, architecture that stays in the same place
but changes is mutable architecture.

Lorenzo Apicella (Apicella Associates):
Hong Kong Tourist Association Pavilion
Norman Richards: Some people now don’t want Chair: Portable architecture is just a convenient term
houses at all but want artifacts that can be compressed used because of its accessibility rather than its
into the minimum space, such as a ruck-sack, that they accurate definition of a complex area.
can carry with them.
David Cheung: What is important is the fact that it is
Chair: Most of the discussion so far has been based architecture rather than building. The use of the word
on the desires of a relatively small group of people in ‘architecture’ is a crucial recognition of the ambition
the developed Western world. What about the of its designers and the potential it has to do more than
potential for portable architecture to really influence simply construction.
Further discussion about the nature of the conference concluded that it had been an energising event that had developed many of
the participants’ ideas and ambitions. The nature of a possible future event led to some items for a new agenda:

Architecture of any kind is less present in most people’s minds than events and commodities communicated through the media—
however, the media could be available for appropriation as a facet of portable architecture.

The development of new materials may be less important than developing the capacity to use the existing ones better.

Portable architecture should not primarily be about the sexy machine but the most affordable and appropriate way of doing things.

Because portable architecture is about minimal structure it could be an architecture that embodied the concept of ‘just the
absolutely necessary’.

Even people who design and make portable architecture can be confused about what it is and what it can achieve.

Ian Liddell (Buro Happold): RSSB Event Centre For developments and information on future events see the PBRU website: HTTP://www.liv.ac.uk/ ~paconfex/home.html

202
List of Delegates
Portable Architecture Conference and Symposium
London, 29–31 May 1997

Maurice Agis Nigel Brown

Art Place Trust Pagoda/Nomad Group
Chisenhale Studios c/o Tavistock House, 5 Rodney Road
64–68 Chisenhale Road Cheltenham
London E3 5EZ Gloucestershire, GL50 1HX

Lorenzo Apicella Gordon Browne

Apicella Associates Built Environment Faculty
9 Ivebury Court Southampton Institute
325 Latimer Road East Park Terrace
London W10 6RA Southampton SO14 OYN

Cezary Bednarski Neil Burford

Studio E Architects Lightweight Structures Unit
Palace Wharf Duncan of Jordanstone College
Rainville Road University of Dundee
London W6 9HN DD1 4HT, Scotland

Adrian Billingsley Andrew Chan

Pagoda/Nomad Group University of Liverpool
c/o Tavistock House, 5 Rodney Road School of Architecture and Building Engineering
Cheltenham Abercromby Square
Gloucestershire, GL50 1HX Liverpool L69 3BX

Keith Blanshard David Cheung

Managing Director of Yorkon Ltd 732 Upper Changi Road East
Yorkon 04–03 Cascadale
Huntington Singapore
York YO3 9PT 486860

Dr Alan J.Brookes David Clews

Brookes Stacey Randall School of Architecture and Interior Design
Architects and Technology Consultants University of North London
34 Bruton Place 6–40 Holloway Road
London W1X 7AA London N7 8JL

203
 Todd Dalland Matt Greavey
FTL Happold University of Liverpool
157 Chambers Street School of Architecture and Building Engineering
Manhattan, NY, NY 10007 Abercromby Square
USA Liverpool L69 3BX

Nicholas Edwards Nelleke Guequierre

Architect Technical University of Delft
33 Napier House PO. Box 5043
Cooks Road 2600 GA
London SE17 3NA The Netherlands

Mark Elkins Wendy Gunn

Ove Arup and Partners Whaur Extremes Meet Research and Design
13 Fitzroy Street Duntreath Stables, By Blarefield
London Stirlingshire G63 9AJ
W1P 6BQ Scotland

Odile Fillion Dr. Rumiko Handa

Mission 2000 Room 237, Architecture Hall West
36 Rue Lacedede University of Nebraska
Paris 75005 Lincoln, NE 68588–0107
France USA

Mark Fisher Rex Henry

Mark Fisher Architects School of Architecture and Interior Design
51 Wharton Street University of North London
London 6–40 Holloway Road
WC1X 9PA London N7 8JL

Nicholas Goldsmith Prof. Glenn E.Hill

FTL Happold College of Architecture
157 Chambers Street Texas Tech University
Manhattan, NY, NY 10007 Lubbock Texas 79409
USA USA

Bill Gonor Richard Horden

Coordinates Systems Inc. Richard Horden Associates
1533 Pearl Street 4 Golden Square
Boulder, Colorado 86302 London
USA W1R 3AE

204
 List of delegates

Daniel C.E.Fish Prof. Vladimir Krstic

Fabric Structures Engineer Kansas State University
Aystree House, 26 Victoria Road Department of Architecture, Seaton Hall 211
Broughty Ferry Manhattan, KS 66502
Dundee DD5 1BJ USA

Dr L.Jankovic Dr Ada Kwiatkowska

Birmingham School of Architecture Faculty of Architecture
University of Central England Technical University of Wroclaw
Perry Barr Dembowskiego 78/1
Birmingham B42 2SU 51–669 Wroclaw, Poland

Rojer Jansson Keith Lewcock

Royal Institute of Technology Specialist Structures
Dept. of Structural Engineering Wares Nursery
Stockholm, S-100 44 Woodborough
Sweden Wiltshire SN9 5PF

Asst. Prof. Linda Nelson Johnson Ian Liddell

College of Architecture and Environmental Design Buro Happold
Arizona State University Camden Mill
Tempe, AZ 85287 Lower Bristol Road
USA Bath BA2 3DQ

Prof. Antônio Jucá-Filho Marie-Paule Macdonald

Núcleo de Pesquisa para Habitaçäo School of Architecture, University of Waterloo
Ed. Multiuso-I, BI A 200 University Avenue
Campus Universitario Darcy Ribeiro, Asa Norte Waterloo, Ontario
Brasilia DF, Brazil Canada N2L 3G1

Anna L Kelso David Morris

J.Clark and Partners Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture
Elizabeth House University of South Australia
116 Holywood Road Adelaide
Belfast BT18 0PD Australia

Christopher M.King Bethany Neubauer

Room 623 221 Norfolk Street
23 Lexington Avenue Cambridge
New York NY, NY 10010 MA 02139
USA USA

205
 Prof. Huy Ngo Gavin Renwick
College of Architecture Whaur Extremes Meet Research and Design
Texas Tech University Duntreath Stables, By Blarefield
Lubbock Texas 79409 Stirlingshire, G63 9AJ
USA Scotland

Mieke Oostra Paul Shakespeare

Faculty of Architecture, University of Liverpool
Technical University of Delft School of Architecture and Building Engineering
P.O. Box 5043, 2600 GA, Delft Abercromby Square
The Netherlands Liverpool L69 3BX

Ass. Prof. Marina Pecar Patrick Sheridan

Kansas State University University of Liverpool
Department of Architecture, Seaton Hall 211 School of Architecture and Building Engineering
Manhattan, KS 66502 Abercromby Square
USA Liverpool L69 3BX

Claudia Poeppel Andrew Scoones

Technical University of Munich Building Centre Trust
c/o Jahnstrasse 7 Store Street
D-80469 Munich London
Germany WC1E 7BT

Sigrun Prahl Carl Shenton

Tellstrasse 12 Oxford Brookes University
D-12045 91 East Avenue
Berlin Oxford
Germany OX4 1XR

John Prewer Asst. Prof. Jennifer Ruth Siegal

John Prewer Associates Ltd. University of North Carolina at Charlotte
71 School Lane College of Architecture, 9201 University City Bd.
Bapchild, Nr. Sittingbourne Charlotte, NC 28223–0001
Kent ME9 9NH USA

Cedric Price Victor Thöne

Cedric Price Architects Olympiaweg 68–11
38 Alfred Place 1076 XC
London Amsterdam
WC1E 7DP The Netherlands

206
 List of delegates

Nicholas Tobier Andreas Vogler

221 Norfolk Street Technical University of Munich,
Cambridge, Faculty of Architecture
MA 02139 Arcisstr. 21, D-80290 Munich
USA Germany

Nick Whitehouse Yunn Chii Wong

Terrapin Limited School of Architecture
Bond Avenue National University of Singapore
Bletchley Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore
Milton Keynes MK1 1JJ Singapore 119260

207
 Selected Bibliography
Theory
Clark, Kenneth N., Del Bono, Elisa and Antonio
Luna Garcia, ‘The Geography of Power in South
America: Divergent Patterns of Domination in Spanish
and Portuguese Colonies’, in: Defining the Urban
Condition. Accelerating Change in the Geography of
Power. Proceedings of the ACSA, European
Conference, Lisbon, 1995. Washington: ACSA Press,
1995, pp.11–116.
Davidson, Ellis H.R., Scandinavian Mythology.
London, New York, Sydney, Toronto, Hamlyn Publ.
Group Ltd, 1969.
Golabian, Hossein, An Analysis of the
Underdeveloped Rural and Nomadic Areas of Iran. A
Theoretical Approach to the Problems of Social and
Economic Development of Rural and Nomadic
Communities in Iran. Stockholm, The Royal Institute
of Technology, School of Architecture, 1977.
Heyerdahl, Thor, The Kon-Tiki Expedition. By Raft
Across the South Seas. Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
Penguin Books, 1969.
_ _ _ _. Ekspedycja Ra. (Trans. into Polish from: Ra
Ekspedisjonen. Oslo, 1970). Warsaw, Iskry Publ.,
1974.
Horne, Lee, ‘Rural Habitats and Habitations. A
Survey of Dwellings in the Rural Islamic World’, in: The
Changing Rural Habitat. Proceedings of Seminar in
the Series, Architectural Transformations in the Islamic
World. Beijing: The Aga Khan Award for Architecture,
1982, vol. 2, pp.27–54.
Lockwood, Douglas, Ja, Australijczyk. (Transl. into
Polish from: I, the Aboriginal. Darwin, N.T., 1960).
Warsaw, Iskry Publ., 1969.
208
Kronenburg, Robert (ed.), ‘Ephemeral/Portable
Architecture’, themed edition of Architectural Design,
September/October 1998.
Meziane, Abdelmajid, ‘Empiryczne postrzeganie
czasu u ludzi Maghrebinskich’. (L’aperception
empirique du temps chez les peuples du Maghreb.
Empirical Perception of Time Among the Peoples of
the Maghreb) (Transl. into Polish from: Les Cultures et
le Temps. Cultures and Time. Paris: UNESCO, 1975),
in: Czas w Kulturze. Warsaw, PIW Publ., 1988, pp.181–
198. Piwinski, Ryszard, Mitologia Arabow (Mythology
of the Arabs). Warsaw, Art and Film Publ., 1989.
The Poetic Edda, Edda poetycka, Wroclaw, (Transl.
into Polish from: Die Lieder der Edda, Hrsg. von Barent
Sijmons und Hugo Gering, Halle ad. Saale, 1888–
1931), Warsaw, Cracow, Ossolineum, 1986.
Relph, Edward, Place and Placelessness .
London, 1976.
Rosnay, Joel, Makroskop. (Transl. into Polish from:
Le Macroscope vers une Vision Globale. Editions du
Seuil, 1975), Warsaw, PIW Publ., 1982.
Spivak, Mayer, ‘Archetypal Place’ in: Architectural
Forum, 1973, no. 10, pp.44–49.
Szymanski, Edward, Islam pierwotny (Primeval
Islam), in: Religie Uniwersalistyczne (Universal
Religions), Warsaw, Iskry Publ., pp.374–400.
Tuan, Yi-Fu, Przestrzen i Miejsce. Warsaw: PIW
Publ., 1987. (Transl. into Polish from: Space and Place.
The Perspective and Experience. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1977).
Zbikowski, Tadeusz, ‘Religie archipelagu
malajskiego. Religie Australii i Oceanii’ (Religions of
Malay Archipelago. Religions of Australia and Pacific
Ocean Islands), in: Religie Azji, Afryki, Ameryki,

Australii i Oceanii (Religions of Asia, Africa, America,
Australia and Pacific Ocean Islands). Warsaw, Iskry
Publ., 1980, pp.203–232.
Context
Aljasmets, Erna, Garden of Eden On Wheels. Los
Angeles, The Museum of Jurassic Technology, 1996.
‘Architects steer hurricane recovery efforts in
Miami’, in: Architecture, 1992, Oct., vol. 81, no. 10, p.23.
Bakewell III, Ted and Jantzen, Mike, ‘An American
Dreamhouse’ in: Domus, 1980, Oct., no. 610, pp.42–43.
_ _ _ _. ‘Earthling capsule: Autonomous Dwelling
Vehicle, suburbs of Saint Louis’ in: Progressive
Architecture, 1981, Apr., vol. 62, no. 4 , pp.146–149.
Banham, Reyner, Design by Choice. Academy,
London, 1981.
Benes, Peter, ‘Itinerant Entertainers in NewYork and
New England, 1687–1830’ in: The Dublin Seminar for
American Folklife, Annual proceedings, Boston
University, 1984, p.129.
Bernhardt, Arthur, D., Building Tomorrow: the
Mobile/Manufactured Housing Industry. Cambridge,
Mass., 1980.
Bognar, Botond, ‘Typology of Space-Constructions
in: Contemporary Japanese Architecture’, in: Japan:
Climate, Space, and Concept —Process Architecture,
no. 25, 1981, p.160.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation,
Planning for the Mobile Home. Ottawa, 1982.
_ _ _ _. Garden Suites, A new housing option for
elderly Canadians. Ottawa, 1993.
_ _ _ _. Designs produced for the demonstration
and other installations of garden suites. Ottawa, 1994.
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation
(Canada), Site planning for mobile homes: a
supplement to the site planning handbook. Ottawa,
1973.
Selected bibliography
Colomina, Beatriz, ‘DDU at MoMA’, in ANY17.
Architecture-New York, pp.17.48–17. 53.
Cuny, F., ‘Refugee Camps and Camp Planning: The
State of the Art’, in: Disasters 1: 2, 1977, pp.125–43.
_ _ _ _. Disasters and Development. Oxford, 1983.
Davidson, Harold A., Housing Demand: Mobile,
Modular, or Conventional? New York, 1973.
Davies, I., Shelter after Disaster. England, Oxford
Polytechnic Press, 1978.
_ _ _ _. The Level of Shelter Provision in Developed
Cold Climate Countries. 1995.
Defoe, Daniel, A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of
Great Britain. London, 1753.
‘Der Reisende und sein Schatten, Raymond
Roussels Haus auf Rädern, ‘The Traveler and his
Shadow (Raymond Roussels’s ‘Maison Roulante’)’,
in: Daidalos, 1988, June 15, no. 28 , pp.60–64.
‘Do you ever think about us?’ in: Architects’ Journal,
1989, Dec. 20–27 vol. 190, no. 25–26, p.58.
Edmonton (Alta.), Planning Dept, Mobile and
modular housing in Edmonton: a demand
assessment. Edmonton, 1978.
_ _ _ _. Mobile home parks in the urban
environment. Edmonton, 1968.
Ellis, S., ‘Shelter and Environment for Refugees
and Displaced Persons in the Post-Yugoslav
Countries’ from the International Workshop papers
Towards Improved Shelter and Environment for
Refugees and Displaced Persons Within the Post-
Yugoslav Countries, Luton, England, 1995.
Engel, Heinrich, The Japanese House: A Tradition
for Contemporary Architecture. Tokyo, Tuttle, 1981,
pp.223–243.
Fawcett, Chris, The New Japanese House: Ritual
and Anti-Ritual Patterns of Dwelling . London,
Granada, 1980, pp.59–63.
Fisher, Mark, ‘Some Thoughts on Pop & Permanent
Architecture’, in: Architecture and Design, November
1993, p.108.
209
 Furlong, Michael, Development Controls for
Mobile-Component Housing: a Ten-year Review of
the Law. Cambridge, Mass, MIT-Harvard Joint Center
for Urban Studies, 1980.
‘Garbage Housing’ in: Architectural Design, 1971,
Feb., vol. 41, pp.86–94.
Gardiner, Stephen, Evolution of the House: An
Introduction. New York, McMillan Publishing Co.,
1974, pp.130–131.
Gibson, Constance, Policy Alternatives for Mobile
Homes. New Jersey, USA, 1972.
Giddens, A., The Constitution of Society. Harper,
London, 1964.
Giedion, Siegfried, Space, Time, and Architecture:
The Growth of a New Tradition. Cambridge, Harvard
University Press, 1941.
Gilbert, Herbert, The Dream of the Factory-Made
House. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1984.
‘Gimme Shelter’ in: Artforum, 1992, May, vol. 30,
no. 9, pp.88–92.
‘Grand tourer’ in: World of Interiors, 1989, Dec.,
pp.126–131.
‘Guerilla welfare: shelter for the homeless, wood
huts, Atlanta, Georgia, the Madhousers, Architects/
Builders’ in: Architectural Record, 1988, Nov., vol. 176,
no. 13, pp.98–99.
‘Highway 99: Längster Slum der Welt’ in
Baumeister, 1968, Oct., vol. 65, pp.1169–71.
‘Housing for homeless families’ in: Progressive
Architecture, 1992, Jan., vol. 73, no. 1, pp.54–56.
‘Housing for homeless mothers and children’ in:
Progressive Architecture, 1992, Jan., vol. 72, no. 1,
pp.96–97
‘How can housing policy cope with a sudden large
immigration wave?’ in: Open house international,
1991, vol. 16, no. 2, pp.23–29.
Inoue, Mituo, trans. by Hiroshi Watanabe, Space
in Japanese Architecture . Tokyo and New York,
Weatherhill, 1985, pp.19, 137–141.
210
‘Instant City Ibiza’ in Architectural Design, 1971,
Dec., vol. 42, pp.762–67.
‘Is there hope for the mobile home?’ in Industrial
Design, 1978, Sep./Oct., vol. 25, no. 5, pp.46–49.
Jackson, John Brinckerhoff, A Sense of Place, a
Sense of Time. New Haven, Yale University Press,
1994.
_ _ _ _. Discovering the Vernacular Landscape.
New Haven, Yale University Press, 1984.
Jensen, Dean, The Biggest, the Smallest, the
Longest and the Shortest: A Chronicle of the American
Circus from its Heartland. Straus, Madison, WI, 1975.
Kreutnerk, H.V., Construction of Settlements in
Croatia as Emergency Aid in Winter 1992/93, 1993.
Kronenburg, Robert, ‘Design and Deployment
Objectives for Portable Buildings used in Wartime
Refugee Shelter Provision’ from the International
Workshop papers Towards Improved Shelter and
Environment for Refugees and Displaced Persons
Within the Post-Yugoslav Countries, Luton, England,
1995.
_ _ _ _. Houses In Motion:The Genesis, History and
Development of the Portable Building. London,
Academy Editions, 1995.
‘London Adhocism’ in: Architectural Design, 1977,
vol. 47, nos. 7–8, pp.558–60.
‘Low-cost housing: eleven projects by eight
architects represent a range of building types, from
emergency shelters to single-room occupancy hotels
to four-bedroom townhouses’ in: Progressive
Architecture, 1988, Oct., vol. 69, no. 10, pp.70–86.
Maki, Fumihiko, ‘Japanese City Spaces and the
Concept of OKU’ in: The Japan Architect, May, 1979,
p.59.
‘Making shelter’ in: Harvard Architecture Review,
1989, vol. 7, p.191.
Marc, Olivier, trans. by Jessie Wood, Psychology
of the House. London, Thames and Hudson, 1977,
p.22.

McPharlin, Paul, The Puppet Theatre in America,
1524–1948. Plays, Inc., Boston, 1969
‘Mobile Homes are getting classier’ in: Planning,
1982, Feb., vol. 48, no. 2, pp.20–23.
‘Mobility’ in: Architectural Design, 1967, May, vol.
37, pp.217–23.
Nitchke, Günter, ‘MA: The Japanese Sense of
‘Place’ in Architectural Design, March, 1966, p.152.
_ _ _ _. From Shinto to Ando: Studies in Architectural
Anthropology in Japan. London, Academy Editions,
1993, p.85.
Nye, David, Electrifying America, MIT Press, 1991.
‘One country gives mobile homes an even break’,
Planning, 1979, Oct., vol. 45, no. 10, pp.17–20.
Portis, Benjamin, Ideal Cities. Canadian Center for
Architecture, 1993.
Rapoport, Amos, House Form and Culture .
Foundations of Cultural Geography Series, (ed. Philip
L.Wagner). Englewood Cliffs, N.J. , Prentice-Hall Inc.,
1969.
REDR, Engineering in Emergencies, 1995.
‘Returning to life: Multi-service Homeless Center,
San Francisco, California’ in: Architectural Record,
1992, July, vol. 180, no. 7, pp.104–107.
Richards, Christina, Mobile Home as Interim
Housing, Montreal, 1973.
Rydell, Robert, World of Fairs: The Century of
Progress Expositions. University of Chicago Press,
1993.
‘Self-build: homeless young people’ in: Housing
and Planning Review, 1990, Dec.-Jan., vol. 45, no. 6,
pp.10–11.
‘Short-term housing for a long-term problem’ in:
Progressive Architecture, 1966, May, vol. 47, pp.166–
173.
Slout, William, Theater in a Tent: The Development
of a Provincial Entertainment. Bowling Green Press,
1972.
Selected bibliography
Stilgoe, John, Common Landscape of America,
New Haven, Yale, 1984.
Stirling, Bruce, ‘Greetings From The Burning Man’,
in: Wired, November, 1996.
‘Temporary House in the USA,’ in: Architects’
Journal, 1943, Sep., vol. 98, p.170.
Tingey, William R., ‘The Principal Elements of
Machiya Design’ in: Japan: Climate, Space, and
Concept—Process Architecture no. 25., 1981, p.88.
UNHCR, Briefing Notes for the First International
Workshop on Improved Shelter Response and
Environment for Refugees. 1993.
University of Wisconsin, New Approaches to New
Realities. First International Emergency Settlement
Conference, 1996.
‘Urban squatting as an alternative form of housing:
the case of London’ in: Town Planning Quarterly, 1979,
Dec., no.57, pp.14–18.
Wiedemann, Stefan, Cost Comparison between
Modular and Conventional Housing in the Montreal
area. Montreal, 1990.
Zetter, R., ‘From Relief to Reconstruction: the
development continuum in Post-Yugoslavia’, paper
presented at the International Workshop: Towards
Improved Shelter and Environment for Refugees and
Displaced Persons Within the Post-Yugoslav
Countries, Luton, England, 1995.
Design
Ball, Michael, Housing and Construction: A
Troubled Industry. Rowntree Foundation, 1995.
Beigel, Florian and Christou, Philip, ‘Form and
Place: Urban Landscapes’ in: Quaderns 216, Collegi
d’Architectes de Catalunya, 1997, pp.34–43.
Bender, Richard, A Crack in the Rear View Mirror.
New York, Van Nostrad Reinhold, 1973.
211
 Borden, I., ‘Beneath the Pavement, The Beach:
Skateboarding, Architecture and the Urban Realm’
in: Strangely Familiar. London, 1995, pp.82–86.
Clarke and Wall, Shelter Briefing Document. 1996.
Clews, David and Henry, Rex, ‘On the Beach’ in:
Scroop 8, Cambridge Architectural Journal, 1996,
pp.72–77.
Cook, Peter (ed.), Archigram. London, Boston,
Studio Vista, 1972, reprinted by Basel, Birkhäuser
Verlag, 1991.
Deleuze, Gilles, The Fold: Leibniz and the
Baroque. London, Athlone Press, 1993.
_ _ _ _. and Guattari, Felix, A Thousand Plateaus:
Capitalism & Schizophrenia. London.
Elek, Paul, Homes for the People. Association of
Building Technicians, Granada Publishing Ltd., 1945.
Gloag, J. and Wornum, G., House out of the Factory.
George Allen and Unwin, 1946.
Goldsmith, Nicholas, ‘The Peripatetic Pavilion’ in:
Design Quarterly, no.15, Summer 1992, pp.30–32.
Horden, Richard, Light-Tech: Towards a Light
Architecture. Basel, Birkhäuser Verlag, 1995.
Kozloski, Lillian, US Space Gear: Outfitting the
Astronaut. Washington, Smithsonian, 1994.
Kronenburg, Robert, FTL Softness Movement and
Light , Architectural Monograph No.48, London,
Academy, 1997.
Kurent, T,. ‘The Roman Modular Way’ in: Official
Architecture and Planning, London, December 1971.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, The Savage Mind. London,
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989.
Lyall, Sutherland, Imagination Headquarters
London 1990: Architect Herron Associates. London,
Phaidon Press, 1992.
Meadows, Dennis, L. et al., The Limits to Growth.
New York, Universe Books, 1972.
Munn, Nancy D., Walbiri Iconography. Chicago
and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1986.
212
Price, Cedric, ‘Homes and Houses’, in: AA Files 19,
London, 1986.
Russel, B., Building Systems, Industrialisation and
Architecture. London, John Wiley, 1981.
Simmons, Gene, On the Moon with Apollo 11, a
guidebook to Taurus-Littrow. Washington: National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1972.
Sola-Morales, Ignasi, ‘Terrain Vague’, in: AnyPlace.
New York, 1995, pp.118–123.
Sparke, Penny, The Plastics Age, London, Victoria
and Albert Museum, 1990.
Strathern, Marilyn, Partial Connections. USA,
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1991.
Suchman, Lucy, A., Plans and Situated Actions.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
von Weizsäcker, Ernst Ulrich, Faktor Vier. Munich,
Droemer Knaur, 1995.
Wells, H.G., Anticipations of the Reaction to
Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life
and Thought. Chapman, 1992.
Wilkinson, C., Supersheds. Oxford, Butterworth
Architecture, 1991.
Witherspoon, Gary, Language and Art in the
Navajo Universe. USA, The University of Michigan
Press, 1977.
Technology
Ball, Michael, Rebuilding Construction. London,
Routledge, 1988.
Bannister, D. and Button K., Transport, the
Environment and Sustainable Development. E. & F.N.
Spon, London, 1994.
Booz, Allen and Hamilton, New Product
Management for the 1980’s. New York, Booz, Allen &
Hamilton, 1982.
Cochrane, P., ‘The Office You Wish You Had’ in:
Intelligent Buildings Today and in the Future by

Jankovic, L. (ed.), University of Central England,
Birmingham, 1993.
de Jong, Taeke, Kleine methodologie voor
ontwerpend onderzoek. Meppel, Boom, 1992.
Edmonds, G.A., and Miles, D.W.J., Foundations for
Change: Aspects of the Construction Industry in
Developing Countries. ILO, London, Intermediate
Technology Publications, 1984.
Eekhout, Mick, ‘Tussen produktontwikkelen en de-
systematiseren; (1) Begrippen’ in: De Bouwadviseur,
May, 1994.
Finley, David, ‘Energy Responsive Elementary
School Design’. Master’s Thesis. Texas Tech
University, Lubbock, Texas, 1990.
Hamel, Gary, and Prahalad, C.K., Competing for
the Future. Boston, Massachusetts, Harvard Business
School Press, 1994.
Hamel, Ronald, Over het denken van de architect;
Een cognitief psychologische beschrijving van het
ontwerpproces bij architecten. Amsterdam, AHA
Books, 1990.
Haselhoff, F., Onder nemersstrategie, een
dilemma; De moderne ondernemingsorganisatie in
het spanningsveld van doelmatigheid, overleving en
zingeving. Alphen aan de Rijn, Samsom Uitgeverij,
1977.
Help the Aged, The Older Population. Help the
Aged, 1997.
Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management; Analysis,
Planning, Implementation and Control. Englewood
Cliffs, Prentice Hall, 1994.
Kronenburg, Robert, Por table Architecture .
London, Architectural Press, 1996.
Miles, J., Where’s the Henry Ford of Future Housing
Systems . London, The Royal Academy of
Selected bibliography
Engineering, 1996.
Muller, Wim, Vormgeven; Ordering en
Betekenisgeving. Utrecht, uitgeverij Lemma b.v.,
1990.
Ngo, Huy, ‘A Synergistic Approach to the Design
of Energy Responsive Office Buildings’. Master’s
Thesis. Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, 1992.
Roozenburg, N.F.M. and Eekels, J.,
Productontwerpen, Structuur en Methoden. Utrecht,
uitgeverij Lemma b.v., 1991.
Otto, Frei and Stromeyer, Peter, ‘Tents’, in: American
Institute of Architect’ Journal, 1961, 2, p.81.
Spence, R. and Mulligan, H., ‘Sustainable
Development and the Construction Industry’, in:
Habitat International, vol. 19, no. 3, pp.279–292,
Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1995.
Ternoey, Steve, et al., The Design Of Energy-
Responsive Commercial Buildings. New York, Wiley-
Interscience, 1984.
Urban, Glen L. and Hauser, John R., Design and
Marketing of New products . Englewood Cliffs,
Prentice Hall, 1993.
van Aken, J.E., ‘De bedrijfskunde als
ontwerpwetenschap: de regulatieve en de reflectieve
cyclus’ in: Bedrijfskunde, 1994/1, pp.16–26.
Wigley, ‘Employment Homeworkers Bill’.
Parliamentary Proceedings, 26 January, Hansard,
1996.
Wijnen, Gert, Renes, Willem, and Storm, Peter,
Projectmatig Werken. Utrecht, Het Spectrum/Marka,
1988.
Wissema, J.G., Messer, H.M., and Wijers, G. J.,
Angst voor veranden? Een mythe!; Of : hoe u
veranderingsbereidheid op de werkvloer vergroot.
Assen, Van Gorcum, 1993.
213
 Index

Aborigines, Australian 23, 24, 176, 180 defence 19, 28, 158 see also army, air force, war
Agis, Maurice 4, 201, 202 disaster relief 4, 81, 83–87, 158, 183 see also emergency
Ando, Tadao 8, 14, 15, 34 relief
Apicella, Lorenzo 4, 200 Dymaxion 58, 58–65, 62, 137 see also DDU, Fuller
Arab 21–26, 190 see also Bedouin, Kababish, Tuareg
Archigram 108, 135, 137 Eames, Charles 90, 94
Eco, Umberto 9
army 64, 84, 159, 186 see also military, defence, war
Atelier One engineers 103, 119 ecology 101, 107, 127 see also automonous, sustainable,
automotive design 37, 112, 117, 144 recycling
education 3, 5, 21, 51, 53, 90–95, 135 see also schools
autonomous architecture 68, 73, 147 see also ecology,
recycling, sustainable emergency relief 62, 70, 83–86, 83–86, 100, 132 see also
aviation 3, 59, 62, 65, 91, 115, 116, 126, 169, 186, 200 see disaster relief
ephemeral 1, 35, 47, 48, 138, 141, 149
also air force, defence, military, war
etymology 31
Bedouin 25, 105, 116 see also Arab expo’s 13, 53, 55, 91, 103, 115, 137 see also World’s Fair
Berger, Horst 102 extra-terrestrial 3, 25, 137 see also NASA
Botta, Mario 116
Breuer, Marcel 61 fairs 47, 52–55
Burning Man Festival 47, 56 see also rock concerts festivals 30, 55, 74, 75, 76, 78, 102, 120
film 19, 43, 94, 133, 135
Buro Happold engineers 205 see also Ian Liddell
Butler bin 59–64 Fisher, Mark 4, 57, 201, 201 see also rock concerts
Ford, Henry 62, 168
CAD, computer aided design 161, 162, 196 see also FTL architects 88, 201 see also Dalland, Goldsmith
computers Fuller, Buckminster 58–64, 58–65, 102, 116, 118, 137,
caravan 26, 70, 108, 169 139, 138 see also DDU, Dymaxion
carnivals 52–53, 121 Future Systems 108, 116, 137, 138
Chattaquas 51
circus 14, 46, 47–54, 54, 120 Goldsmith, Nicholas 4, 88, 201, 201 see also Dalland, FTL
Club of Rome 90, 94, 155 Gombrich, E.H. 9
Grimshaw, Nicholas 115
colonisation 27–28, 47, 50, 56, 116, 178, 178
Colourspace 4, 201 see also Agis Gropius, Walter 64, 116
Colquhoun, Alan 9, 15 Gypsies 26
computers 175, 37, 39, 43, 91, 102, 107, 122, 161, 175, Heidegger, Martin 12
185 see also CAD, internet hermeneutics 8, 10, 12
Coop Himmelbau 135 Herron Associates, Ron Herron 135, 138 see also
cosmos 15, 21, 28, 31, Archigram
Crystal Palace 57, 115 Heyerdahl, Thor 21–22
Cushicle 135, 141, 169 see also Archigram Hoberman, Chuck 116
cybercity 38, 43 see also internet homeless 39–48, 41, 43, 69, 95, 114, 141
Dalland, Todd 4, 201 see also FTL Horden, Richard 4, 91, 116, 119, 201
DDU, Dymaxion Deployment Unit 56–65, 59, 63 see also hospitals 3, 84, 85, 86, 115 see also medicine
Fuller, Dymaxion
de Saussure, Ferdinand 8–9

214

internet 37–38, 43, 56, 141 see also computers, cybercity
Inuit 136, 137
Ito, Toyo 34, 34, 35
Jencks, Charles 9, 10
Kababish 26 see also Arab
kabuki 8
Khlebnikov, Velimir 133, 135, 143
Le Corbusier 64, 108
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 150, 153
Liddell, Ian 4, 205 see also Buro Happold
Loos, Adolf 11
Manning, John 116, 178, 178
marine design 13, 21, 22, 51, 91, 92, 129, 133, 137 see
also war
mass-production 61, 63, 64, 95, 115, 167, 177, 201 see
also modular building, prefabrication
McGregor, Douglas 170
medicine 3, 49 see also hospitals
migration 15, 69, 84, 146, 183 see also nomads
military 28, 58–62, 105, 112, 116, 156, 158–164, 159–164,
191 see also defence, airforce, army, war
mobile homes 69, 70–72, 169
modular building 88, 97, 99, 100, 110, 114–119, 127, 133,
164–168, 180, 184, 188, 198, 199 see also mass-
production, prefabrication, standardisation
NASA, National Air and Space Administration 116, 116,
134 see also extra-terrestrial
Nissen hut 117 see also army
Nitschke, Günter 31, 81
nomads 3, 6, 19–28, 52, 100, 104, 132, 134, 144, 146,
154, 169, 178, 180 see also migration
Olympic Games 5, 103
Otto, Frei 102, 138, 158
Ove Arup and Partners 119, 147, 152
Pagoda Group 100–103, 100–101
Palladio, Andrea 15
parade floats 30, 50, 52, 53, 74, 74, 75
photovoltaics 73, 128, 130, 141
Piano, Renzo 117, 138, 169
planning 66, 72, 105, 146, 148, 172
Portable Architecture conference 4–5, 201–202 exhibition
2–5, 4
Portakabin 185, 185–186
prefabrication 60, 69, 98, 114, 116, 119, 166, 178, 180–
183 see also mass-production, modular,
standardisation
Price, Cedric vi, vii, 4, 108, 138, 201–202
Prouvé, Jean 107
puppet shows 47, 50
Index
Rapaport, Amos 75
recycling 1, 4, 84, 109, 110, 112, 126, 128, 131, 135, 137–
139, 166, 192 see also autonomous, ecology,
sustainable
religion 29, 31, 49, 50, 90 see also sacred
Ricoeur, Paul 9, 12
rock concerts 4, 56, 201 see also Burning Man, Fisher
Rogers, Richard 44
Rossi, Aldo 8–16, 12
rural landscape 1, 29, 48, 70, 136, 146, 148
sacred 23, 31–36, 48, 63, 80, 120, 124 see also religion
schools 3, 70, 86, 115, 116, 180, 192 see also education
shelter 1, 2, 28, 39, 42, 56, 59, 61–65, 68–81, 82, 83–86,
100, 115, 130, 132, 136, 140, 143–144, 158, 176, 180,
183, 191
Spontaneous Construction exhibition viii, 1, 4
standardisation 88, 104, 107, 115–119, 189, 194–200 see
also mass-production, modular, prefabrication
Stromeyer, Peter 154
Suitaloon 135–136, 169 see also Archigram
Superstudio 135
sustainable architecture 90, 100, 111, 113, 126–131,
126–132, 167, 170, 182, 192, 194–199, 196–199 see
also automonous, ecolgy, recycling
television 37, 54, 170, 200
tent 14, 21, 25–26, 50, 52–54, 82, 84, 86, 102, 116, 137,
144, 154, 156–162, 188, 157, 190
terrain vague 105, 105–106, 112
Terrapin International 95, 96, 98, 116
theatre 12–16, 13, 15, 49, 50, 52, 116, 122, 141,
Thériault, Vincent 143–144
tourism 37, 177, 183
traditional architecture 1, 8, 12, 32–34, 63, 75–80, 84, 94,
100, 116, 128, 137, 141, 143, 152, 164, 182, 190 see
also vernacular
trailers 69, 71, 103, 179, 181
Tuareg 26 see also Arab
UNHCR, United Nations High Commission for Refugees
83
urban landscape 35, 36, 37–39, 68–70, 74, 78, 90, 105–
110, 106, 133, 137, 144, 148, 178–180
vehicle design 1, 39, 40, 41, 68, 98
vernacular architecture 4, 42, 72, 75, 126, 128 see also
traditional
Vitruvius 14, 15–16
Wachsman, Conrad 119
war 59–62, 68, 70, 71, 95, 114, 115, 117, 183, 186 see
also defence, military
World’s Fair 53, 55, 56 see also expo’s
Yurt 154, 190
215