Operation breakthrough launched by the US government’s
Housing and Urban Development in 1969 was one the 20th century’s important
vectors for promoting innovative urban strategies as well as the industrialization of construction.
Bringing together academics, architects and industries to project the future of
housing produced a diversity of prototypes. From National Homes’ post-tensioned
superframes to the iconic Shelley checkerboard stacking, all sought to
Increase efficiency and productivity in the construction industry while
offering planning flexibility to suit the multiple and varying needs of modern lifestyles.
Although not usually linked to industrialized building systems, even William
Levitt and Sons proposed a building system that combined the ideal of
manufactured sub-assemblies with the need for personalization.
William J. Levitt is best known for his onsite standardized
construction methods synonymous with post World War 2 American suburbanization.
The onsite assembly line specialized construction tasks and had workers follow
each other from house to house replicating specified and specialized tasks. A
model of process efficiency Levitt controlled every part of the building
process from procuring elements and building products directly from manufacturers
to the incremental scheduling of each house. Levitt and sons produced thousands
of uniform dwellings. Even as this process was perfected, operation
breakthrough allowed Levitt to imagine a reformed building method combining
standard parts into an open model of industrialization.
Levitt Technology Corporation worked in partnership with architects B.A.
Berkus and Associates along with manufacturers and suppliers. The proposal
employed staggered volumetric singlewides as the basic modular building blocks.
Identically dimensioned service core (wet) boxes with standardized plans
and served space boxes (dry) with variable plans were juxtaposed or stacked in
a linear massing of solids and voids. Elements such as entry door porticoes,
bay windows, window canopies and patio or deck volumes could be added to the
basic box system to vary each dwelling’s identity; a type of mass customization
based on user preferences. Rhythmic extrusions and
intrusions projected a dynamic streetscape while the decorative elements
concealed the proposal’s repetitive nature. The simple timber stick
construction leveraged the heritage of American building culture with
standardized mobile home production to produce replicable medium density
low-rise housing process.
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| above left: Shelley Construction System; below left: National Homes' Superframes; right: Levitt Technology Corporation's System |
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