Moving to an Industrial Ecological Architecture

A New Epoque

Le Corbusier: Maison Domino 

The term insutrialization is often used in history and architecture to describe part of the cultural movement, and the tehcnological and mechanical advances of the XIX and XX century. This new cultural movement can be seen in Le Corbusier manifesto; he  wrote "Exist multiple works concieved in a new spirit; it encounters particularly in the industrial production", also he expressed "Its the beginnig of a great epoque. There is a new spirit. The indisutry... give us the new tools adapted to this new epoque, powered by a new spirit.... the laws of the economy rule our acts and our thoughts". Another example of the new spirit and interpretation of the architeture is the one gave by Sant'Elia in his manifiesto "the futurist architecture is the architecture of calculation, of audicity and simplicity". Both refered to the house as machines where all the elements play a roll, just like pieces of a machine. The idea behind the industrialization of the architechture was to make pieces, fallowing certain standards, and then mass produce them, to reduce cost and make faster the construction of buildings. Or we can quote Ramon Araujo in On Architecture and Industry "Idustrialize is to mass produce, with the variations that may be, but en masse. The assembly line, the spare part and the automation of task were and continue to be determinant features of industrial proportion ... the objective is to supply products to a society of severed million people. Elia's reflection on the future of architecture was "as the art of arranging the forms of builfind according to predetermined criteria". 

Praunheim, Frankfurt, 1926-29 One of the first mass produce housing projects after world war I.

The Chaos

Since the year 1950 we have seen industrialized elements and techniques being incorporated into the realm of architecture first in doors and window, subsequently in new products like prefabricated slabs of tiebeams and plates, facade panels, divisions of boards, modular ceilings, and many more.  What it seem to be an organized and beneficial solution to mass build houses or other types of buildings lead to environmental problems. Ecological ideas start to appear and spread during the following decades, specially after the oil crisis. The increase of the oil prices made us aknowledge how much we depend on fossil fuels. As Sant'Elia said "the constantly growing number of machines, the daily increase of needs imposed by the speed of communications, by the agglomeration of people" has gone out our hands. There is no doubt on how much we have afected our planet specially by the massive use of non renewable resources to power our machines.  But at the end industrialization have accomplished its goal, make cheaper and faster the construction of any kind of building. The question then is industrialization is bad. We live in the epoque that Le Corbusier descrive, industrialization has gone beyond our imagination and now everything is being mass produce. 

"We will get to the "machine-house", to the serial house, 

healthy (even morally) and beautifull like the tools of work that 

accompany our existance"  Le Corbusier

http://arc.housing.salle.url.edu/sdr/private/entregas/0f9127c6ed562c106124085f05a166ce.swf

Moving Forward 

Today companies are investing in new technologies to reuse and recycle different materials, in that way they dont have to consume more natural resources. Other ones are looking for more ecological and efficient way to transport prefabricated elements to reduce the consumption of oil. On top of this different governments have develop a "Technical Building Code" where the construction is regulated by different laws, some of them deal with energy consumption and efficiency; in other hand these laws have helped to come up with new standards of construction elements. In the construction industry is becoming more aware of its effects on the nature. Young Architects and engineers are looking forward to an efficient, sustainble architecture, instead of tearing down buildings, architects try to reuse elements (due to  standarization this is posible), or recycle the as most as possible. There is still a lot to do but we are going on the right path.  

Image by Armand Perez