[P2P-F] wikihouse

Sun Aug 14 05:51:46 CEST 2011

Thanks Eric!

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 2:12 AM, Eric Hunting <erichunting at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for passing this along. Looks like a very interesting project. I'll
> tag on a short write up on it with this note. Sorry I have been out of the
> loop lately, but after my interview on Dr. Livingston's Space Show a while
> ago things picked up a lot with the LUF, demanding much more attention.
> Hopefully enough momentum is being built up that I can finally get that TMP2
> book I've long been working on illustrated and published.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> WikiHouse - An Open Hardware Building System
>
> http://www.wikihouse.cc/
>
> WikiHouse is a project developed by London design group 00:/  (
> http://www.architecture00.net/) intended to explore the prospect of Open
> Hardware development in architectural design and housing. It's objective is
> to establish a series of Creative Commons licensed housing designs that are
> engineered for production from plywood using CNC and assembly with simple
> puzzle-fit construction, bolts, and screws. These designs are intended for
> on-line distribution as Google SketchUp data allowing free access and
> customization. The designs draw heavily on the previous work of MIT in
> CNC-based housing construction, using much the same kind of puzzle-fit
> structural system. MIT's own work on this concept turned to
> commercialization of on-demand production services through proprietary
> software doing procedural CAD/CAM generation rather than truly hackable Open
> Hardware development. So here is an opportunity to really put this
> technology into the public's and the open tech community's hands.
>
> Six simple structures are shown on the site, based on a stressed skin
> structural system using clear span bay sections linked by slot-fit cross
> members and rigidized by skin panels. Most are single floor cottage or shed
> scale. This form of construction has been demonstrated sound in a great many
> other projects to date and well suits the use of flat bed CNC and simple CAD
> drawing. It has become increasingly popular with a lot of student
> architecture projects because of its versatility, though it has some
> limitations with window and door installation. However, 00:/ 's designs
> appear rudimentary and experimental. None are shown in a finished state and
> only one small portion of a structure seems to have been prototyped so far.
>
> Though strong and very flexible in the range of modest scale forms
> possible, this kind of structural system tends to favor 'throw away'
> architecture because the finished products are very limited in adaptation
> and post-construction customization -even more so than conventional stick
> frame construction. Plywood itself varies greatly from country to country
> and manufacturer to manufacturer in long-term resilience and in the use of
> potential toxic binder materials and wood preservatives. These structures
> are potentially somewhat demountable in core structure but not very
> reconfigurable because the design is locked by the absolute form of the unit
> profile sections and they ultimately rely on 'destructive' assembly using
> self-embedding screws, nails, glues and conventional non-removable interior
> finishing. Repair and renovation are surgically destructive processes. This
> is generally overlooked as a 'problem' with these structures as they rarely
> get used permanently and because conventional housing construction is
> generally the same. But it does limit the potential economy of this housing
> to little better than conventional because most of the costs of housing
> construction is in finishing, not primary structure. So as long as one
> outfits the interior in a conventional way, the economy of these kinds of
> structures comes only from the relatively small net reduced time and
> possible sweat equity in the primary construction. This, however, is much
> improved where buildings are modest in scale and the interior design
> exploits the virtues of the clear-span volumes through open plan design.
> This is particularly well suited to quick-build relief housing where
> finishing is kept minimalist or mostly eliminated by utilitarian
> pre-finished/non-finished materials. In that context, this approach is a
> real boon with a potential to exploit truly low cost materials like
> laminated cardboard or recycled materials.
>
> Despite the limitations, the very easy 'hackability', simple materials,
> ready suitability for flat-bed CNC, and freedom of experimentation with
> minimum CGI skills at the pre-construction level makes such structures an
> appropriate choice in an Open Hardware context and this project's idea of
> establishing freely accessed/customized plans on-line has great potential.
> Unfortunately, this design team doesn't seem as yet to be doing very much to
> realize that potential. There are no CAD or model files for any of their
> structures available on the above web site. No detailed descriptions or
> renderings of any designs. No step-by-step instructions. No attempt to
> characterize the structural system as with a standard design methodology.
> Either we have caught this project in a very early stage of development, or
> they have among them a very nebulous notion of what Open Hardware is about,
> how you communicate with the larger community, and what designers' roles are
> in this context. They note that they will be showcasing their first full
> house at a design conference in Korea in September, which is nice, but that
> sort of traditional venue is irrelevant to Open Hardware. For that, the
> Internet is your showcase venue and the 'source files' -the CAD files and
> instructions- what you showcase and share. The whole point to Open Hardware
> is open participation and the 'source files' are the essential medium of
> that participation. If they're ready to go for september, shouldn't there be
> a complete design to show on their web site now? They must have the CAD and
> modeling done for that much.
>
> Frankly, this kind of thing just isn't that hard. The average maker on
> Instructibles would have more work to show by now. If the idea is to keep
> things under wraps until the 'coming out' presentation, one has to ask what
> one might hope to get at the Gwangju Biennale that you can't get on
> Thingiverse? The point is how many of the sort of people who will _use_ an
> Open Hardware design one can reach, not those who will just gawk at it and
> do a magazine write-up. Are we looking at another Riversimple Urban Car
> hyping itself as 'open source' yet, years later, there are still no CAD
> files and production details released to the public? Hopefully 00:/ will
> soon avail themselves of some real makers who can set them straight on what
> Open Hardware is all about. There is a great opportunity here, and it would
> be a tragedy to miss it.
>
> Eric Hunting
> erichunting at gmail.com
>
>
>
> On Aug 11, 2011, at 3:14 AM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
> > Dear Eric,
> >
> > I wonder if you could present this project on our blog? see:
> http://www.wikihouse.cc/about.php
> >
> > hope you are doing well!
> >
> > Michel
>
>

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