But it is outside, on the adjacent lot, where visitors get a real sense of the current potential of the prefabricated dwelling. The houses installed there demonstrate how prefab can be deployed not only to deliver shelter, but also to provide more environmentally responsible, higher-quality buildings, constructed faster, and in some cases, at lower cost. The outdoor exhibition also shows that prefab no longer means a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach, but instead makes possible adaptable, custom-tailored solutions.

For this part of the exhibition, the museum commissioned houses from five architects after inviting proposals from 21 firms. The completed buildings respond to very different programs, ranging from a vacation house to a one-room cottage for displaced residents of New Orleans. The goal was "to get five very diverse positions," says the show's curator, Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of archtitecture and design. They also needed to be commercially viable. "Even if they were prototypes, they had to be absolutely feasible," he says.

The museum announced its selection in early January, leaving the firms about 6 months to finalize designs and coordinate fabrication and installation-a process that each team was required to document in an online journal (www.momahomedelivery.org). And though they each received a stipend of $175,000, the architects were responsible for raising the needed funds in excess of that amount.

 

The Cellophane House (at left above) is a transparent interpretation of a Philadelphia row house. Acrylic interior partitions, walls, and ceilings seem to glow with the help of integrated LED lighting. Photo © MOMA/Richard Barnes

 

 

All wrapped up

Of the five houses on the MoMA lot, the one that is the most outwardly futuristic is the four-story house designed by Stephen Kieran, FAIA, and James Timberlake, FAIA, of Philadelphia-based KieranTimberlake Associates (KTA). With its exposed structural frame, transparent envelope, and translucent floors and stairs, the Cellophane House may lack the privacy that most home buyers desire, but it "is intended to be more provocative than practical," explain the architects.

The Cellophane House has an energy-generating double-skin envelope. Photo © Peter Aaron/Esto

 

Cellophane's structure is composed of logical and transportable "chunks." Photo © Albert Vecerka/esto

The project continues the investigation into building-supply chains and prefabrication processes that the architects explored with their Loblolly House, a second home for Kieran's family on Taylor's Island, Maryland, completed in late 2006 [architectural record, November 2006, page 185]. As at Loblolly, Cellophane's structural frame consists of extruded aluminum, off-the-shelf components typically used for factory and temporary-structure applications. These members are attached with the manufacturer's standard fittings, along with custom steel connectors and braces designed to handle shear and wind loads. Since the frame relies on "dry joints," rather than welded connections, the house can be readily disassembled, and individual components can be reused or recycled.

To speed on-site work, KTA divided Cellophane into 14 logical and transportable modules, called "chunks." Each is composed of the aluminum structure with the floor and some perimeter walls attached. The chunks, assembled in Lebanon, New Jersey, by modular fabricator Kullman, were delivered to the site individually on flatbed trucks over three days in late June in the order of their assembly sequence. Other elements, such as most interior wall partitions, were installed after contractors hoisted the chunks into place.

Much of Cellophane is enveloped in a transparent material that KTA has been developing since 2002 and calls SmartWrap. The thin-film skin consists of an outer layer of the plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and integrated photovoltaic (PV) cells. An inner skin includes a film that blocks ultraviolet light and helps mitigate heat gain. Between the two layers is a cavity designed to trap heat in the winter and vent it during the summer in order to reduce energy expended on heating and cooling.

Although Cellophane's structure and envelope are unusual, the project's larger innovations are process oriented. Because KTA designed the house in three dimensions with a building information model (BIM), the architects could assume many of the tasks typically performed by a construction manager, such as developing shop drawings, generating lists for ordering parts directly, and tracking data such as costs and weight.