| | refabricating Architecture, Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake.
Aiming to transform architectural
design and construction from an on-site, ground-up, frame
method to an off-site, prefabricated system, the authors
are convincing in their argument, yet they also raise many
unanswered questions. Using automobile, shipbuilding, and
aerospace industries as models, the appropriateness of these
to architecture and building construction is not directly
addressed. As most cars, ships, and airplanes are replicated
in great numbers to realize profits, most buildings are
one-off endeavors. Any change towards greater prefabrication
in building construction will happen through components,
such as vanities, doorways, and exterior
walls, as illustrated by the authors with actual built
examples. By treating construction as a grouping of prefab
(second tier) components over on-site assembly of first-tier
parts, Kieran
and Timberlake's point of view parallels one change
in architectural production: CAD, and its evolution from
lines and other stupid, vector-based graphic devices to
groupings of intelligent systems.
This book illustrates the inherent
slowness of architecture and its profession, in terms of
both integrating new technologies and the actual construction
of buildings. The book's prognostication - illustrated in
the last chapter where Boeing hypothetically uses its now
defunct assembly plant in Washington for the building trades
- will eventually come true, it's just a matter of how soon
and how architect's will respond.
. . or . . 
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