PREMISE SPECULATIVE THOUGHTS ON A COMMON BUILDING COMPONENT The building industry increasingly relies on standardized building components in new construction, defined by economy and utility. The utilization of these building components increases efficiency by reducing the number of unknowns and consequently, the necessity for highly skilled labor. This, in turn, increases profitability. The result is that our built environment is increasingly defined by the properties of these mass-produced elements. This is an area of design that has been left conspicuously unaffected by architects and designers. Because of their ubiquitous nature, the design or modification of these products is perhaps one of the simplest and most direct ways for design to affect the built environment. In this investigation we have focused on the development of concrete masonry units within this context. Our premise was to evaluate the virtues and deficiencies of concrete block and its full life-cycle, identify specific pragmatic changes that could occur, and conduct physical design research within new pragmatic limits. Guided by these limits, we have strived to improve upon the performance and character of concrete block. The audience for this research is production companies interested in refining their product for economic and ecological reasons, governmental agencies interested in a holistic view of industrial evolution, and specifiers (builders, architects, designers) interested in a wall with more integrity, efficiency and life; one that might offer a maximum of effect with a minimum of means. Industry and government will, by necessity, develop new directions for concrete block production and implementation that is more ecologically sustainable, energy efficient and economically productive. Our design research was developed in anticipation of this evolution and our block design research is intended to supplement industrial and governmental decision making, revealing poetic and ethical motivations for change beyond the pragmatic and necessary. Our small research can have a large and positive impact on the thousands of anonymous block buildings constructed in the United States each year as well as the millions of block produced annually. Creating awareness of potential and proposing a new direction were the founding tenets of our research. |