The postUsonian Project is composed of several projects which cover a broad range of building types yet all addressing the same questions: how to build for and live a simple, affordable, elegant, economically, ecologically and socially sustainable life in this early 21st Century time of transition? What is enough and what is too much? At what point does a house cease to function as architecture and become, instead, your owner? In Europe there is a robust tradition of supplementary buildings referred to as Shedworks. The Cube Patio System in its basic form is a Shedwork. As a modular component system is can be combined into many configurations up to being a fully functional house.

an architectural system... A modular system is useful no matter if a structure is stick built in the field, prefabricated in the field or in a shop, if owner built or professionally built, or some combination of all these. Each of these ways of building have inherent benefits and liabilities. The best way or combination of them is actually determined by the resources, disposition, talents and wants of the buyer occupant. This has always been true but not articulated well nor have there been practical alternatives which offered a gradated combination with preserved both rigor and freedom. Building any building, anywhere, anytime - no matter the scale of the project - requires the successful integration of a complex chain of natural and human resources. What has to be understood is that, in the relentless effort to make “efficient” the professional and business side of the equation, the owner occupant of housing lost much variety of options related to how the habitat is financed, built and used. My intent is to put the owner back in charge. To be able to be responsible for creating one’s own habitat, however, the owner has to have the requisite education, the skulls required for those aspects chosen for direct involvement, have membership in a larger system which does provide real options, and an understanding of the economic and quality loss and costs of not being able to do so. This is not a description of the world of building, in the “advanced” countries today. The existing paradigm is that this loss of understanding and involvement is an intrinsic consequence of the sophistication of our modern industrial methods. This is false as most either-or distinctions are false. The way we build today has provided some great benefits. It has also imposed even greater hidden, long term external costs. It has left a vast majority of otherwise intelligent, educated and reasonably affluent people totally helpless in the wake of a sick system and its increasing perturbations.

an application... The Cube Patio System, like all postUsonian projects is a ValueWeb system venture. At present this is made of the formal entities: MG Taylor Corporation, AI, tsmARCHITECTURE and a nascent organization, the Cathedral Builders ValueWeb. The Cathedral Builders ValueWeb is nascent as there is no way for it to become active until there are products, customers and projects to be accomplished across a wide geographic area. The Cube Office Patio system will be the first product offered along with Snowflake and Domicile One. As with all postUsonian Project offerings, these will be retailed through the knOwhere Store in four packages: Study Plans, Contract Documents, design services options; complete Fabrication Documents; Fabricated Components; Turn key design/build services by professional design, engineering, fabrication and building services provided on location by certified members of the Cathedral Builder members of the ValueWeb. This provides the owner-users the greatest possible choice of participation. The idea behind this service concept is to provide the efficiency, cost and time benefits of the sub divisions of old with three other factors: the tremendous compression of time-to-build and increased quality of the “Swimming Pool Method,” modern shop C&C fabrication methods, mass customization of design with qualified world-class professionals, all with the ability to build anywhere in the world as a one-off project without losing the benefits of efficiency-of-scale. Another important aspect of this method is that the owner/user can be involved in this process from nearly 100% to just moving in - as desired. This method constitutes a radical shift from the way that housing and small professional-commercial buildings have been designed, sold and built in the last 100 years and - most importantly - it constitutes a new relationship between the owner-occupant(s) with the providers network of the design-build-use ValueWeb which creates these works.

prototype of a THERE... The THERE of the tsmARCHITECTURE vision of Authentic Architecture will not be fully demonstrated with one project of even many of them. Each is a page in the book of a new concept of architecture and its practice. The postUsonian Project will focus on what is now called affordable housing. In this case the definition of “affordable” is different than is common today. “Affordable” has to mean affordable on an average secure family income and not subsidized in any way. Affordable has to mean that is is an individual work of art which can be maintained and evolved by those who live in it for an indefinite period of time. Affordable has to mean that society and the planet can afford it both economically - one measure - and ecologically - another measure - both required for sustainability. While many of these values and principles are finding their way into housing today the reality is that they are being added to - layered upon - the existing paradigm of the housing “industry” (a misnomer if there ever was one). These values cannot rightly be seen to be and applied as mere features. As add-ons. As sometimes available “good-to-haves.” They must be integral functions of the design, the way of building and way of living within the habitat. They must be how the habitat itself fits within the many layers of social and planet ecologies. Without this fitness there is no true art nor real economy. There are many works being built today that as a building “look” like a postUsonian. As a work of architecture and art, as mostly understood today, they are excellent works. Ecologically, they are much better than what was being built a decade ago. Many present a startlingly new and interesting vantage point on the world we live in. I only wish this quality of work had been prevalent in the period of the late 60s through the turn of the century. I find two major areas of concern. One internal to the project and one external. First, the way of life which to house is designed for rarely challenges the conventions long in place nor facilitates true alternatives. Second, The majority of works address the immediate place the building is built and sometimes a somewhat larger context, yet not that we are now building planetary architecture. In short, these works are great examples of what could have been the dominate domestic architecture of the what is now a fading paradigm and they do not address comprehensively the world we are actually building today, let alone what we should be and can be building for the future. While having individual quality, they are losing relevance. Art is universal, timeless and local - and, time specific. Today, we need an architecture which points to and creates a viable future. A future which respects our past while freeing us from it.

Three outstanding aspects of Wright’s Usonian Houses are that they were affordable by the economic middle class of the 30s and 40s. They were designed to support a specific way of life. And, they were designed to fit into a never build and only partially realized concept of an ideal city. The buildings are still beautiful and many remain very relevant and wonderful environments to live in today for as long as “today” remains. The way of life they were designed to facilitate, in principle, has many values which are still valid. However, this is not a comprehensive set necessary for the world of today and tomorrow. The city concept is workable only in specific small scale contexts that legitimately call for this kind of configurtion, not as a general and broad solution. The classic “middle class,” for many reasons, is becoming a declining percent of our population and may not prevail, in the present definition, for long given the likely political, economic, social and geological disruptions ahead. There is much to admire about the Usonians, and much to learn from them, yet they do not present a comprehensive solution for this time. The Usonian concept cannot be copied nor transported intact to the present. The Usonian was a brilliant synthesis for its time. It must be recreated. Even in the last ten years that I have been developing the capability to produce postUsonians, the rate of change and shift in circumstances of our society has greatly increased the gap between our context and the Usonian context. This is why I have brought designs conceived in the 60s and 70s into the Project because they were responsive to the first cycle of social/ecological change much like that which is accelerating today. The program and Project as I conceive it will support appropriately placed single houses “like” the original Usonians as well as a broader range of building types fit for a much wider set of economic, social and ecological solutions. The major differences in the buildings themselves are that the material compositions and fabrication methods of the modular components and systems can be applied across a much larger scale of building types; and, that the ways of designing, building, funding and owning these projects will be accomplished by a whole new process and rules of engagement between all of the parties. The postUsonians now in development are build-able, live-able and afford-able habitats, and, they are also prototypes to gain the experience necessary to create, at scale, new long term solutions not based on consumerism and speculation but for the creative economy which, nascent as it is, is an entirely different kind of economy.

These snapshots show the basic “build” of a single unit from foundation to enclosure. Cube Patios Units can be combined in a variety of configurations and this will necessitate different trellis, deck and door modules. The base can be concrete, block or wood depending on use, the site and if the unit is to be permanent or to be moved. The “well” formed by this foundation base can be used for a variety of functions: sunken sitting, bed, storage, bath, pull up table, equipment, etc. The siding doors stack at two sides forming a pocket. Two walls are solid, for built in components, two glassed for viewing and entry-exit. The height facilitates a loft area for sleeping, sitting or storage.

One foot thick floor, walls, ceiling, holds utilities and forms the box-like rigid structure. All interior surfaces can be radiant heated as well as the deck(s). Fit and finish and weather proofing details have to be precise - this is an industrial product which must employ advanced materials engineering and fabrication.

The outdoor Patio decks and landscaped areas are integral living areas. The actual trellis configuration and deck(s) are determined by site specific conditions and the intended use forming an outdoor semi-enclosed room extending the interior space thus supporting a ship-like living/work style.

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The postUsonian Cube System shares many attributes and goals with the EcoSphere Project - click on the model to the right: Light footprint, prefabrication, the use of a single geometric form for the living space, and portability.

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SolutionBox voice of this document: VISION • STRATEGY SCHEMATIC

click on graphic for explanation of SolutionBox

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