Design for Mass Customization: Rethinking Prefabricated Housing Using Axiomatic Design
Publication: Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 23, Issue 3
Abstract
The housing market is urgently demanding customized quality buildings at affordable costs. Housing prefabrication represents a suitable strategy as long as it is combined with cost-effective personalization through mass customization. Designs need to be easily customizable to foster the mass customization of prefabricated housing. Decisive requirements are design robustness and flexibility. Crucial decisions for the achievement of these requirements are made in the conceptual design phase, but this stage is not adequately supported, and tools for addressing decisions during this phase are not provided. In engineering design, axiomatic design (AD) has been shown to be able to support the analysis of existing ideas in terms of aptitude for customization and the generation of robust and flexible solutions that are easier to customize. Thus, the current study applied AD to the analysis of well-known prefabricated houses and the design development of a new prefabricated housing system to show the potential benefits of this approach for the building industry. Results show that AD has the ability to support the analysis of ideas for identifying problems linked with customization and the ability to address the conceptual development of robust and flexible designs for providing easily customizable solutions.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
AIA (American Institute of Architects). (2007). “Integrated project delivery: A guide.” 〈http://www.aia.org/aiaucmp/groups/aia/documents/pdf/aiab083423.pdf〉 (Mar. 4, 2013).
Barrow, L., Al Arayedh, S., and Kumar, S. (2006). “Performance house 1—A CADCAM modular house system.” Proc., ACADIA 2006 Annual Conf., Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture, Fargo, ND.
Brand, S. (1995). How buildings learn: What happens after they’re built, Penguin Books, London.
Brown, C. A. (2006). “Elements of axiomatic design: A simple and practical approach to engineering design.” 〈http://www.axiomaticdesign.org〉 (Nov. 13, 2014).
Cross, N. (2008). Engineering design methods: Strategies for product design, 4th Ed., Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.
Darke, J. (1979). “The primary generator and the design process.” Des. Stud., 1(1), 36–44.
Deplazes, A. (2013). Constructing architecture: Materials processes structures. A handbook, 3rd Ed., Birkhäuser, Basel, Switzerland.
Durmusoglu, M. B., and Kulak, O. (2008). “A methodology for the design of office cells using axiomatic design principles.” Omega, 36(4), 633–652.
Ericsson, A., and Erixon, G. (1999). Controlling design variants: Modular product platforms, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Dearborn, MI.
Frampton, K., and Cava, J. (1995). Studies in tectonic culture: The poetics of construction in nineteenth and twentieth century architecture, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Gilbert, L. R., III, Farid, A. M., and Omar, M. (2013). “An axiomatic design based approach for the conceptual design of temporary modular housing.” Proc., 7th Int. Conf. on Axiomatic Design, M. K. Thompson, ed., Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.
Gosling, J., Sassi, P., Naim, M., and Lark, R. (2013). “Adaptable buildings: A systems approach.” Sustainable Cities Soc., 7, 44–51.
Hatchuel, A., Le Masson, P., Reich, Y., and Weil, B. (2011). “A systematic approach of design theories using generativeness and robustness.” Proc., 18th Int. Conf. on Engineering Design, Design Society, Singapore, 87–97.
Hohmann, J. (2013). The right to housing: Laws, concepts, possibilities, Hart, Oxford, U.K.
Hsu, W., and Liu, B. (2000). “Conceptual design: Issues and challenges.” Comput.-Aided Des., 32(14), 849–850.
Huang, J. C. (2008). Participatory design for prefab house: Using internet and query approach of customizing prefabricated houses, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Kieran, S., and Timberlake, J. (2011). Cellophane house, Kieran Timberlake, Philadelphia.
Krishnapillai, R., and Zeid, A. (2003). “Adaptive design customization for mass customization: A framework.” Proc., 2nd Interdisciplinary World Congress on Mass Customization and Personalization, Technical Univ. of Munich, Munich, Germany, 6–8.
Kulak, O., Cebi, S., and Kahraman, C. (2010). “Applications of axiomatic design principles: A literature review.” Expert Syst. Appl., 37(9), 6705–6717.
Lawson, B. (1994). Design in mind, Architectural Press, Oxford, U.K.
Le Corbusier, C. (1931). Towards a new architecture, J. Rodker, London.
Marchesi, M., Fernandez, J. E., and Matt, D. T. (2016). “Applying axiomatic design to building design in the housing industry: A case study analysis.” Axiomatic design of large systems: Complex products, buildings and manufacturing systems, A. Farid, N. P. Suh, eds., Springer International, New York.
Marchesi, M., Fernandez, J. E., Matt, D. T., and Kim, S.-G. (2014). “Axiomatic design approach for the conceptual design of sustainable buildings.” Proc., 8th Int. Conf. on Axiomatic Design, Axiomatic Design Solutions, Lisbon, Portugal.
Marchesi, M., and Ferrarato, I. A. (2015). “Addressing the adaptive customization of timber prefabricated housing through axiomatic design.” Procedia CIRP, 34, 199–205.
Marchesi, M., Kim, S.-G., and Matt, D. T. (2015). “Assessing the design innovation potential of timber prefabricated housing through axiomatic design.” Proc., ASME 2015 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, ASME, New York.
Marchesi, M., and Matt, D. (2016). “Application of axiomatic design to the design of the built environment: a literature review.” Axiomatic design of large systems: Complex products, buildings and manufacturing systems, A. Farid, N. P. Suh, eds., Springer International, New York.
Naguchi, M., et al. (2016). “ZEMCH: Toward the delivery of zero energy mass custom home.” Mass customisation, Springer International, M. Naguchi, ed., Cham, Switzerland.
Nayak, R. U., Chen, W., and Simpson, T. W. (2002). “A variation-based method for product family design.” Eng. Optim., 34(1), 65–81.
Niemeijer, R. A., De Vries, B., and Beetz, J. (2010). “Designing with constraints. Towards mass customization in the housing industry.” Proc., 10th Int. Conf. on Design and Decision Support Systems, Dept. of Architecture, Building, and Planning, Eindhoven Univ. of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Pahl, G., and Beitz, W. (2001). Engineering design: A systematic approach, 2nd Ed., Springer, London.
Pastor, J. B. R., and Benavides, E. M. (2011). “Axiomatic design of an airport passenger terminal.” Proc., 6th Int. Conf. on Axiomatic Design, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.
Pine, B. J. (1993). Mass customization: The new frontier in business competition, Harvard Business School, Boston.
Ramaji, I. J., and Memari, A. M. (2015). “Information exchange standardization for BIM application to multi-story modular residential buildings.” Proc., Architectural Engineering 6th Conf., ASCE, Reston, VA, 13–24.
RES4 (Resolution: 4 Architecture). (2015). “The modern modular.” 〈http://re4a.com〉 (May 15, 2015).
Roozenburg, N. F. M., and Cross, N. G. (1991). “Models of the design process: Integrating across the disciplines.” Des. Stud., 12(4), 215–220.
Smith, R. E. (2010). Prefab architecture: A guide to modular design and construction, Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.
Suh, N. P. (1990). The principles of design, Oxford University Press, New York.
Suh, N. P. (2001). Axiomatic design: Advances and applications, Oxford University Press, New York.
Tabet Aoul, K. A., Ahmed, K. G., and Bleibleh, B. (2016). “Mass Housing: Challenges, Contemporary Paradigms, and Future Potentials.” ZEMCH: Toward the delivery of Zero Energy Mass Custom Home, Springer International Publishing, M. Naguchi, ed., Switzerland.
Thompson, M. K. (2013). “A classification of procedural errors in the definition of functional requirements in axiomatic design theory.” Proc., 7th Int. Conf. on Axiomatic Design, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.
Thompson, M. K., Kwon, O. H., and Park, M. J. (2009a). “The application of axiomatic design theory and conflict techniques for the design of intersections: Part 1.” Proc., 5th Int. Conf. on Axiomatic Design, Nova Univ. of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
Thompson, M. K., Park, M. J., Kwon, O. H., Ibragimova, E., Lee, H., and Myung, S. (2009b). “The application of axiomatic design theory and conflict techniques for the design of intersections: Part 2.” Proc., 5th Int. Conf. on Axiomatic Design, Nova Univ. of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
Ulrich, K. T. (2005). Design: Creation of artifacts in society, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
UNI (Ente Italiano di Normazione). (1981). “UNI 8289: Building—Functional requirements of final users—Classification.” 〈http://store.uni.com/magento-1.4.0.1/index.php/uni-8289-1981.html〉.
United Nations. (2015). “World population prospects: The 2015 revision, key findings and advance tables.” Rep No. ESA/P/WP.241, Washington, DC.
von Moos, S. (2009). Le Corbusier: Elements of synthesis, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Wang, L., Shen, W., Xie, H., Neelamkavil, J., and Pardasani, A. (2002). “Collaborative conceptual design—State of the art and future trends.” Comput.-Aided Des., 34(13), 981–996.
Yi, Y., and Thompson, M. K. (2011). “Quantifying the impact of coupling in axiomatic design: Calculating the coupling impact index for traffic intersections.” Proc., 6th Int. Conf. on Axiomatic Design, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.
Yu, J. S., Zugasti, J. P. G., and Otto, K. N. (1999). “Product architecture definition based upon customer demands.” J. Mech. Des., 121(3), 329–335.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 23 • Issue 3 • September 2017
Copyright
© 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 25, 2015
Accepted: Feb 7, 2017
Published online: Jun 12, 2017
Published in print: Sep 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Nov 12, 2017
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.