Ho appena scoperto che presso il MIT è in corso una ricerca sullo sviluppo di edifici Open Source e quindi di progetti di Open Architectural Design.
MIT Open Source Building Alliance Operation (OSBA) è un progetto gestito dal dipartimento House_n, e funzionerà come una organizzazione aperta e open source. Verrà realizzato un sito web per la generazione di idee, e la valutazione tecnica delle raccomandazioni OSBA, e per le osservazioni ed i commenti del pubblico. Si impegneranno nella ricerca ricercatori universitari e membri affiliati OSBA per sviluppare, testare e creare prototipi, e sviluppare ambienti di test.

Si tratta di un progeto ben strutturato, che giustamente e chiaramente tratta anche gli aspetti di mass-customization e della opportunità di permettere alle persone la modifica delle proprie case nel tempo.
Inoltre, bisogna segnalare come questo progetto tratti anche argomenti importanti come la generazione distribuita (qui potete trovare una introduzione) e come possa essere messa in pratica all’interno degli edifici di futura costruzione.
Spero che questo progetto si interessi anche allo studio di edifici passivi, tecnologie low-tech e processi, materiali e business sostenibili.

Questo progetto è un chiaro segno di come stiamo assistendo alla diffusione dei principi Open Peer-to-Peer nei diversi ambiti del design. Siamo ancora in una fase dove la esplicita costruzione della comunità non viene ancora ricercata e sperimentate, ed è proprio qui che la metodologia Open Peer-to-Peer Design ed il progetto openp2pdesign.org possono trovare una importante applicazione.

The goal of the Open Source Building Alliance is to develop key components of a more responsive model for creating places of living where: (1) Developers become integrators and alliance builders to offer tailored solutions to individuals, (2) Architects design design-engines to efficiently create thousands of unique environments, (3) Manufacturers agree on interface standards and become tier-one suppliers of components, (4) Builders become installers and assemblers, and (5) Customers (home buyers) become “designers” at the center of the process by receiving personalized information about design, products, and services at the point of decision.¹

Rather than any singular overriding design or vision, this new model aims to adopt what is basically a flexible, mass-customization home design system — one that gives homeowners themselves the tools to design their own living spaces. Think Apple and Dell instead of Toll Brothers.

“The future of housing is really much more of an industrial design process than a craft,” says Kent Larson, an architect and director of the House_n Research Consortium and the Open Source Building Alliance (OSBA) at MIT.

“Ultimately, we’re moving toward an open source (home design) system that’s very distributed. The end user will be empowered with web-based tools and configurators to construct something unique and singular.”²

Under this new DIY design model, architects don’t actually design houses anymore, he says. Instead, they’ll simply provide the tools that allow people to build their own. Similarly, manufacturers will be transformed into tier one suppliers and builders will become the assemblers. Like today’s consumer electronics industry, the system as a whole will be connected with standards to ensure quality and drive down prices.³

In drawing inspiration from the electronics industry, it’s important to note that there will be one major difference in building future homes: turnover. Rather than the planned obsolesce that dominates the CE industry, people will want the homes they build or renovate to last.

As such, upgradability will become even more important as future houses are built. Inevitably, newer, improved materials will emerge. So like swapping out your hard drive on your laptop or upgrading its memory, the home of the future will also be built with the assumption that newer materials will be incorporated over its lifetime.⁴

The MIT Open Source Building Alliance (OSBA) explores this premise:
A web of cross-industry relationships, and tools that allow individuals to craft their physical and digital environment – directly connecting manufacturers to customers – will lead to an explosion of creative energy and path to market for innovative products.⁵

Based on well-established principles of modularity – and paralleling recent developments in the automobile, ship building, and electronics industry – Open Source Building is a strategy developed by the MIT House_n research group for the mass-customization of responsive buildings using modular physical/logical components (rather that the labor-intensive, craftbased approach of conventional construction). It separates a building into a chassis (providing structure, power, communication, etc.), and masscustomized modules (for interior fit-out, exterior facades, electronics, communication, etc.). Component design, engineering, and integration are at the system level.
This allows building designers to concentrate primarily on the unique programmatic and environmental context of a building, and allows individual occupants to focus on tailoring their environment according to needs and values. In doing so, the additional cost, risk, and coordination errors associated with “one-off,” highly engineered complex structures are avoided.⁶

Notes:

1. http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/projects.html#osba [↩]
2. http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/dual-perspectives/2009/01/20/Towards-the-Open-Source-Home [↩]
3. http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/dual-perspectives/2009/01/20/Towards-the-Open-Source-Home [↩]
4. http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/dual-perspectives/2009/01/20/Towards-the-Open-Source-Home [↩]
5. http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/documents/OSBA%20white%20paper.pdf [↩]
6. http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/documents/OSBA%20white%20paper.pdf [↩]