Let's look at 10 examples of modular architecture to better understand this concept. Intended to accommodate itinerant businessmen working in downtown Tokyo, the Nagakin capsule tower is the first example of capsule architecture design. The building's design consists of 140 capsules stacked and rotated at various angles around a central core. Each capsule, measuring 4 x 2.5 m, leaves enough space for a person to live comfortably and can be plugged into the central core and replaced or be exchanged when necessary.
The project, Revival, is a school building designed in response to the devastation caused by the war in Ukraine. The structure is built to house more than 176 students within a modular aluminum structure that can be adapted and changed to suit the needs of its users. My Micro, a modular, micro-unit residential building, is a nine-story building located in Manhattan, New York. The tower contains 55 modular units made of steel structures and concrete slabs.
The company prefabricated the units outside the Brooklyn facility, which in turn accelerated the construction process. The 1000-bed hospital was built in 2 weeks to isolate and treat patients with COVID-19. The two-story structure, consisting of prefabricated rooms and components, received the famous nickname “instant hospital”. ModSkool is a low-cost modular school that the community can build in a few hours and quickly dismantle. The concept was developed after a school for 200 children in a settlement near the Yamuna River was declared illegal and demolished.
Unpredictable climate changes in the world's most vulnerable coastal communities pose complex architectural design challenges, and modular architecture offers a solution. The Makoko floating school, built by NLE Architects with the sponsorship of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, makes extensive use of local materials and resources to produce architecture that meets the needs of people and reflects the culture of the community. Built by renowned architect Chris Precht, the farm acts as a way to reconnect people in cities with agriculture and help them to live in a more sustainable way. As described in Product Design and Development by Karl Ulrich and Steven Eppinger, there are 3 types of modular interface design.
The modular slot architecture consists of elements with different interfaces. The modular bus architecture uses a common bus or a similar concept. Each element is connected to the bus or base element through the same type of interface. In a sectional modular architecture, there is no common bus or base element that interacts with other elements. Each element uses a common set of interfaces to connect to each other.
The concept of modular design has been applied in several fields, such as architecture, product design, interior design, automobile design, computer hardware, etc. OMC used modular construction techniques to manufacture two new permanent modular buildings of 6,400 square feet, each with six classrooms. Modular design is a design principle that bifurcates a single system into several smaller parts known as modules. As homeowners and designers explore the benefits of modular construction and seek more sustainable designs to improve environmental impact, modular construction is an inherently natural option.
The beauty of the modular architecture is that any module can be replaced or added without affecting the rest of the system. Modular buildings are built with the same materials and with the same building codes and architectural specifications as traditional construction. After a lesson on modular architecture from a system architecture course, I return to the topic of designing modular interfaces for inspiration. DMDModular has recently achieved an important milestone by successfully completing a major energy efficient housing project, funded entirely with EU funding, that addresses the industry's most pressing challenges. He designed and built three temporary modular dormitory complexes with 134 bedrooms, with a total of 49,632 square meters.
The Canadian Quick Housing Initiative represents a huge success for the modular construction industry, and MBI members are rapidly building modular multi-family homes.
Volumetric Building Companies (VBC), a world leader in the construction sector that focuses on building the future using volumetric modular techniques, chooses the Maestro Smart 9 heat pump as its ideal comfort solution for heating and cooling its modular housing project in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, consisting of 60 modular housing units.In partnership with InProduction, Phoenix Modular Elevator (PME) designed, manufactured and installed seven modular elevators for the F1 Grand Prix race in Las Vegas, Nevada. The structure acts as a prototype of sustainable and recyclable architecture and highlights the importance of modular architecture in the future. The example highlights how modular architecture serves as a new systemic paradigm for cities facing an affordable housing crisis.
