Module Operandi
Dimensions are dictated by truck transport, and assembly happens on site. The construction site stays clean and on schedule, and the topping-out ceremony becomes a stacking ceremony. Modular construction works. But can the module’s logic also be designed with genuine ambition, bespoke and flexible?
“In essence, modular building runs two construction sites in parallel: one on site, one in the factory,” says the design team at Sauerbruch Hutton. For the Berlin practice, modular construction remains a learning process driven by time and cost pressure. Deconstruction potential, reusability, and hybrid systems become inherent design parameters – renegotiating the logic of serial production itself.
Modular construction today is finding answers where other systems fall short. Vivas Arquitectos and EXE Arquitectura developed a highrise in Barcelona using concrete room modules for social housing. Aretz Dürr Architektur bet on simple elegance with their CLT modular infill in Cologne. In Køge, Johansen Skovsted make the modularity of precast concrete elements legible through a facade relief. With an overnight shelter for homeless people in Munich, Hild und K show how the beauty of repetition can create a strong identity. Riehle Koeth’s ZERO. modular timber building in Stuttgart proved so convincing that the practice itself moved in.
The projects in this issue are more than efficient solutions: they’re architecture that asks to be repeated.
Jeanette Kunsmann