Amogh N P
✦ In loving memory of Amogh N P — Architect · Designer · Visionary ✦
B.Arch Curriculum · Semester 8 · Elective

Industrial Architecture

India needs tens of millions of homes, and it cannot build them one brick at a time, on time. This elective is the answer the construction industry borrowed from the factory: the INDUSTRIALISED BUILDING SYSTEM — designing a building as a kit of standardised components that are manufactured under factory control, transported, and assembled on site like a product. Learn why the housing problem drives the whole subject; how a building system is judged and where it pays; the discipline of MODULAR COORDINATION that lets parts fit without cutting; the spectrum of PREFABRICATION from a single precast beam to a whole room-sized module; and the real procedures, joints, transport and trade-offs of building this way. This is architecture as manufacturing — its promise of speed, quality and scale, and its hard constraints of repetition, jointing and logistics. Conventional construction is a companion subject; here the building is a product.

5Units
6Outcomes
3Credits
FreeForever
Jump to prefabrication All student courses
Unit IV · The heart of the subject

Prefabrication System

Prefabrication is the heart of the subject. Learn its OBJECTIVE and necessity — speed, quality, scale and reduced site labour; the SPECTRUM of prefabrication from a single precast component, through flat panels, to whole three-dimensional room MODULES and complete buildings (more factory work means faster site work but less flexibility); the divide between OFF-SITE work (in the controlled factory) and ON-SITE work (assembly); the all-important CONSTRUCTION JOINTS that connect prefabricated elements — the wet and dry connections that decide a system's strength, watertightness and speed; and the architectural and technical LIMITATIONS that industrialisation imposes. Try the prefabrication-spectrum explorer.

Prefab spectrumOff-site / on-siteConstruction jointsWet & drySpectrum explorer
Open the lesson

The syllabus

Five units — from the housing problem to the assembly line.

Transcribed from the official B.Arch syllabus. All 5 units are live as full interactive lessons, each with original diagrams, a self-assessment quiz and a studio task.

1

Unit 1 — Introduction

Live

The housing problem that drives the whole subject — the Five-Year-Plan thrust on housing and the issues of urban housing; the use of modern building materials and modern technology; and the meaning of an 'industrial building system' — building by manufacturing components rather than by hand on site.

CO1
2

Unit 2 — Application of the System

Live

Where the industrialised building system actually fits — its feasibility in residential and non-residential buildings; the manufacturing of building components; the technology requirements an industrialised system demands; and its use as an option for rapid disaster mitigation and rehousing.

CO2
3

Unit 3 — Modular Coordination

Live

The dimensional discipline that makes industrialisation possible — the concept of modular coordination and the basic module; the advantages and limitations of the modular principle; the components of residential buildings; and precast elements that fit a coordinated grid.

CO3
4

Unit 4 — Prefabrication System

Live

The heart of the subject — the objective and necessity of prefabrication; the spectrum from off-site to on-site prefabrication; the prefabricated elements and the construction JOINTS that connect them; and the architectural and technical limitations that industrialisation imposes.

CO4CO6
5

Unit 5 — Procedures & Organisation

Live

Building as a manufacturing process — the equipment used; the manufacturing processes for components; the transportation of components to site; on-site assembly and finishing; and the structural, social and economic issues that decide whether an industrialised building system succeeds.

CO5

Course outcomes

What you should be able to do after completing all five units (CO1–CO6, from the syllabus).

1
Understand

Explain the industrialised building system and why housing demand drives it.

2
Understand

Judge the feasibility of an industrialised building system for a project.

3
Understand

Apply modular coordination and identify precast residential components.

4
Understand

Explain the prefabrication spectrum, off-site/on-site work and construction joints.

5
Apply

Describe the procedures — manufacture, transport, assembly — and the trade-offs.

6
Create

Conceive a large-scale building using an industrialised building system.

The industrialised building system (L1 · T0 · S3; 150 marks). Every diagram is original Studio Matrx work; the prefabrication, modular-coordination and precast facts are accurate (basic module M = 100 mm, wet/dry joints, the prefab spectrum). This course owns the PREFABRICATED, INDUSTRIALISED paradigm; for conventional cast-in-situ building, see the materials & construction foundations, and for scheduling a build, Project Management.

A building as a product.

The housing driver, feasibility, modular coordination, prefabrication and the supply chain. Read the five units, study the diagrams, then test yourself.

Open Unit I Back to Students

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