Mass De:construction – Panel Heritage

At brink of destruction, this project outlines possible new futures of post-war mass constructed prefab housing, whilst re:using the inherited potential of its material quantities and sites qualities.

The initial brief was to confront an existing prefab housing site in my hometown. As I inspected the unique site and its problems, I soon realized this is a much broader problem. Up to 1/3 of all Czech housing, that is around 1 200 000 units, are still in these, now technically and morally outdated constructions. That indeed requires something different from standard design thinking.\nTherefore, I did not come up with a design unique to the site. I proposed a design process - mass de:construction, which was verified on the case study sites.\nIn the times of environmental crisis, we need a systematic approach how to how to deal with this problem omni-present in Europe. The process integrates the uniqueness of the local situation and knowledge exchange platform into a learning loop that can be shared on the European level. \nThe prefab heritage is an ideal experiment ground for principles of circular architecture, as it already integrated many principles that comply with circularity in today’s perspective: systematic types, prefabricated elements, modularity, material efficiency, detachable mounts... My approach is to reuse these values instead of destroying them. Making the new constructions adaptable - de:constructable, re:usable and at the very end of possibilities, re:cycable with ease. As the key lesson learned is that we need to build for the unknown futures. \nOnce each building type is thoroughly analysed and prototypes are tested, the mass de:construction process can be repeated in a very efficient manner. Balancing the initial investment costs that usually come very high in a case of re:constructions. \nIf cities really want to be smart, they must learn how to renew themselves. Nowadays, many materials are not found naturally anymore, but in anthropogenic repositories. By 2050, 80% of the world population is predicted to live in cities. As these cities will struggle for survival, the material needs must be met from within. The Panel Heritage is such a repository, awaiting to be explored.