The Alpod Is A Lot More Than A Cute Little New Prefab Unit

Designboom points to the Alpod, designed by Hong Kong’s James Law Cybertecture for Aluhouse, a Chinese manufacturer of prefabricated homes, and on display in Hong Kong until the end of February. According to ARUP, the structural engineer:

The Alpod can be used for a number of different functions, but is set up as a sort of residential unit with a small kitchen and a fancy bathroom at one end.

Really, the design is not that different from what Christopher Deam was doing for Breckenridge a decade ago, but the materials are a lot slicker. So what’s so special about it?

It is hard to report on the structural details; I am confused. Arup and the press release call it “an aerospace-type monocoque structure to create an open space with no columns”, however the definition of monocoque is " a structural approach whereby loads are supported through an object’s external skin, similar to an egg shell."

In this construction photo from James Law’s Facebook page I see a structural frame made of columns and beams and creating an open space in that width is not exactly pushing the engineering envelope. It certainly isn’t what I would have called monocoque, but Arup is one of the world’s great engineers so I must be wrong about this.

According to Alpod’s press release, there are a lot of advantages to building with aluminum:

Of course, it is all in the details. Because aluminum is not impervious to fire; it has a low melting point. It is not an insulator; it is a conductor. But let’s ignore that, because in fact, this Alpod is just a part of a much bigger vision. From James Law in the video, with my emphasis added:

Sitting on the ground in Hong Kong, the Alpod is a nice little unit that doesn’t break a lot of new ground. Plugging into a high-rise framework, what I have previously called a vertical trailer park, that is a whole other paradigm.

It is an idea we have talked about for years, really since Archigram and plug-in City, but there were always some fundamental problems, including the duplication of walls and roofs that you don’t have with normal high rise construction.

Alpod/Video screen capture

But this is a major Chinese construction firm that has been doing aluminum housing for a while, an experienced engineer and architect, and if there is one thing I have learned visiting China is that they are dead serious about reinventing the way things are built and are doing it very well.

I suspect we will be seeing these coming down the road very soon. And given that they are small enough to fit on a ship and a truck, they may well be coming down the road in a city near you.