The Big Belt House Architect: William E' Massie

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The Big Belt House Architect William E. Massie

• Presented by Hoda Homayouni

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The Big Belt House

• The architect and his works
• The project
• CNC Techs and Materials
• Design and construction process
• Advantages and challenges

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William E. Massie

• The New Architect-in-Residence and a professor at
  the University of Montana.
• Pioneer in the use of computer and other advanced
  technology in designing inexpensive but daring
  homes.
• Received Progressive Architecture awards from
  Architecture Magazine for the design of the Big
  Belt House(2000).
• Believed that architect should make as well as
  design.

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Massies words

• What Im trying to do is an extension of
  modernism that goes back to its true beginnings
  when modernist homes were reasonably priced. If
  someone is thinking of building a typical
  suburban house, I can do an interesting modernist
  house instead for the same amount of money.
  People dont have to pay a huge premium to live
  in a beautiful and somewhat experimental space.
  The way light rakes across something curving is
  completely different from the way it strikes a
  flat wall.

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Massies words

• Its those kinds of things that are now
  possible. And we know from the auto and aerospace
  industries that the ability to develop complex
  shapes is not just an aesthetic achievement. In
  making an automobile side panel, for instance,
  you can use less material to form a shape that is
  stronger on impact. Im applying the same
  fabrication processes to architecture.

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Big Belt House

• Relationship to the landscape
• Foreground topographies are assembled to develop
  the space of the building.

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Big Belt House

• Visual rhyming
• bounding together by distinct visual
  similarities.
• Continually connect to and move in relation to
  the landscape.

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CNC Techs Materials

• Massie digitally designs a home and then breaks
  it down into small interlocking pieces. Many of
  these pieces, Massie manufactures himself. He
  uses inexpensive but durable materials, such as
  cut steel and concrete.

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CNC Techs Materials

• Massie uses a lot of laser-cut and water-jet-cut
  steel. But he still uses a lot of Styrofoam
  because it is strong enough to build a
  construction form into which they can pour
  concrete.

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CNC Techs materials

• Computer-driven laser-cutting and milling
  machines shape the pieces at the shop of Massies
  four-person firm, pieces then are delivered to
  the site for the contractor to fit together like
  a giant puzzle.

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Design Construction

• The foreground topographies were assembled as the
  initial spatial construct in the form of a
  virtual computer model.
• The obtained program and structure became a
  critique of the buildings form.
• Methodology of section A software calculated
  complexity within digital space by cutting a
  series of precise sections through the surfaces.

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Design Construction

• The code that was generated digitally was being
  analyzed as section.
• The code was deconstructed to create the formwork
  Utilizing a Computer Numerically Controlled
  milling machine.

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Design Construction

• 1500 individual pieces of rigid foam was CNC-cut
  from the architects digital files, like a childs
  puzzle (reducing the necessity to measure
  on-site).

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Design Construction

• The concrete was cast with the forms laid flat on
  the ground slab, then left to cure before the
  resulting beams were tilted up into place

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Design Construction

• After the concrete cured, the foam formwork was
  removed and recycled.
• Gaps between these pieces were filled in with
  hand-applied foam and ties and spacers added as
  needed to stabilize the forms.

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Design Construction

• The forms impressions on the concrete surface
  were in this case left exposed, where they create
  an interesting motif.

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Design Construction

• Other details of the project produces with the
  assistance of digital techniques include the
  milled, transparent urethane gaskets into which
  the window glazing is set.

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The Details

• The kitchen sink cast in cement using a mould
  milled from urethane.

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The Details

• Another Massie innovation is a software program
  that simulates the physical performance of PVC
  piping.
• Massie has used this achievement in large scale
  at his PV1 project.

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The Details

• The Big Belt house uses the same PVC pipe, bound
  together with twist ties for its roof structure.
  Only the ribs are concrete, the rest of the house
  is shotcrete over PVC pipe.

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The Advantages

• Architect William Massies innovative designs go
  directly from PC to construction site, cutting
  costs dramatically.
• The use of computer technologies and primarily
  the output capability of Computer Numerically
  Controlled processes allows for a
  re-understanding of formal complexity with the
  main objective being the development of a more
  meaningful architecture.

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The Challenges

• The big challenge now is to change scale. There
  are still limitations to the equipment and
  resources. But William Massie is hopeful that he
  will be able to do a large building using these
  techniques soon. There is a company called Maloya
  Laser that now buying a huge new, highly
  automated German laser machine with a capacity of
  something like 10 feet by 20 feet. He would like
  to do a commercial building using that.