• Woudhuysen, James. “Mass Customisation and the Manufactured Module.” Manmade Modular Megastructures 76.1 (2006): 49-51. AD Reader. Web. 20 Sept. 2013. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ad.205/abstract>.
  • Woudhuysen talks to Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake of KieranTimberlake Architects about how they are setting out to refabricate architecture.

“James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University, and co-author of Why is Construction So Backwards? (Wiley-Academy, 2004), talks to Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake of KieranTimberlake Architects about how they are setting out to refabricate architecture.”(49)

“‘The more one attempts to undertake at the point of assembly,’ the authors note, ‘the more difficult it is to control quality’.”(49)
Prefabrication and preassembled parts decreases unknowns and time on site.

“‘It has resonated among some in the development community, where monetary carrying costs can be the difference between doing a project and shelving it.'”(49)
If Roboforming can bring costs down, then it should increase the likelyhood of clients approving complex geometric forms that may be better suited for the site.

“Architecture needs to think bigger when it comes to modules, and develop the logistical means for handling them.”(49)

“Bentley cars. They are truly bespoke – we love that word – and so clearly represent mass customisation. … Bentley cars were an example of customisation without the preface ‘mass’”(50)
Are automobiles an example of mass production or mass customisation? Even Bently cars don’t seem to fit the word.

Kieran and Timberlake abondon “mass production as ‘the ideal of the early twentieth century’. They assert that mass customisation ‘is the recently emerged reality of the twenty-first century,’”(50)

Personalisation vs. Customisation?
Personalisation = Mass Customisation?(50)

Timberlake claims “‘Our communication software, our CAD abilities, and the supply-chain opportunities all exist to enable true mass customisation to occur'”(50)

Timberlake “notes our point that, to uphold a true return to craft, construction needs to embrace new technologies and methods for making. But what we meant was not craft in the sense of the present use of construction trades, so much as a turn to manufacturing architecture”(51)
New technologies for making/manufacturing as Craft

Timberlake argues, “‘If today’s new materials enable integration, lighter assemblies and new technologies, then the world of design and construction will be enhanced by embracing them, rather than ignoring their possibilities.”(51)
Sheet metal is not a new material, certainly, but new technologies for production are integral to lighter assemblies.