Projecting with precast concrete components: to review!

Projecting houses takes different paths and leads to different results depending on whether one chooses to build with precast or in-situ construction. This paper will describe the specific character of projecting with bearing precast concrete components, as well as its specific potentials, which had by far not been exploited by the European sixties precast slab methods (in German called "Plattenbau"). An insight-provoking work using directional structural framework will be shown (A. Mangiarotti). A selection of types of directional components is shown by the construction-based configuration of floor and wall components. These configurations permit the derivation of an idiosyncratic series of building types. Following this examination, the paper will consider another form of a modular system, which assembles concepts for load-carrying exterior walls, building on flat components and offering structural apertures. General requirements and idiosyncrasies of projecting with precast components are presented. The potential of structuring a house as a carcass with a long lifespan and interior work with a shorter one, and the accompanying possibility of "carcass-aesthetics" is shown, concluding with the activation of a dialectic collaboration between civil engineer and architect.