In coming decades, we face the prospect of rapid environmental decline, the explosion of urban populations and the proliferation of social inequity. Global climate change is accelerating and species are going extinct at 100 times the natural background rate. Over the next 20 years, 80-percent of world population growth is expected to take place in cities. The expanding footprint of peri-urban development is engulfing agriculturally and ecologically productive land. The gap between rich and poor is widening. In most cities, even those with moderate income cannot afford a place to live.
HyBrid Architecture believes that architects have the potential to play a vital role in facing these challenges. To do so, we must re-examine the processes that underlie building design and construction and work to increase the efficiency, equity and livability of urban environments.
For most of recorded history, buildings have been constructed, occupied and disposed of in the same way. Materials are transported to site in multiple trips, cut and discarded according to building design and assembled by large crews. Completed buildings rarely respond to the ecology of site, hemorrhage energy and, upon demolition, end up in landfills. It is a wasteful process that is inefficient in resource consumption, financial expenditure and time.
HyBrid ‘ s work exploits the model of the automobile and airplane industries. It integrates CAD, building information modeling and CNC fabrication to streamline building design and construction. Materials are purchased in bulk and components are assembled into modular building units at the factory. Building units are transported to site in a limited number of trips and assembled in a fraction of the time it would take to construct a building using traditional methods. Resource consumption decreases as factory assembled components can be manufactured with little waste. Energy consumption decreases as fewer trips are needed to transport materials. Labor costs decrease as large site-based crews are no longer necessary.
Our buildings synthesize the complexities of concept, context and program in simple, expressive modern form. They respond to the cultural, physical, temporal and climatic conditions of site. Flexible building systems and modular assemblies facilitate building deconstruction, the relocation/adaptation of buildings to new sites and temporary occupation of urban lots that would otherwise remain vacant. Sub assemblies designed for defabrication facilitate the reuse of building components and recycling of building materials with minimal downcycling.
HyBrid capitalizes on existing industrial infrastructure and economies of scale. Rather than reinventing the wheel on every project, we adapt established materials and technologies to new uses. We focus on prefabricated multi-unit urban dwellings rather than single-family residences so as to maximize the efficiencies of an assembly-line-based approach to construction and increase urban densities. As a result, we minimize the environmental impact of our buildings and lower construction costs at the same time.
HyBrid ‘ s work resurrects the viability of affordable high density, high quality housing in cities. It contributes to the democratization of environmentally responsible modern design and makes sustainable housing accessible to middle and lower income households. In doing so, it promises to bring greater vitality and parity to urban communities and greater efficacy to the environmental building movement.
-Founded in 2003