Developed with Otto Ruano
Outside the realm of typical architectural practice, SCALE uses the car manufacturing industry as a solution to create lightweight, reusable, flexible, and adaptive structures. The strength and weatherproofing of a manufactured car door is the paradigm used for creating SCALE’s exterior wall panels. Rethinking the existing paradigm of the existing FEMA trailer as a premise to propose a mobile expandable building typology. Furthering this concept, collapse becomes critical for distribution at the urban response scale. The body of the structure must move from a minimized mass to a maximized volume, yet maintain high weather resistance while still interacting with the environment. SCALE is pre-assembled within the standards of global shipping parameters, using scissor lifts integrated with manufactured car panels and composite flooring to “scissortain’; expanding into three-story housing. Hinged wall panels akin to Lambo car doors unfold from within the”scissortainer”into a fully weather-sealed living environment. The scissortainer contains both standard MEP systems and vertical circulation, making it an all-inclusive design which is rapidly deployable, easily maintained, and fully reusable. Using existing foundations, i.e. parking lots, sidewalks, and highway underpasses, as key sites for deployment, the scissortainer will not interfere with the reconstruction of private lots. SCALE propels provisional housing off the grid as an ecological model of manufacturing.
~Adapted from text by Otto Ruano