Large-panel-system building

thumb|A typical low large panel system-building in [[Leipzig, Germany]]

thumb|, the largest East German (1987)

A large-panel-system building is a building constructed of large, prefabricated concrete slabs. Such buildings are often found in housing developments. Although large-panel-system buildings are often considered to be typical of Eastern Bloc countries in the second half of the 20th century, this prefabricated construction method was also used extensively in Western Europe and elsewhere, particularly in public housing (see tower block).

This construction method, known as Plattenbau in German, involves assembling buildings from story-high precast concrete elements that are manufactured in a factory and then transported to the construction site for assembly. It emerged from efforts to develop serial and industrialized housing construction, evolving through techniques such as block construction, large-block construction, concrete strip construction, and cast-in-place concrete panels from the early 20th century onward.

For large-panel construction to be effective, it requires typification, standardization, and the capability for industrialized production, transportation, and assembly of the heavy elements. Due to evolving political and technological conditions, this method became widespread across Europe after World War II. While large-panel buildings in Western Europe were primarily used for social housing projects, they became the dominant construction method for nearly all purposes in socialist Europe from the early 1960s onward. However, economic constraints in Eastern European planned economies limited the full realization of the system's increasing flexibility and complexity.

History

Early history

In the mid-19th century, a boom in prefabrication began with the export of preassembled houses made of wood and iron to British colonies. This trend ended around 1860 with the gold rush, after which manufacturers shifted their focus back to the domestic market. However, prefabrication only had a chance of success if it could compete with traditional masonry construction. This led to the spread of cast concrete in England and France.

The artificial stone company Lippmann, Schneckenburger & Cie. from Batignolles, near Paris, was the first to produce hollow concrete panels that could be assembled into houses.

The first known houses constructed from large prefabricated concrete panels were built by John Alexander Brodie, an employee of the city of Liverpool. Between 1903 and 1905, he oversaw the construction of worker housing on Eldon Street for the Housing Council. This project was experimental, with work processes being documented photographically. Brodie's goal was to create housing quickly and affordably.

The buildings were constructed partly using in-situ concrete and masonry, while others featured story-high prefabricated panels with window openings. Assembly involved erecting a house-sized scaffold. Some wall panels were even cast on the completed floors and then tilted into position. In 1905, Brodie presented another prefabricated house at the Cheap Cottages Exhibition in Letchworth, England.

The Atterbury System

In 1902, the architect Grosvenor Atterbury developed a panel construction system, inspired by Thomas Edison's cast concrete houses. and by 1918, he successfully built two-story structures as part of the third phase of the Forest Hills Gardens garden city project in Queens, New York.

Post-WWI period

Prefabrication was pioneered in the Netherlands following World War I, based on construction methods developed in the United States. The first German use of large-panel-system building construction is what is now known as the Splanemann-Siedlung in Berlin's Lichtenberg district, constructed in 1926–1930. Whereas in the rest of Europe, large-panel-system buildings are associated with public housing, in Rovaniemi they are favoured by the middle classes on their way to purchasing a bungalow.

In the United Kingdom, the mass construction of tower blocks using large panel system construction in major cities was commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s, being seen as a quick and inexpensive way of social housing renewal in the wake of the war and as a response to slum clearance. However in many cities, the method was found to be flawed in terms of dealing with the generally intemperate climate of the British Isles as a whole, with many blocks developing excruciating damp and condensation issues which led to them being declared unfit for human habitation. Improper assembly of the blocks also compounded the issue, with the Ronan Point collapse in 1968 bringing to bear many design concerns surrounding LPS construction and its general lack of structural redundancy in the event of what was, in that case a gas explosion. By the 1980s, the associated stigma of high rise social housing that had built up through the previous decade resulted in hundreds of such blocks being demolished.

Notes

References

Sources

Meuser, Philipp; Zadorin, Dimitrij (2016). Towards a Typology of Soviet Mass Housing: Prefabrication in the USSR 1955 – 1991, DOM publishers, Berlin. .
Meuser, Philipp (2019). Prefabricated Housing. Construction and Design Manual, DOM publishers, Berlin.

External links

FIB international Bulletin 43 - structural connections for precast concrete buildings