August_1966 — Page 87

Mr. Leslie G. Mills, managing director of Technical Structures, Ltd., Kuala Lumpur, presents some thoughts on....

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'HE precept that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing applies particularly to the prefabrication of timber buildings which to some extent is looked upon as being any man's field.

When considering the various types of buildings at present in Malaysia. especially the excellent buildings that have been put up for many years by the indigenous people, it would ap- pear a very simple matter to make these buildings in sections in such a fashion that would permit ready erec- tion on site and achieve a similar ap- pearance to the structure built in a more conventional manner.

However, there are a number of considerations to be given to the com- plete factory manufacture of a build- ing which are not apparent at first sight. Basically. a prefabricated building cannot be the same as a con- ventional building and to take a con- ventional building and say “if 1 divide this into a series of pieces I will have myself a prefabricated building" is by no means the right approach or the right thinking.

Unfortunately, the problems asso- ciated with prefabrication are not al-

PREFABRICATION

ways understood and attempts are made to produce a building in pieces. which is merely a conventional build- ing reduced to a number of smaller sections.

If a prefabricated system is going to work, the designer requires an in- timate knowledge of building con- struction and manufacturing tech- niques. He must foresee what is go- ing to happen from the time the system is first laid down on the fac- tory floor to the time when the build- ing is finished and in use. Every step must be considered in terms of pre- fabrication and not in terms of con- ventional construction.

Appearance

It is very rarely possible to pro- duce a prefabricated building which will appear to be a building built by conventional methods and therefore considerable thought has to be given to the appearance of the finished building on site.

of

Properly handled, there is no loss appearance of a prefabricated building, even though it is notably ap- parent that this form of approach

IN TIMBER

was used in producing the building, provided the systems used are func- tional and simple.

Again, if it is decided that a pre- fabricated building is the type of building to suit the specific purpose required. thinking in terms of pre- fabrication must commence at the very concept and persons well versed in the design and production of mo- dular building systems should be con- sulted at an early stage if the opera- tion is going to prove successful,

Any ideas of pursuing a course of thinking associated with prefabrica- tion must commence with a basic mo- dular system and every attempt should be made to plan the various buildings in accordance with the modular sys- tem and not to use the modular sys- tem merely as a basis of commence-

ment.

If the system is a good one, it should be possible to arrange the buildings within the modular system without recourse to sub-standard sec- tions. It is the use of sub-standard sections or minor alterations to the module that tends to detract from the success of a prefabricated operation.

As an example of this, one might

Three aspects of a 45ft. span TSL box beam construction with bay centres of 12 ft. The building was manufac- tured in two weeks and site erection took a further week.

Since producing this building TSL have completed a range of similar buildings with spans from 35ft. to 50ft.

Far East Architect & Builder August, 1966

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