History of workPODs
 
1990 - 2009
Building a “Room Within a Room”
within a Landscape
part two of two parts
go to [#] below for additional comments and links
 
In Part One, I outlined the concept of Taylor workPODs and their development. Below, I discuss the evolution of our workPODs, as products, and provide comments and links for the numbered annotations on Pages One and Two of this article.
 
POD DESIGNS
e v o l u t i o n
 
o f
  t h e   p r o d u c t
 
 
We have continued to refine the POD design over the years and to add variety to the line. Below are snapshots of PODs in their chronological order. The first drawing is my original 1990 POD sketch. The second, is the Paul Lyons POD built in 1997. Third, the CubeOffice POD - called this because it is built from standard cube-shelving pieces - first produced in 2002. Fourth and fifth the PODPopulas, in two different configurations, developed in 2006. This POD was designed by Bill Blackburn. The sixth shown is the rotating POPMaximus installed in 2007 - Bill Blackburn and I worked on this together. He did the majority of the actual detailed designing. Last is the first production version of the mediaPOD as delivered in early 2008. I lead the design process on this POD working with the AI shop crew.
 

The first POD design assumed simple fabrication methods and focused on providing the maximum amount of work top and storage in the smallest diameter possible. It was to be built totally out of wood to give us the most control over both production and “look.” A turntable was considered which is the reason for the raised step. The design had a pocketing, slider door of wood or glass for privacy.

The Paul Lyon’s POD was much more refined than our first concept and difficult and expensive to build. It provides abundant work surface and storage and shelving for over 500 books. We do not build it today but the ones that were build have remained in service with the exception of a corporation that closed down a regional office and the home office did not know what to make of the pieces.

The CubeOffice POD is basically a component version of the first design. It can be configured and trimmed out in a variety o ways and is our most affordable POD. It comes in fixed and rolling versions.

PODPopulas combines some of the best features of the Paul Lyon’s and CubeOffice PODs into a compact version which can be set up in a number of different ways. It also comes in set and rolling versions.

POD Maximus is the largest (thus the name) and most versatile POD we have delivered as of the end of 2007. It is capital expensive. Yet when you consider it is an entire trans-portable office, which will remain in service for decades, it is more than reasonable on a lifecycle cost basis. This POD approaches art and offers a level of user control simply not available by other means. Because of its “presence” it can be successfully placed in a great number of different settings.

The mediaPOD [76] adds the ability to control sound almost to any degree required and has an interior flexibility of adjustable components and work surfaces that is unprecedented. It also is more playful than the other PODs and will “pack” with greater density without feeling crowded.

GoTO
Gallery
of POD installations
 
 
In time we expect our PODs to come in many sizes and shapes with a great number if different features in support of the many specific functions related to life and work. We will continue to employ a modular and platform approach with as many interchangeable components as possible. In time, we believe that the POD can be mass produced without losing its craft and ability to be configured and trimmed to fit well into a variety of different contexts. The strategic purpose of all the Taylor enterprises is to invent new environments, process and tool augmentation systems and prototype them through an iterative process until they reach a practical expression of the idea and its many ramifications. Often, in doing so, we have to create their market. Once proof-of-concept is achieved and a profitable market created, we seek partners to scale the product/service thereby achieving the appropriate level of ubiquity. We seek to do this in a way that maintains the basic quality and integrity of the idea. Too many good ideas, products and services have been exploited in the market and have been turned into caricatures of themselves. The Taylor System and Method is a way of working which spans the entire lifecycle of an idea. There are many different, valid ways an idea can develop. Networks of ideas can combine in a great variety of expressions. The POD, itself comes from a number of ideas and methods that are as old as architecture [77]. The modern moment of the 19th and 20th centuries explored modularity in a number of ways. Ideas can be creative but this does not make them methods nor inventions. Methods and inventions are specific to a time, place and economy. Ideas - good ones - go on for a long time always seeking new life through renewed innovations. The idea of establishing an iterative, systematic way of exploring and developing ideas and turning them into practical innovations is at the heart of the Taylor Method [78].
 
BEYOND PODS
e v o l u t i o n
 
o f
  m o d u l a r   c o m p o n e n t s
 
Back to the Future - 1980
The Boulder Affordable Housing Project [79] of 1980 proposed a solution that now is feasible for two reasons. First, the green revolution in housing is now underway and second, we have evolved the practical capability to build in the way I proposed in 1980. It is not that we could not have done it in 1980. It would have been difficult and expensive yet possible. Today, it will be much easier and there is a ready market for the result. The energy systems to allow a net zero energy use community are now mature, economical and no longer controversial [80]. This project takes manufactured modules to the next scale - a recursion level one up from the POD and the Armature systems we are building today. This has been a persistent dream since the late 60s. The Boulder project was our first serious proposal of flexible, modular building components creating clusters of communities all in an energy and food generating greenhouse. Now, we have a couple of prospects on the horizon that may be able to employ this concept [81]. In addition to the Boulder Affordable Housing project, the next level of application of this capability will see the Snowflake [82] and EcoSphere [83] design come into reality. All these project represent the next scale of this POD-Armature system and they will also encompass these existing components within them.
boulder_afforadable_village
 
The important design strategy employed here is based on the perception that while all the systems of a work of architecture should be integrated this does not mean they should be co-mingled. It is foolish, for example, to burry electrical into a wall that is likely to be moved in the future or in the condition that the technology involved is likely to require serious upgrading in the future. In cases like this the electrical (or plumbing and so on) should always be in chases and accessible. By building a double shell glass greenhouse structure which circulates 57 degree earth mediated air between its two envelopes, the “house” structures, inside of it, only have to be engineered to support themselves and the structure does not have to deal with extreme weather. This means walls, windows doors, roofs, and so on, have only to deal with sound, sight-lines, utility and their esthetics. This then allows for them to be created as a modular kit-of-parts so that each resident can shape their abode to fit their needs and easily change it when desired much as we arrange WorkFurniture in a NavCenter today. The greenhouse roof structure supplies the gantry to move these modules like is done in a factory. The net result is an adaptable and affordable house that is green and sustainable. This is organized around communities of several scales of recursion. With the Boulder project, the module was hexagonal with one triangle defaulting to planting on every recursion level. This module and “rule” ensured a continuity of over all architecture with an appropriate level of park and growing areas and a high variety of specific architectural forms capable of meeting numerous individual requirements. Components are programmed go together in rule-based ways insuring variety and individual choice and architectural excellence.
 
 
It can be seen, throughout this discourse, that a modular, recursive design strategy [84] can be employed to produce a high variety, adaptive physical systems capable of meeting the complexity of a great number of living and work requirements while achieving a human-centric artful result. This goal can be reached by a series of Design/Build/Use iterations [81] each systematically increasing the knowledge of - and the capability of - a vision-driven, systematic method of invention. And that, this can be achieved by satisfying the nominal requirements of the everyday environment by solving design challenges - with average costs - by a small corporation of modest means [85].
 
While individual architectural practices often innovate [83] and the component manufacturing level of the construction industry has ongoing R&D functions, the two together are not integrated - they are in fact fragmented and often working against one another. This suggests that the basic understanding of and organization of the practice of architecture [84] should be challenged and that more experiments on the design-of-practice models [86] level is called for. A far greater synthesis of design, engineering, manufacturing and building is called for and this cannot be achieved while ignoring or being subordinate to the the marketing, development and management of use of the completed environment. Today, the rate of innovation in the built environment is too slow. The cost of construction and use too high. The ability of the present, typical house and workplace to facilitate and augment [87] human living and work is no where near what it has to be. The lack of true art in the ubiquitous built environment goes without comment. Green and sustainability standards, while a goodness that they have finally become part of the development agenda, are being applied onto forms of architecture which are not capable, by a wide margin, of meeting the requirements of our time let alone the future which is rushing our way at an ever increasing rate [88]. Today, a building is hardly built before it is obsolete. Programming major structures for a 20 year life-cycle is hardly a solution nor is designing buildings and work furniture in a way which impedes adaptability and easy upgrading smart [89]. The practice of architecture and the allied arts is in crises and it is time to redesign it as-a-system [90].
N O T E S
for Parts One and Two
#
graphic link
comments
1
The Kellogg Field Office was the first office landscape based on the not-built Capital Holding Agency Group design. It suffered for a lack of follow though with a group of users who did not know how to work in this kind of environment. A partially successful project.
2
As of the end of 2008, The mediaPOD is our latest POD design to be built. The second application of the concept went into production in early 2009. This is our most complex to build POD and the one which most challenges the conventional office layout wisdom.
3
 
I have not done a systematic review of the variety of work pods and small work spaces now available however I intend to do so soon. In the realm of manufactured for interior use, efforts seem to be somewhat static. Small stand alone work sheds seem to be having a renascence.
4
 
Large corporations and institutions typically have a facilities group whose job it is to make sure the best result is achieved at the best cost and time to build. Unfortunately, they are usually bastions of conventionality and often achieve the opposite result.
5
 
The “room within a room” concept is often attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright with the dinning room of his Oak Park house and studio cited as the first deliberately rendered example. True or not, Wright was a master of employing this technique.
6
Christopher Alexander, et. al. created one of the best and most human-oriented schemas for producing viable environments. If you build to all the Pattern Language principles, you may not have a great work. If you fail to, you will surely have a very poor one.
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ReturnTo: Part One of Two
Matt Taylor
Elsewhere
September 4, 2007
March 1, 2009
 

 

SolutionBox voice of this document:
VISION • STRATEGY • EVALUATION

 


posted September 2. 2007
revised March 1, 2009


• 20070904.333333.mt • 20071107.123901.mt •
• 20071111.767600.mt
• 20070717.000012.mt •
•20090301.7619201.mt •

(note: this document is about 30% finished)

Matt Taylor 615 720 7390 • me@matttaylor.com

me@matttaylor.com

Copyright© Matt Taylor 1980, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009
Certain aspects of the system and method described are patented and in patent pending