The debut of American House 08, the first in a series of ten prefabricated houses designed and constructed by William E. Massie — the award-winning Architect-in-Residence and Head of the Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art — will take place on March 7, 2008, at Cranbrook Art Museum in conjunction with the opening of a larger exhibition. American House 08 embodies Massie’s drastically divergent practice from traditional architecture through his use of computer-based fabrication technology for efficient, precise, and customized fabrication. Constructed entirely within the architect’s 12,000 square-foot studio just minutes away from the historic Saarinen-designed Cranbrook campus, American House 08 was designed, in part, at full scale. By composing in real-time, Massie is able to negotiate between material and concept, relying on human reaction to the actual space and details. Utilizing computer-based fabrication technology for production, the house consists of a prefabricated steel frame, in-filled with manufactured structural panels�all filtered through a process of digital fabrication.
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