The Digital House is the result of two and a half years work by architects Bell Travers Willson who hope to encourage traditional house builders to adopt new technologies to speed up house building and also give more flexibility in design. Using CAD/CAM techniques scaled up from electronics and furniture manufacturer, the house is designed in 3D on a computer. Each constructional element is then cut from timber using a CNC router. The elements are then assembled into solid box sections which are filled with insulating material before being assembled on site into the finished structure. This process is extremely flexible and means that each house can be customised to suit, rather than the formula house building we commonly see at the moment. There is an increasing interest in these forms of house building to provide the number of dwelling proposed for the Thames Gateway and also the East of England, as all the construction can be done in a dry factory with a higher level of quality control, before shipping pre-fabricated sections to site for final assembly.
If you are quick you can see an example at the The Architectural Foundation’s Yard Gallery in London – only there until the 20th March. More info from Bell Travers Willson Architects and FACIT.
