Micro Architecture

Micro Architecture – Richard Horden

Micro Architecture

Allows us to tap into this area of innovation, and benefits not only from research in form and materials but in the development of prefabrication methods. The micro compact home and, in future, the family compact home, can be built in a factory where the construction and use of material is much more controlled and efficient. The factory method also offers the opportunity to fit furniture to architecture in a more integrated and functional use of space.
This holistic approach is a fundamental part of micro architecture teaching. In addition to designing a small building, students develop skills in integrated product design. (39p.)

Small Buildings as terrific examples of mobile designs that use ‘crossover’ technologies (such as in aviation and boat design) to maximize efficiency in material, energy use and space. The next volume, XS Green, included the ’micro compact home’ because it had been designed to do so many of the things that a genuinely environmentally friendly project should and to the minimum scale necessary to meet basic (as well as very high-tech) living requirements. (14p.)
Nature inspires micro architecture not only through form but through our awareness of the need for conservation of land and resources. (34p.)

Micro Architecture: Practicable holism architecture as individual unit, or a part of an aggregate.

Micro architecture is made from diverse purpose by necessity.
It is result that made by function along of need and extremity situation which is seems to have too hard that cannot be made possible only through power of people, such as a tent which is shelter from the intense cold as a tool when people climb up Alps, a functional rest place for a mountaineer who needs to take a rest on an inaccessible precipice and a functional structure for keep checking safety on the beach.

“… Our guiding principle is to ‘touch the mountain lightly’ meaning to arrive and leave with the mountain nature least disturbed and with the minimum of energy use for construction and installation. Ironically the helicopter offers a relatively low-energy option for transport to otherwise inaccessible locations, providing the elements of the building are designed for that method of delivery. It takes approximately 15minutes to deliver a weight of 700kilos from 1600m to 4000m i.e., …”(114p.)


In addition, in micro architecture, one of the important points is the delivery method which relates with design process. Micro architecture should be moved and used through various aim. Therefore, when people moved micro architecture, they are used by a helicopter, truck or container as progress of installation. So, micro architecture project have to think about dimension and weight by starting point when we consider usable and valuable.

“Weight and dimensions are valuable and highly specific constraints on the design process, and these primary considerations lead to a greater understanding of reducing mass of material and strength and efficiency in structure.”

According to the condition, micro architecture has a part of holism architecture which has diverse function through various situation of need and limit proposal of structures and materials by situation like delivery. Normally, micro architecture is light weight, moveable, foldable and assemlable. It has diverse possibility of practical use and a function of a building as one unit that have holism property in the unit of small size. But, in case of ‘Micro Compact Home’ and ‘Family Compact Home’, it has potentiality that can promoted new environment gathering many units of micro architecture not only independent building as itself such as ‘Tree Tent’ (184-185p.) and ‘Family Compact Home’ (254-259p.).