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Millions of people around the developing world struggle to obtain safe, decent and affordable housing. The United States of America has substantially improved the residential construction sector by engineering new materials and developing efficient systems in wood construction. The goal of this research was to assess the potential of introducing system built wood construction system manufactured in the United States in urban social housing markets of developing countries. Peru, Ecuador and Colombia were three countries chosen for this study. Stakeholders in social housing in these three countries were interviewed to assess key aspects of traditional construction, current social housing deficits, perception of wood use in construction, and policies associated with social housing in selected markets. Findings indicate developing custom housing products for urban social housing programs can provide access to this untapped markets. Awareness about wood construction was very limited in the studied region. System built wood construction manufacturers in the U.S. were assessed to identify barriers and incentives for internationalization. Manufacturers in the U.S. also identify the need to expand their existing customer base. Findings of the survey conducted among the manufacturers identified various barriers to export. This research contributes to opening of new markets for exports of prefabricated wooden buildings in new geographical regions. / Master of Science / Millions of people around the developing world struggle to obtain safe, decent and affordable housing. The United States of America has substantially improved the residential construction sector by engineering new materials and developing efficient systems in wood construction. The goal of this research was to assess the potential of using wood houses manufactured in a factory in the U.S. for urban social housing markets of developing countries. Peru, Ecuador and Colombia were three countries chosen for this study. Stakeholders in social housing were interviewed to assess key aspects of traditional construction, current social housing deficits, perception of wood use in construction, and policies associated with social housing in selected markets. Findings indicate developing custom housing products for urban social housing programs can potentially provide access to untapped markets. System built wood construction manufacturers in the U.S. were assessed to identify barriers and incentives for internationalization. Existing policies and trade relations between the U.S. and countries in South America supports this development. Awareness about wood construction was very limited in the region. Lack of existing wood construction in markets indicates a possibility of resistance to acceptance but also assures no local competition. Manufacturers in the U.S. also identify the need to expand their existing customer base. Findings of the survey conducted among the manufacturers identified various barriers to export. This research contributes to opening of new markets for exports of prefabricated wooden buildings in new geographical regions.

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air conditioning Engineers suggests that the building sector represents over 30 percent of our national energy consumption (Parsons, R., 2001). Embodied energy in components of building construction can represent as much as five to ten years of operating energy. Building materials such as concrete, steel and glass require significant amounts of energy for production, and therefore are important when calculating embodied energy in buildings (Keable, 2007; Rypkema, 2007). Because of the relatively large area and volume of related components, the building enclosure system represents a major factor when calculating embodied energy. Alternative materials could be incorporated by adapting traditional and vernacular building approaches to today's standards, for example, compressing soil blocks for use as external walls in buildings that can be applicable to almost any climate including rainforests and cold climates. As an alternative to high-embodied energy materials used for enclosure systems, compacted earth-based enclosure systems may be a viable option, particularly if developed and applied as a pre-manufactured modular system. This study seeks to both quantitatively and qualitatively explore the potential development of earth-based building curtain wall systems. Using modified ASTM test protocols for building enclosure systems and components, alternative earth-based panels were compared. The results suggest that earth-based panels may be a viable option for curtain wall systems but its performance is highly dependent on the composition of the panels. The results of the tests are summarized. / Master of Science

The prefabricated home has been said to be the site of innovation, exploration and sometimes spectacular failure since the mid 20th-century (Home Delivery, 8). Despite years of research and advancements in technology, pre-synthesization in the domestic realm has typically remained loyal to past construction methods/materials and banal aesthetic ripostes. As a result, the modern pre-synthesized home suffers in terms of programmatic diversity, spatial feedback, supertemporal expansion (in reference to the supertemporal art movement) and societal acceptance. Materials and technologies are constantly upgrading in our increasingly technetronic society. Re-marketing the prefabricated home will require a similar modus operandi. Investigating the successes and failures of other prefabricated products and systems will lead to a better understanding of what the next generation of pre-synthesized housing systems will require. These requirements are then to be cultivated and supported by a theoretical entity, deployableHOMES, which represents an architectural process in a product oriented civilization. Motivated by the performance capabilities of underutilized materials such as FRP pultrusion and concrete polymer technology, this thesis proposes the formulation of a pre-synthesized component housing system which offers the maximum plasticity of design by allowing for distinctive environmental, spatial and programmatic responses. The system will be used to articulate a series of prototypes to be deployed in different topographical conditions. The future of prefabrication lies not in a series of ephemeral structures, which adopt non inclusive proprietary construction systems, but with fully integrated systems of interactive components. Components which allow for the refl ection of changes in societies perspectives of understood programmatic space and aesthetics of domestic tectonic pragmatism. These changes attempt to inaugurate an anti-in situ architectural movement which no longer imitates individuality or spatially responsive interactive design.

Building envelopes are perhaps the most influencing players on assuring indoor comfort conditions, in alliance with their impact on the sustainability and energy-efficiency of the building during operation. However, given the multitude of commercial solutions available on the market and the use of different criteria and inconsistent semantics among the existing categorization/classification systems of construction objects, there is still a need for uniformization of the many regarding the main Prefabricated Enclosure Wall Panel Systems (PEWPS) for building applications.In such context, this paper firstly explores the distinct categories of off-site Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), and how can they be classified. Secondly, focus will be given to panelized systems, where the classification of PEWPS is thoroughly investigated, the size and complexity of individual components have a significant impact on the ease of installation of a system. Larger prefabricated panels are typically heavier and bulkier, making transportation and erection more difficult. Smaller panels are made up of more and smaller a component, which increases the amount of on-site construction labor. In this paper, costs have been reduced by Stainless Steel 316This thesis has tried to devise a solution which balances the manufacture’s need to make a repetitive solution many times with an industry that generally designs a specific solution for each enclosure system.Customer-caused losses include inefficiencies such as frequent design and specificationmodifications, as well as delays due to missing approvals. The Lean Construction Institute hasaided in the transformation of the construction culture through the application of agile and leanphilosophies, principles, and techniques. This paper has highlighted the non-conformities at the organization and the NCR to curtail this to reduce costs and internal quality.