Part 7 in the Series: ‘Can the Box Make the World a Better Place?’

During this series the question ‘can the box make the world a better place?’ has been used as a tool to consider the changes box-like design can bring to our world. In this post, the core reasons behind box-like design will be explored for context and greater understanding of box-like design.

Housing began as a form of shelter, something all animals seek instinctively. We would have originally used features of the landscape for shelter, but as we evolved, we began building our own. A wall built on an east-west axis can provide a shaded area to its north, and a sunny area protected from wind to its south. Over time, a roof, additional walls, and a door for access would have been added, creating the first box-like home.

From an economic point of view, the larger a house becomes the more expensive it is to build. As a result buildings tend to be as small as they can be without sacrificing comfort. The maximisation of space offered by the box is ideal for this.

Boxes are made of vertical and horizontal straight lines. A straight line can get from one point to another with minimum distance. The law of gravity tells us that objects of mass will always attract each other; therefore a vertical wall uses minimum materials and has more strength as it supports itself. A horizontal floor is easier to walk on and ceilings tend to be horizontal as they are attached to the floor above. Vertical and horizontal lines also complement human behaviour. We spend a third of our time asleep, horizontally, and the other two-thirds awake, vertically.

As we explored in Part 5 of this series, when Buckminster Fuller designed the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine, he improved efficiency using a combination of vertical and curved lines that provided maximum use of space with minimum use of materials. However, despite being efficient individually, its round shape is incapable of tessellating a three-dimensional space and as a result, a housing estate with round buildings could never be as spatially efficient as one with box-like buildings.

And it is the accommodation of its surroundings that gives us the definitive explanation of the box in architecture. As we saw in Part 6, with the initial design of Haus am Horn, repeating many hexagonal prisms to form a building is complex. Just placing two side by side gives you a building with eight exterior walls. The reason for the ubiquity of the box in architecture is evident when you place two side by side. You simply end up with a larger box. Using the box as a template for a room means you can easily insert more rooms around it in every direction to create a house, effectively one large box containing many smaller boxes.

If we expand upon this theory, using the box as a template for a house means you can insert more houses around it to create a street. You can then fit more streets around that to create a city. Based on this logic, it seems that the box is ideal for the provision of mass accommodation.

Image courtesy of dzander on flickr