Jaxon Kelly, year 1, 2021 by AA School

Breakthrough. Jaxon Kelly

“Operation Breakthrough's objective was to create sufficient housing markets to support the high production level required for efficient industrialized housing construction. Most of the 22 industrialized housing systems sponsored in Operation Breakthrough are, however, no longer produced.

The program did not accomplish its objectives…”1

Staats, Elmer B. “Operation Breakthrough: Lessons Learned about Demonstrating New Technology,” Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States (1976) https://www.gao.gov/mobile/products/PSAD-76-173

In the United States during the 1960s and ‘70s, “Factory Built”, “Industrialized Housing”, and “Prefabricated Units” were the buzzwords taking the worlds of architecture and engineering by storm as prominent designers took their shots at creating revolutionary structures that could be replicated with the proficiency of assembly line construction. Focusing on the core elements of residential spaces, unique solutions and plans were devised by dozens of developers to create minimalist units that could be widely produced and implemented wherever necessary. One big obstacle the developers faced during their explorations with designs was that of establishing an aesthetic that subverted the negative impulses of industrialization that may have swayed the public’s acceptance of Operation Breakthrough.

Aerial Photograph of Levitt Units Being Transported2

Anderson, Alex T. “Operation Breakthrough: Promise and Failure in US Factory Built Housing.” University of Washington, 2 Aug. 2016, arch.be.uw.edu/operation-breakthrough-promise-and-failure-in-us-factory-builthousing/.

The key importance of prefabricated building techniques lies in the process’s ability to produce a large number of units in a short amount of time. This was apparent during the run of Operation Breakthrough but is even more necessary as the world’s population continues to grow. On the nine developed prototype sites3, 2,794 units were deployed followed by a wave of roughly 20,000 spread across other communities of the United States. Granted, the long-term goal of the project was to produce homes for hundreds of thousands of impoverished citizens, but the units deployed in the two years of Operation Breakthrough’s run represents an impressive effort. By the latter half of the 20th century, the United States and its people had endured several economic recessions that led to an increasing divide between the upper and lower classes of the nation. With this growing disparity, it became clear that the government and its capital would be imperative in order to combat the lack of low-income housing available to the American people. A new government agency, HUD4, was tasked with solving the issue with only $50 million and two years.

Initially eleven prototype communities were selected: Kirkland, WA, Yesler, WA, Sacramento, CA, Houston, TX, St. Louis, MO, Indianapolis, IN, Memphis, TN, Macon, GA, Wilmington, DE, Jersey City, NJ 4 The Department of Housing and Urban Development is a department of the Cabinet of the US federal government that was founded in 1965, just a few years before Operation Breakthrough began.

“The Department of Housing and Urban Development's answer is Operation Breakthrough, a bureaucratic war cry that says the industry will change or HUD will replace it with something else, using technology already successful in Detroit and in space. And to prove it, HUD is doing it-building 2,000 housing systems units on 11 sites across the country and, most important, challenging every building constraint in the process. Will it work? Operation Breakthrough will have to speak for itself.”5

Blake, Peter “Breakthrough?” The Architectural Forum (1970): 50.

Looking towards the modern production lines utilized in so many other industries across the US, HUD took up the challenge by running a nationwide competition asking for architects and engineers to submit their designs for highdensity, prefabricated housing units. Despite the hundreds of submissions, prototype communities, and high morale surrounding the hopeful project, the Operation is now considered, almost completely and somewhat unjustly, a failure. While the implementation of the program was highly flawed and led to its demise, the architecture produced during its short run has had a lasting influence on the exploration of prefabricated-housing technologies. In a government report reviewing the issues the Operation faced, the author cites decreases in the housing market, suspended funding from the federal government, and higher expenses than predicted as the major causes for failure.6 These factors are all based on the logistical side of the program, not the architecture. Unfortunately, the failure of the program has devalued the progressive ideas and structures the Operation produced.

Staats, Elmer B. “Operation Breakthrough: Lessons Learned about Demonstrating New Technology,” Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States (1976): 11.

In 1969, two of these nine prototype communities on the banks of the Puget Sound, located roughly fifteen kilometers apart with little but the rough, windy waters of Lake Washington between them, became linked by their shared connection to this revolution of housing technologies. The sites, aptly nicknamed Yesler and Kirkland for their presence on streets of the same names, were meant to be an internal experiment of the Operation which focused on how prefabricated units would work in similar urban and suburban settings. Yesler, being in the heart of downtown Seattle, would act as the urban site, while Kirkland, northeast of the center of the city and just south of Juanita Bay, would be the suburban site.

Both communities were developed by The Boeing Company, a partnership born through the corporation’s governmental connections and widespread influence in manufacturing throughout the Pacific Northwest. Factories once used for the construction of aircraft were retrofitted for a more humanitarian purpose. 236 total prototype units designed by five separate manufacturers were erected across the two sites like a multitude of beacons promoting the Operation’s promise. For Yesler, Building Systems Development, Inc. of San Francisco (BSD) was the sole developer, bringing 58 units constructed of pre-assembled pieces and a coined, “Supported Land System,” (SLS) to demonstrate how their technique could be implemented into a larger scale community. The SLS was intended to be a cast in place frame with very deep corrugated precast concrete decking. The frame and decking would be used to support the infrastructure required to provide the community with general utilities, water and electric. Fertile soil would also be brought in to allow and promote planting and communal gardening.

BSD Units Under Construction (1971)

BSD Units on Site (2014) 7 7

These considerations and the idea of a structure like the SLS are examples of the unifying concepts focused on connecting the members of the community to the spaces they collectively inhabit, while also constructing a system of infrastructure that allowed for the expansion of the space and addition of many more units. These ideals of communal connection and potential for expansion were some of the fundamental pillars of the Operation. Sadly, as was the case for many of Operation Breakthrough’s developers, BSD went significantly over budget and as a result were forced to cut back the SLS to a much smaller scale.

Across Lake Washington in the suburban Kirkland community, four developers were chosen to showcase their designs on the much larger site and 178 units were spread amongst the verdant evergreens. ALCOA8 Construction Systems brought 86 units consisting of factory-built cores containing kitchens and bathrooms which were then enclosed in shells constructed on site. Their lightweight component-based system was designed for use in townhouses and multifamily walkup apartments. The built cores served two living units each, and the panel shells were modular to allow for a variety of spatial arrangements. Christiania Western Structures designed units to act as singlefamily homes, townhouses and low-rise apartments. They first attempted to produce their forms with a system of sprayed fiberglass, but the impracticality led them to a simpler prefabrication method. Instead of the sprayed fiberglass, a coating of 1/32 inch thick matte-finished polyester resin, reinforced with fiberglass was used.

ALCOA- Aluminum Company of America

“Applied to a full-length plywood base wall, the coating provides the required bond between individual panel components. Ceilings have an acoustical plaster coating, applied in the field. Kitchen cabinets are prefabricated with a plastic coating for exposed surfaces. As much of the mechanical systems as possible is installed in the plant and consists of offthe-shelf products.” 9

Blake, Peter “Breakthrough?” The Architectural Forum (1970): 50-61. https://usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1970-04

Levitt Technology Corporation, the nation’s largest producer of conventional houses during the time, designed 28 units that incorporated pull-out bays and hinged roofs; pieces that could travel compactly and be joined together onsite. The roomsized boxes came in two basic types. “Wet” boxes with appliances requiring water and plumbing for kitchens and bathrooms, and “Dry” boxes which were simpler to allow for modular, flexible layouts of spaces. The boxes themselves were created from wood frames with glued-skin walls and ceilings, stressed-skin panel trusses, and box beams. When the basic box components of the units were joined on site, they were then adorned with an assortment of additional external facings and extensions such as balconies, bay windows, projecting closets, and pitched roofs. These additions allowed for countless combinations and connections, creating unique, yet still cohesive, forms for each of the units.

Images from Brochure Promoting Levitt Units10

Anderson, Alex T. “Degrees of Failure: Operation Breakthrough Housing Systems in Kalamazoo,” 105th ACSA Annual Meeting Proceedings (2017): 273-280. https://www.acsa-arch.org/chapter/degrees-of-failure-operationbreakthroughhousing-systems-in-kalamazoo/

“To many, ‘prefab’ conjures up images of lookalike housing, Quonset huts and trailers. Some Breakthrough winners clearly give the consumer what they know he wants. Levitt, for example, consumer-tested industrialized housing and decided to market it only after the test proved that ‘the consumer doesn’t know the difference-it looks the same.’”11

Blake, Peter “Breakthrough?” The Architectural Forum (1970): 50-61. https://usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1970-04

The final developer whose units contributed to the foundation of the Kirkland community was Material Systems Corporation. Their 10 units incorporated modules constructed of aerospace-grade panels made of a composite of fiberglass and resin. The panels and elements formed from the composite camouflaged the structures with minimalist details so that their forms would blend in with simple, midcentury modern architectural style popular in the region at the time.

Materials System Corporations Units Being Constructed on Site12

As far as the technology and building methods go, there was a borderline Utopian approach towards the Operation, a humanitarian effort to move towards providing an entire nation’s people with homes. The emphasis paid to modularity for the units showcases the developers’ understanding that industrially produced units needed to be able to adapt to each situation they were deployed in. The use of highly technical materials seems to be inspired by the recent space race and moon landing that had just a few years prior taken hold of the world’s attention. Although logistically the Operation fell short of the lofty expectations the American government had for it, posthumously it was underestimated and heavily criticized unfairly. The ideals of community, efficiency, and progress it promoted in its conception alone are worthy of praise. The visionary forms that combined technological advancement and vernacular elements, along with the social sensibilities considered made Operation Breakthrough into an everlasting, avant-garde and revolutionary project for the field of architecture.

Bibliography: Anderson, Alex T. “Degrees of Failure: Operation Breakthrough Housing Systems in Kalamazoo,” 105th ACSA Annual Meeting Proceedings (2017): 273-280. https://www.acsa-arch.org/chapter/degrees-of-failure-operation-breakthroughhousingsystems-in-kalamazoo/ (accessed January 25, 2021) Anderson, Alex T. “Operation Breakthrough: Promise and Failure in US Factory Built Housing.” University of Washington, 2 Aug. 2016, arch.be.uw.edu/operationbreakthrough-promise-and-failure-in-us-factory-built-housing/. (accessed February 20, 2021) Bender, Richard “Looking Back at Operation Breakthrough” arcCA 07.4 (2007) https://aiacalifornia.org/operation-breakthrough-2/ (accessed January 25, 2021) Blake, Peter “Breakthrough?” The Architectural Forum (1970): 50-61. https://usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1970-04 (accessed January 25, 2021) Committee to Evaluate The Research Plan of the Department of Housing and Urban Development of the National Research Council, The “Program on Housing and Urban Policy” Institute of Business and Economic Research (2008): 67-69. https://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/pdf/Rebuilding_the_Research_Capacity_at_HUD_wco ver.pdf (accessed January 24, 2021) Ford, William Robert, "A Study of Operation Breakthrough" (1972). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 5933. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/5933 (accessed January 24, 2021) Staats, Elmer B. “Operation Breakthrough: Lessons Learned about Demonstrating New Technology,” Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States (1976) https://www.gao.gov/mobile/products/PSAD-76-173 (accessed January 24, 2021)

Additional Lasting Influences of Operation Breakthrough13:

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Operation Breakthrough encourages using innovative construction methods and materials throughout the housing industry.

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72% of industrialized housing manufacturers and conventional builders believed that Operation Breakthrough helped advance building technology. (1976)

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Operation Breakthrough led to many building code changes including the required inclusion of smoke detectors in residential construction.

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Operation Breakthrough promoted the use of plastic piping, it may have influenced code changes allowing for greater use of plastic pipe.

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Operation Breakthrough made a major contribution to improving methods and equipment for transporting prefabricated modules.

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Operation Breakthrough had a large effect on changes in regulatory institutions and regulations on oversized modules.

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Operation Breakthrough led to many reconsiderations of the logistics, financing, and design of industrialized housing.