MHS offers some degree of superiority over stick frame construction

By : Eric Hunting
Part 4
MHS solves the wall fabrication issue using SIPs and other panel materials which slide into the paired grooves of the frame profiles. This affords the ready demountability of the Japanese light partition panels while allowing the use of more resilient materials like sheet metal or ceramic with weatherproof gasketing along the exterior faces. The result is a hollow wall system like that of stud frame construction, able to accommodate insulation, utilities runs, and built-in fixtures but with none of the disadvantages of stud frame construction. This also allows for the use of pre-finished materials or materials that need no finishing, since the walls are mechanically fastened. One can use virtually anything one might want for a wall surface; conventional plaster coated sheet rock, solid wood planking, veneer board, metals, cloth, plastic, Panelized masonry materials (gypsum plank, ferro-cement panel, corrugated clay panel), or just about anything else one could imagine. The MHS frame will even serve adequately as a window frame allowing for the direct integration of window panels.

And if this isn't powerful enough, this method of panel integration offers the option to physically integrate whole pieces of furniture or appliances fashioned into this panel shape. Photovoltaic and thermal solar panels, flat panel TVs and home entertainment systems, computer systems, plumbing fixtures, lighting fixtures, HVAC systems, shelves and cabinets, 'Murphy' beds and folding tables, art objects, and more can all be designed to integrate directly into this frame system just like the many industrial components which integrate with T-slot framing systems. To facilitate this kind of integration, the MHS profiles will also integrate with a smaller scale version of the same kind of profile originally developed by US Systems for store display framing. This system can be used to fashion many kinds of furniture and appliance enclosures and will plug right into the larger MHS frame structures. This capability to integrate so many kinds of materials and equipment creates the potential for a vast third-party marketplace of products to plug-into MHS housing -much like the innumerable peripherals and software which are made for personal computers.

At present one feature of MHS limits the flexibility inherent in the rest of its building system, and it's something which also troubled builders in pre-industrial times. The one thing it cannot, at this time, realize with the same modularity and demountability as the rest of its system is its roofing. This is because we have yet to realize a fully weatherproof roofing system which can be freely changed in area using modular remountable units.
There are two sides to this problem which tend to work against each other. On the one side is roof cladding -the material which makes the roof waterproof. Modular roofing materials exist in the form of shingles and tiles. Though uncommon in shingles, tiles are readily remountable and reusable and so one could use them to fashion a modular roofing system that can be changed on demand to suit changing roof areas. But tiles and shingles only work with a sloped roof. They rely on the force of gravity to insure that water sheds off them in one direction. On the other side we have roof shape. Sloped roofs are difficult to modularize because as you increase the area under a roof you must simultaneously increase the length of the rafters and beams supporting the roof. The flat roof solves this problem. Its rafters remain the same length no matter how you increase the area. You just add more of them. But roofing tiles won't work for a flat roof! Most flat roof construction relies on some form of monolithic material; membranes of plastic or asphalt sometimes called 'composite' roofing or layers of continuous concrete.

The closest we can come to a solution is a set of compromises. One can make modular sloped roof units and repeat them as the area of the structure increases. This way the individual roof structures don't have to be changed. One just adds on more of them for the newly added sections. But there are practical limits to this. Roofs valleys -the points where opposing descending roof slopes meet in the center- tend to be leak-prone and can get complicated if you try to mix roof sections of different sizes. The other option is to use a flat roof and a kind of roof panel which is modular in one direction and monolithic in other. Raised seam metal roofing is the prime example of this. This kind of roofing consists of long panels of sheet metal -or sandwiches of sheet metal and foam insulation- which are joined along their sides by raised seams. Water sheds off the panels only in parallel to their seams, since they create a channel. It's as if you made a roof tile that was very long and overlapped on its sides. Such roofing is readily expandable in the direction perpendicular to its seams. But it can't expand in the direction parallel to its seams unless -just like the old fashioned roof tiles- there's a slope in the roof that allows them to overlap. Of course, this is just as much a problem for stud frame structures as for post and beam structures. We just don't have, as yet, a roofing technology that lets us freely expand a roof in all directions while using modular parts. But a solution may come if people finally clue-in to the virtue of plug-in architecture and start applying some modern engineering to it. For the time being, MHS offers the option to use either of these compromise approaches, or one can just settle for a more conventional sloped or flat roof in shingle, tile, metal panel, or composite.
In conclusion, we can see that with MHS we have a building system vastly superior to the stud frame construction common to contemporary housing. It restores and greatly improves upon the virtues of the traditional post and beam construction system and so simplifies the process of construction that it becomes quite practical for most anyone to assemble their home on demand in a very short time. It has the potential to be a true plug-in architecture that anyone can use -and not just for housing but for an infinite diversity of applications. With a modular structural system offering ready demountability we not only have infinite flexibility but indefinite repairability and the option of transportability. Not only can the home be eternal, we can pack it ALL up and take it with us wherever we go! We don't have to go into great debt to buy more house than we need in anticipation of what we might need in the future. We can change our house to meet our needs on demand. And with the freedom to take our whole home with us when we move just like it was a piece of furniture we don't need the crutch of bank financing to make the value of our home fungible. And we don't have to fear losing the value of our home investment if there are differences in market values one place to another. We can think about things like saving for a home by literally stockpiling its parts or letting our children take a portion of the family home away with them when they are old enough to leave and live on their own. With a healthy industry based on this kind of building technology in place, we can also expect the appearance of a large after-market for used components. This would be a practical solution to the problem of low-income housing and possibly an answer to the problem of hopelessness as well -though, of course, having a place to build a home is just as important as having the stuff to build it out of.

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