Offsite planning: the Trio System

Friday, November 9, 2018

An innovative and systematic approach to construction implies architecture that is capable of dialogue, not only with the typical disciplines of civil and mechanical engineering, but also with the production processes.

This approach can evolve to define a system that identifies a limited number of completely industrialised elements/components and is therefore replicable beyond the variation of application contexts – that resolves typologically pre-defined situations. The Smart Domus 2, or “Trio” system, developed by Umberto Zanetti of the ZDA Studio, directly commissioned by Wood Beton S.p.A. and with the involvement of the engineer, Giovanni Spatti, is aimed specifically at construction solutions for the reduced dimension, single family market segment.

The system is designed as a three-dimensional prefab, with the possibility of producing complete, finished rooms in the factory from both an architectural and a plant engineering point of view, but which conform to standard transport templates that can therefore easily be sent to the construction site and simply assembled there using light machinery.

The system also allows, over different periods of time, a possible extension of the construction from a first initial nucleus to the final situation.

Other than the modules which we define as “basic” and which construe the actual building, a series of optional accessory components have been developed, such as balconies, pergolas, ground-floor terraces and garages that can enhance the initial structure.

The entire Trio system project is developed with BIM tools, three-dimensional and parameterised in each of the components, thus facilitating the subsequent production and control phases of the time and cost variables. Indeed, the aim and merit of design-integrated architecture and industrialised “off-site” is the peculiar control of the executive quality of the project, of the costs and times of construction and in maximum working safety conditions.