In 2017, a new community of Quonset Huts opened to the public in Detroit, Michigan called True North.
True North is ten rental units in a quiet and spacious portion of Detroit – Core City. It is located just South/West of the Grand River and Warren intersection in Detroit. Seven of the units are devoted Live/Workspaces.
The community is also home to a Yoga Studio, a gallery, and an apartment-style hotel room. All units use the classic Quonset Hut as the base, but incorporate architecture to elevate the standard. The project planted 40 trees.
The material palette, beyond the Quonset Hut: basic drywall, Fir Plywood, Polycarbonate, and Cement. The residences were delivered as raw space to provoke the creativity of the residents. The project was built on land that was overgrown and garbage-ridden since 1999 and is now the focal point of a neighborhood that had not received investment since it was damaged – physically and emotionally – during the Detroit Revolt/Riots of 1967.
Quonset huts were manufactured by many independent contractors in countries around the world, but the first was manufactured in 1941 when the United States Navy needed an all-purpose, lightweight building that could be shipped anywhere and assembled without skilled labor.
The Quonset hut is named after the location it was first built, the Davisville Naval Construction Battalion Center at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.
Another type of rounded steel housing was the Nissen hut, a prefabricated steel structure for military use, especially as barracks, made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated iron.
Designed during the First World War by the American-born, Canadian-British engineer and inventor Major Peter Norman Nissen, it was used also extensively during the Second World War and adapted to the similar Quonset hut in the United States.
Nissen huts have an internal framework, where the framework holds metal sheeting that completes the structure. Quonset huts comprise arched panels bolted together, and therefore do not need a framework, making the construction of the Quonset simpler than that of the Nissen.
Today when local governments and non-profits talk about affordable housing or housing the homeless, seldom do either of these tried and true buildings even get mentioned.
Is it time to once again look at the prefabricated building system that’s been around for over a hundred years?
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Gary Fleisher is the Editor in Chief of Modular Home Source and Offsite Builder. Email at [email protected]
To learn more about the Offsite Construction Industry, visit: Offsite Builder, the Construction Magazine for Builders and Developers
