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Q3A is an abbreviation for a type of three, four and five storey prefabricated buildings constructed in the GDR in the 1950s and 1960s. The letter "Q" in the word stands for "Querwandbau" (cross wall construction).
A prefabricated building, informally a prefab, is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building.
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic, was a country that existed from 1949 to 1990, when the eastern portion of Germany was part of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. It described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state", and the territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces at the end of World War II — the Soviet Occupation Zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin but did not include it; as a result, West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR.
In a Q3A panel house, the walls are constructed entirely from concrete blocks, while the ceiling consists of multiple concrete plates that were placed perpendicular to, and on top of the wall elements. This explains the source of the "cross wall construction" name. The flat roof construction is the most visible difference between the Q3A series and other East Germany buildings of its time. Q3A homes are equipped with a furnace for heating, and a balcony for use by tenants was also provided in approximately half the cases. In later years (after the fall of the Berlin Wall and German Reunification), most houses were retrofitted with additional balconies.
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic, starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany.
The concrete blocks and ceiling elements of the first houses were manufactured at an industrial plant in the Ostseestrasse in Berlin. Other types of panel construction used for Q3A houses were the IW57- and IW58-types. These were produced in much smaller numbers, with some even lacking the signature flat roof, being built with a more classic Hip Roof.
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus a hipped roof house has no gables or other vertical sides to the roof.
Shortly after the first houses were erected in 1957 in the eight quarters of East Berlin, further series utilizing cross wall construction were developed. The QX-series, which were mostly 4-storey buildings, were not constructed from blocks, but from cheaper concrete strips. Most buildings of this series can be found in the "Hans-Loch" quarter, which was the first, newly constructed, large-scale settlement in East Berlin after the end of the Second World War. It is worth noting, that while Q3A block buildings were used in most areas of the GDR, the QX-series was constructed on a relatively limited basis. It is therefore regarded as an experimental series.
East Berlin was the de facto capital city of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The Western Allied powers did not recognise East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor the GDR's authority to govern East Berlin.
Further developments of cross-wall panel buildings happened from 1959 to 1983. These, even more frequently built homes, had the building type designation QP or QP64, for those mainly built in 1964. They were built with five, eight or ten storeys and in contrast to the two previous Q-series buildings, fulfilled the existing building codes by being furnished with a lift. The QP-series was the first type of house utilizing larger, industrial-sized panels. Each individual plate forms a complete wall of a room. The most striking and visible feature of many houses in the QP series is the colouring of the exterior walls, usually consisting of white or yellow tiles. The first buildings of this series originated in Berlin, between Strausberg and the Alexanderplatz, in the western half of the former Stalin Avenue as well as the Hans-Loch Quarter.
Strausberg is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located 30 km east of Berlin. With a population of 25,594 it is the largest town in the district of Märkisch-Oderland.
Alexanderplatz is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I and is often referred to simply as Alex, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from Mollstraße in the northeast to Spandauer Straße and the Rotes Rathaus in the southwest.
The early 1970s were marked by the arrival of by far the most common series -- the WBS70 (Wohnungsbauserie 70). Approximately 900,000 apartment units of this type were constructed -- consisting of five-, six- and eleven-storey buildings. Other large-panel series were the P2 and WHH GT 18 series. These were constructed as part of the "Sonderbauprogramm Berlin" (special construction program Berlin), which allocated special funds to improving the housing of what was then, the capital of the GDR -- East Berlin.
P2 is the abbreviation for a type of residential panel building found in former East Germany. The P stands for parallel and refers to load-bearing walls arranged parallel to wall surfaces. 2 denotes the arrangement of two stairways in a building.
WHH GT 18 is a standard residential high-rise building type in East Berlin. It was developed by architects Helmut Stingl and Joachim Seifert between 1969 and 1971 using large panel construction for mixed-use housing in Berlin.
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A wall is a structure that defines an area, carries a load; provides security, shelter, or soundproofing; or is decorative. There are many kinds of walls, including:
Plattenbau is a building constructed of large, prefabricated concrete slabs. The word is a compound of Platte and Bau (building).
Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is used to distinguish this process from the more conventional construction practice of transporting the basic materials to the construction site where all assembly is carried out.
Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, which partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire corner of the building, which killed four people and injured 17. Although there were few casualties, the spectacular nature of the failure, led to a loss of public confidence in high-rise residential buildings, and major changes in UK building regulations resulted.
Queenslander architecture is a modern term for the typical residential architecture of Queensland, Australia. It is also found in the northern parts of the adjacent state of New South Wales, and shares many traits with architecture in other states of Australia, but is distinct and unique. The form of the typical Queenslander-style residence distinguishes Brisbane's suburbs from other capital cities.
Panel buildings may refer to buildings of one of the following types:
The architecture of Iceland draws from Scandinavian influences and, traditionally, was influenced by the lack of native trees on the island. As a result, grass- and turf-covered houses were developed. Later on, the Swiss chalet style became a prevailing influence in Icelandic architecture as many timber buildings were constructed in this way. Stone and later concrete were popular building materials, the latter especially with the arrival of functionalism in the country. Contemporary architecture in Iceland is influenced by many sources, with styles varying greatly around the country.
The Winslow Ames House is a prefabricated modular International Style house in New London, Connecticut, United States. It was designed by Robert W. McLaughlin, Jr. and was built in 1933. Winslow Ames, a professor of art history at Connecticut College and the art director of the Lyman Allyn Museum, had the home built after attending the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. Constructed for $7,500, the prefabricated house is one of two surviving Motohomes produced by McLaughlin's company American Houses Inc. The modular house, comprising three rectangles and a flat roof, was constructed on a concrete slab with a welded steel framework. It was made with asbestos panels and features a core component that provides the heating and plumbing functions for the house. The other two modules feature two bedrooms and a one-car garage.
Prefabs were a major part of the delivery plan to address the United Kingdom's post–Second World War housing shortage. They were envisaged by war-time prime minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing Act 1944.
Stadthaus is a nine-storey residential building in Hackney, London. It is thought to be the second tallest timber residential structure in the world, after the Forte apartment complex in Melbourne, Australia. It was designed in collaboration between architects Waugh Thistleton, structural engineers Techniker, and timber panel manufacturer KLH.
WBS 70 is a type of dwelling that was built in the German Democratic Republic using slab construction. It was developed in the early 1970s by the German Academy of Architecture and the Technical University of Dresden. In 1973, the first block in the city was Neubrandenburg built and this house is now a historical monument. Of the approximately 1.52 million dwellings constructed in slab construction to 1990, the Type 70 WBS is widespread, accounting for up to 42 percent of housing constructed in the East.
The Southgate Estate was a modernist public housing project located in Runcorn New Town and completed in 1977. The estate was designed by James Stirling, and comprised 1,500 residential units intended to house 6,000 people. The estate was demolished between 1990 and 1992 and replaced with another housing development, known as Hallwood Park, based around more traditional design principles.
Wilfried Stallknecht is a German architect, planner and furniture designer. He is known chiefly for his significant role in shaping Germany's post-World War II built environment – particularly that of the former East Germany (GDR) – through his major contributions to the designs of the country's ubiquitous, iconic and often standardized housing blocks – the so-called Plattenbau – as well as a similarly ubiquitous and standardized single-family house design known as the EW58. He was affiliated with the GDR's Bauakademie from 1959 to 1973 and served as planner for the town of Bernau bei Berlin from 1974 to 1984.
Torbreck, or the Torbreck Home Units, was the first high-rise and mix-use residential development in Queensland, Australia. These heritage-listed home units are located at 182 Dornoch Terrace, Highgate Hill, Brisbane. Designed by architects Aubrey Horswill Job and Robert Percival Froud, construction began in 1957 and was completed three years later in 1960 by Noel Austin Kratzmann. The project acquired the name 'Torbreck' to recognise a small, gabled timber cottage that previously occupied the site. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 17 December 1999.
The Ledbury Estate is a large estate of social housing, in Peckham in the London Borough of Southwark. It is within the Old Kent Road Opportunity Area. The four high rise, H-shaped tower blocks were constructed in the mid-1960s using pre-fabricated concrete panels.
The Bison industrialised building system is a precast concrete building system used in high rise flats, developed by Bison Manufacturing Ltd, Dartford, Kent which had been founded in 1919 to build military pill-boxes.
Linsley Terrace is a series of heritage-listed terrace houses located at 25-35 Lower Fort Street, in the inner city Sydney suburb of Millers Point in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1830. It is also known as Major House. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.