An evaluation of the Open Structures Project by Eric Hunting:

“In recent years a large number of Open Source hardware projects have emerged, exploring the potential of community based technical development that was once largely the province of software.

Among these, some of the more interesting are those that pursue platforms or modular systems for some spectrum of uses rather than a single design or device. These seem to suggest a growing awareness of the once generally overlooked but critical paradigm that distinguished the computer and software industries from those of the past and which has been largely responsible for their exponential pace of advance; the reliance on shared technology platforms supported by global communities of alternately cooperative (in the context of interface and interoperability) and competitive (in the context of cost/performance/design) developers and manufacturers. Observing the powerful disruptive impact this has had in these industries, many are coming around to the notion of re-creating this kind of Post-Industrial revolution in other areas -with some of the greatest impact likely in its application to tools and building systems where there is a potential to realize the same kind exponential cost/performance advance in the general sphere of manufacturing and the chronically progress-resistant application of housing.

The Open Structures Project is one of the more ambitious of these platform-oriented open hardware projects and it takes some of its cues from the work of designer Ken Isaacs; perhaps the first developer in modern history of a deliberately open building system known as Matrix -later to evolve into Box Beam and todays Gridbeam. There are similarities to Matrix in the basic type of framing systems OS employs with many structures, though they have gone much farther toward establishing form factor and interoperability standards across a variety of applications, materials, and types of framing. Whereas Matrix defined a modular dimensional system confined largely to the wooden beams used in construction, OS attempts to define a volumetric grid affording a volumetric interoperability for any number of structures and elements regardless of function. This is similar in nature to the Japanese ‘ken’ system of organization deriving from tatami mat dimensions and associated rules of proportion that was once the basis of traditional Japanese architecture. They then established databases or catalogs of components and kits/structures, all open designs, that can be combined freely into a larger habitat. These databases function as both a dissemination channel for designs as well as a market for those produced by designers as a small business. In effect, the Open Structures system is a ‘habitat platform’ built on the foundation of its dimensional grid that extends from individual pieces of furniture, tools, and machines to entire complexes of buildings and potentially incorporates all the functional elements of a self-sustained human habitat. Quite an ambitious objective and, since this is still a relatively new endeavor, only a fraction of the necessary elements have so far been developed and remain largely experimental. Still, the current work is impressive and the founding group has managed to stage a number of public exhibits.

Having followed OS from its earlier stages, I’ve noticed that this promising project has seen a somewhat slow pace of advance despite its relevance to the open technology movement. This project seems to have been overlooked by the larger Maker community in the US and Europe, perhaps because of its lower-tech nature, and, in this author’s opinion, deserves much more attention even if it is not yet making home fabbers and robots. There are few others looking into things at the level of a whole habitat platform and that ambitious idea deserves more exploration.”