Albert Kahn's system of reinforced concrete revolutionized factory space. The Kahn System of Reinforced Concrete was "a steel skeleton supported by soldered wings angled upwards, which, positioned according to the direction of the principal forces of compression, had the advantage of offering greater resistance while also simplifying the construction" (Bucci, 31). This permitted vast floor plans to be cleared of weight-bearing structures other than columns that could be spaced on twenty foot grids. In accordance with the demands of his clients, Kahn stressed, "internal columns should be placed as few as possible compatible with economy of construction and so located as not to interfere with production" (Bucci, 77). Over time, Kahn improved this construction method to accommodate even greater spans. It can not be emphasized enough that Kahn's architecture directly enabled Ford to achieve success. Not only did the generous area provide flexibility in the arrangement of machinery, workers, and conveyors, it also facilitated the on-going experimentations to perfect the process of manufacturing the Model T.

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Collaboration between Ford and Kahn began with the Automobile Assembly Building of the Highland Park plant built in 1909-1910. It was a four-story factory, 75 X 860 square feet in area; the structure of reinforced concrete spanned twenty foot intervals with columns and no dividing walls (Bucci, 41). It is important to note that the development of the assembly line was not finalized when construction of the Highland Park buildings began. Therefore, even in 1912, two short years before the assembly line's completion, the average yield was only 250 cars per day compared to Ford's 1,000-car-a-day goal. It was the open, linear spaces of the buildings that enabled the mass production technique to be fully realized. "Space occupied by machinery [was] over one hundred and thirty thousand square feet" (1912 Ford Factory Facts, 44), and in laying out the machines, they were placed just close enough to maintain efficiency without the workers and machines becoming crowded. Brick-covered towers for vertical circulation and communication were pushed to the exterior of the workshop and housed bathrooms, hydraulic elevators, etc. Ultimately not an inch of space was wasted. Inspiration came from specialized machines in rifle and watch factories, conveyors for moving grain inside flour mills, and the meat packing industry as animals were disassembled (reverse of assembly of car) along a moving conveyor piece by piece. As demand for the Model T increased, it was necessary to increase productivity while decreasing the amount of time to assemble. Once the assembly line was in full operation, the amount of time to build a car was drastically reduced from 12 hours 13 minutes to only 1 hour 33 minutes (PBS). By July 1924, assembly time for a complete car had dropped from 150 minutes to 26.5 minutes (Ford and Innovation, 8). In 1915, the assembly lines were traveling 72 inches per minute on average, and as fast as 189 inches per minute at some points (Arnold and Faurote, 140). To achieve these impressive statistics, technically, it was the architecture that came first, not a method of production that was in need of a new space, but came about due to the qualities of the existing space. But with that being said, the complex of structures at Highland Park had shortcomings when production boomed because certain adaptations were made to the architecture. As Smith describes,

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"the desgn of the building was such that raw material was hoisted as near to the roof as possible, letting it work down in the process of manufacture. Thousands of holes were cut through the floor so that parts that started in the roof on the top floor gravitated down, through chutes, conveyors, or tubes, and finally became a finished article on the ground floor." (Smith, 32)

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Most importantly, production didn't flow; it moved between floors of multi-story factories and, in some stages, between buildings (Sherman). The factories that Ford thought would last decades to satisfy the company's growth, were no longer sufficient, even with six-story building additions having 687,500 square feet of working floor area each (Arnold and Faurote, 411). The next step was to use the lessons learned from Highland Park to create a massive complex integrating all facilities required for self-sufficiency and efficiency at the River Rouge plant.

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At the River Rouge plant, Ford "envisioned automated assembly lines flowing uninterrupted, all at one level, from raw materials to the finished car. Kahn's job was to provide functional enclosures for these processes that could be built quickly and at a low cost" (Sherman). They had determined that single-story plants were a better solution because the entire space could be lit with skylights and would use only horizontal, rather than previously vertical or gravity-driven operations. Also, by this time, Kahn could use steel frame construction without concrete for two main reasons: fire safety was not as great of a concern with all egress on one level and the heaviness of concrete was not necessary to damper the vibrations of the machinery when all machinery rested on grade (Hildebrand, Beautiful Arch). There would be complete control over all aspects of the production process and room for expansion. Bucci wrote,

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"Who would have had the courage to practically abandon the enormous Highland Park plant for the River Rouge development where he had adequate room for one-story structures, and opportunity for more economical production as well as for bettering working conditions for his men." (Bucci, 58)

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The new complex was essentially a small city. It had over fifteen miles of roadway, 120 miles of conveyors located in 93 buildings, and its own fire department, safety department, airport, and hospital. Water pumped from the Detroit River supplied the site with 700 million gallons per day and cars were literally rolling off the assembly line every second (PBS). Ford believed that business would prosper if he didn't have to rely on outside suppliers that could raise prices for raw materials so he supplied the materials himself by building a steel mill, glass plant, rubber and tire plant, and cement plant and purchased ore and coal mines, forests, and a rubber plantation in Brazil (Biggs, 138). All of this was done even though it meant spending more money initially because Henry Ford wanted to provide his customers with the best quality. It is ironic that the procedures and factories were very expensive, but produced the lowest priced car from which the company seriously profited. For example, casting rather than forging the engine required more extensive setup, a foundry, stamping press and annealing furnace versus a machine shop, blacksmith, and forge, but in the end made the car more serviceable (Biggs, 150).

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An obsession with eliminating unnecessary costs led to campaigns to rid the company of all possible waste; new processes were installed to use the by-products of other processes, which in turn meant more construction, more power, and more machinery to make all of those processes possible. Some examples included: scrap iron from blast furnaces turned into steel, scraps from the sawmill and textile mill turned into cardboard and paper, and blast furnace slag was used in cement for building construction (Biggs, 151). Also, the blast furnaces were unusually clean and waste-efficient because ore dust was captured and melted down for processing instead of flying out into the atmosphere via chimneys. Likewise, gases from coke ovens were trapped and reused for power (Ford Historic Sites). Despite this, other externalities had their impact; "coal, iron ore, rubber, and sand were brought in on barges from the Great Lakes [and] blast furnaces, smelters, and rolling and stamping mills worked around the clock to produce the necessary materials" (McDonough and Braungart, 157). Imagine these processes of energy consumption carrying on throughout the day and night, producing a brownfield site with contaminated soil and water.

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This leads into a discussion of how power was generated at the Highland Park plant too. There, the fuel was "Solvay 72-hour coke, supplied by the Semet-Solvay Company"; the total elements it consisted of were volatile matter (smoke), fixed carbon, ash, and sulphur (Arnold and Faurote, 350-351). In the process of producing energy for lighting and compressed air ventilation and heating, it had to be kept going by supplying fresh coal and removing the ashes (but it is unclear how/where they were disposed of). The gas produced also "passe[d] through a screen of water which cool[ed] the gas and washe[d] out the impurities and the residue [which was] piped into a vat outside in the form of a thick, black tar" (1912 Ford Factory Facts, 21). Exhaust fans also removed all the dust and smoke from the foundry, but again, the question is to where. "Particulates are microscopic particles released during incineration and combustion processes such as those in power plants and automobiles" (McDonough and Braungart, 54), and clearly those operations occurred at the Ford factories. The five towering smokestacks are even celebrated, acting as a billboard of sorts to display the company name. Arnold and Faurote also revel at the improvements to be made at the Highland Park's master engine, explaining:

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"The gas-producer-regenerator-steam-boiler combination and working scheme are confidently expected to form, when completed, the most economical heat-engine plant ever shown. The entire cost of these Highland Park power plant changes and additions, including everything, will be something like a million and a half dollars, showing conclusively that the Ford company does not hesitate to follow its own convictions as to what is the correct thing in the way of plant-driving engines." (Arnold and Faurote, 5-6)

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The engine was titanic, but the company took pride in its magnitude because it was one of the largest in the country (known as a four-cycle, double acting tandem type, it developed fifteen hundred horse power) (1912 Ford Factory Facts, 23). Similarly, every effort was made to maintain "immaculate cleanliness" (22). Five percent of the employees were assigned solely to keep the facilities clean, painted, and well-maintained, making the workplace seemingly more salubrious than the average industrial factory of the early twentieth century (Ford Historic Sites). Although the filth from all of the coal and ashes were not always visible to the naked eye, there were still a tremendous amount of CO2 emissions and other pollutants accumulating in the air. But this was not a major concern, and there was more excitement over the fact that these new engines were so powerful and the most efficient method of generating power up to that date.

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Overall, although a revolutionary system of production was gaining momentum, the methods of the Ford Motor Company were still mostly linear processes. So much effort, power, and energy went into the manufacturing and production of expensive materials whose values are lost in a "cradle to grave model" (McDonough and Braungart, 27).

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Finally, the durability of Kahn's structure triggered other advantages for daylighting and ventilation as Kahn was concerned with the impact of the exterior on the workers just as much as its strength. The underlying structure granted the extensive use of glazing along the majority of the facade. Glass placed from as close to the floor to as close to the ceiling as possible let in an incredibly invigorating amount of daylight and natural ventilation. This was especially important in the multi-storied buildings of the Highland Park plant because only lateral illumination could be used, unlike in the single-story structures to follow that could use skylights. Therefore the relationships between the size of windows, height of ceilings, and depth of rooms was critical. It was believed that providing workers with the cleanest and most comfortable working environment would accelerate production; therefore various measures were taken to do that. Operable, steel window sashes pivoted on both top and bottom to swing open in either direction and thus take advantage of natural air currents. When daylight was insufficient, "floors [were] lighted by about two thousand ceiling-placed reflectors and clusters, each cluster made up of four 60-watt tungsten lamps, having individual switches concealed in the pillars" so that people "need not waste current by turning on lamps where illumination [was] not needed" (Arnold and Faurote, 401, 404). When natural breezes were scarce, fresh, tempered air constantly circulated via hollow column air distribution supplemented by an air conditioning fan system (Arnold and Faurote, 389). The advantages of the air circulating through the columns supporting the floors were that it avoided the use of air pipes which saved space, didn't compromise structure but was integrated in it, and didn't require tedious installation. However, whether these architectural strategies actually made workers happy or raised morale and work ethic is only a theoretical assumption. Hildebrand notes two reasons for this: first, few people bothered to ask the worker what he/she actually thought, and second, happiness is also related to a multitude of other matters that have little to do with architecture (Pioneering Industrial Work, 53). While the environment was more humanitarian in providing more salubrious and safe scenarios that were certainly preferable, there is no clear way to correlate that with actual contentment.

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