RALPH RAPSON'S GREENBELT: THE EVOLUTION OF A

273 - 2012 ACSA Fall Conference

INTRODUCTION

In 2003, Ralph Rapson was one of 16 architects invited to submit

designs for a prefabricated house competition in the Dwell Home

Design Invitational – an event which contributed to a reviving

contemporary public interest in modern prefabricated residential

design. The clients for this house, Nathan and Ingrid Wieler, had

approached Dwell magazine with their interest in building a modern

house and purchased a wooded rural lot in the North Carolina

Piedmont for the construction of the winning design submitted

by Resolution: 4 Architecture. During the troubled realization of

their house, Nathan Wieler began planning a business venture

targeting the perceived market for modern prefabricated housing,

and contracted with Ralph Rapson and Associates Inc. to further

develop their competition submission as a marketable product.

The Rapson Greenbelt evolved from its origin in 1945 as Case

Study House #4 published in John Entenza’s Arts & Architecture

magazine into a growing family of prototypical partially modular

house designs marketed by Wieler LLC beginning in 2004. The

designs are organized around a central day lit “greenbelt” space

rendered with a glazed roof in the original Case Study project.

The contemporary development of this project describes a continually

changing and ever more varied set of designs which illustrate the

inﬂuence of regional modular manufacturing capabilities, cost

implications of varying degrees of factory prefabrication, customer

range and preferences, and site circumstances on the Greenbelt

designs represented as prototypical. By Ralph Rapson’s unexpected

death in 2008 at the age of 93, the Greenbelt line included a

range of prototypes from 570 to 2700 square feet including

the Greenbelt Starter, Greenbelt 1, Greenbelt 1½, Greenbelt 2,

Greenbelt Piloti, Greenbelt Walkout, and Greenbelt Townhouse.

Although the Wieler LLC venture included land development and

sales, as well as construction management, during this period only

two Rapson Greenbelt houses were constructed: a site built house

in New York, and a modular version in Maryland.

Design sketches by Ralph Rapson, design documents from Ralph

Rapson and Associates Inc., modular manufacturer production

drawings, internal notes from both marketing and implementation

teams, and discussions with Nathan Wieler and Toby Rapson

document many of the evolutionary forces on the designs.

Over

four years and hundreds of customer inquiries, the Greenbelt family

of prototypical designs grew four times larger than the number

of built examples, suggesting that design and manufacturing

strategies which facilitate customer customization and adapt to

varied manufacturing capabilities are important characteristics for

success in the contemporary modular residential market.

CASE STUDY HOUSE PROGRAM PRINCIPLES AS A STRUCTURE

FOR ANALYSIS OF THE RAPSON GREENBELT

The role of the Arts & Architecture Case Study Houses in the devel-

opment of American modernism and the evolution of architectural

attention to the single family house has been extensively analyzed

by others.

Though the houses themselves were inﬂuential, the

Case Study House Program is also notable for the guiding prin-

RALPH RAPSON’S GREENBELT: THE EVOLUTION OF A PROTOTYPE

FRANCISCO GOMES

University of Texas at Austin

Figure 1. Ralph Rapson’s 1945 rendering of the original Greenbelt design

for the Arts & Architecture Case Study House Program

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ciples Entenza outlined in his announcement of the program. This

analysis of the WEILER endeavor, in general, and the design and

implementation of the Rapson Greenbelt house, in particular, is

organized around these same principles.

The initial announcement of the Case Study House Program, while

presented as a narrative, contains a series of principles which struc-

tured the investigation of the post-war house:

1. Realization: The design proposals would be applied cases

both buildable and subsequently built rather than only theo-

retical or represented.

2. Commitment: Reputable talented and demonstratedly prac-

tical architects would be commissioned by the publication,

rather than compete, to create these family homes.

3. Industry awareness: The architects were expected to evaluate

and exercise judgment on incorporating new or old products

and systems of national manufacturers.

4. Prototypicality: The house designs were expected to allow re-

peated application and not be unique solutions tied to the

circumstances of a single situation.

5. Evaluation: Entenza committed to the transparent evaluation

of quality in the built case study houses. After being furnished

under the direction of the author architects, each house was

to be opened to the public and reported on in the publication.

Ralph Rapson was the youngest of the eight original architects com-

missioned to participate in this principled pursuit of “the good liv-

ing environment.”

Like the Case Study House Project, which an-

ticipated that ﬂuidity of means and methods might be necessary to

achieve its objectives, the evolution of the Greenbelt from the original

Case Study proposal to the Dwell competition entry through the many

WIELER design versions illustrates an adaptive process of trial and

adjustment. Although there are fundamental differences between the

media generated venture of Arts & Architecture and the business

goals of the WIELER for-proﬁt startup, both shared the goal of de-

veloping and realizing innovative single-family housing scalable to a

large market and suited to contemporary cultural conditions.

1. Realization

“We are … proposing to begin immediately the study, planning, ac-

tual design and construction of eight houses …

“… it occurs to us that the only way in which any of us can ﬁnd out

anything will be to pose speciﬁc problems in a speciﬁc program on a

put-up-or-shut-up basis.”

The contemporary revival of the Greenbelt was spurred by the frus-

tration Nathan and Ingrid Wieler experienced in searching for a

contemporary house in the Triangle region of central North Caro-

lina. Following a 2001 article in Dwell devoted to prefabricated

residences, Nathan Wieler contacted Alison Arieff, the publication’s

Editor in Chief, and plans were made to hold an architectural com-

petition for the design of a modern prefabricated house on a budget

of $200,000. With the competition plan announced, the Wielers

purchased a hilly rural property outside Pittsboro, North Carolina

for the project. Sixteen architects were selected to submit designs,

and Ralph Rapson’s practice was included after he sent a note to

Dwell endorsing the competition concept.

The majority of the Dwell House competitors were young practic-

es, but the reputation Ralph Rapson carried from his involvement

in John Entenza’s program in the 1940’s enhanced the credibility

of the Dwell competition and linked it to the progressive agenda of

post-war mid-century modernism. Ralph Rapson was very active in

the production of the Greenbelt design, and Ralph’s son Toby also

played an integral role as his practice partner. The Case Study repu-

tation of Rapson that accompanied the Greenbelt design would later

also plays a signiﬁcant role in the marketing of the Wieler Greenbelt

houses. Although Nathan Wieler reported that he and Ingrid both had

strong attractions to Rapson’s competition submission, the competi-

tion jury selected the design of Resolution: 4 Architecture.

During the ﬁnal stages of design and the long construction of the

Dwell House, Nathan founded WIELER LLC with the goal of realiz-

ing modern prefabricated houses for like-minded people. As initially

envisioned, WIELER would eventually grow to provide design, project

management, contracting, land development, and sales brokerage

services. Nathan Wieler had a successful history as a business entre-

preneur and built a team of economic, marketing, graphic and web

design, and construction management professionals accompanied by

a series of consultants which included architects. Their goal was to

realize an effective and proﬁtable enterprise for making prefabricated

modern single-family housing available to a large public audience.

The different components of the WIELER endeavor experienced var-

ied degrees of market acceptance, and some anticipated components

of a vertically integrated delivery process, including the acquisition

of modular manufacturing capabilities were put on hold when land

sales surpassed sales of houses and design licenses.

2. Commitment

“Eight nationally known architects, chosen not only for their obvious

talents, but for their ability to evaluate realistically housing in terms

of need, have been commissioned …”

“Architects will be responsible to no one but the magazine”

The Dwell House arose from a competition rather than a commis-

sion, but the parallels between the media sponsored Arts & Ar-

chitecture program and the Dwell effort are considerable. Both

involved an editor with a desire to proactively participate in the

design and production of the American single-family house through

built projects authored by signiﬁcant contemporary architects, fol-

lowed by a published exposition of the results.

During the period Arts & Architecture began the Case Study House

Program, American industry was seeking markets for its newly avail-

HOUSING II

275 - 2012 ACSA Fall Conference

able postwar production capacity, and was actively advertising as

well as sponsoring architectural competitions and design prize pro-

grams to develop and expand the construction market. The January

1945 issue of Arts & Architecture containing Entenza’s announce-

ment of the Case Study House Program also included dozens of

advertisements and two industry sponsored competition announce-

ments. In this context of industry sponsored competition, Entenza’s

faith in the commissioned group of architects to deliver relevant

designs prior to any knowledge of the proposals was signiﬁcant.

Similarly, Dwell curated a group of architects through Editor in Chief

Arieff, who had extensive knowledge of contemporary architects ac-

tive in prefabricated construction systems from her research for the

book PREFAB, published in 2002. Notably, Dwell acquired a com-

mitted client (Nathan and Ingrid Wieler) and with them the means

for building a house before soliciting architectural designs rather

than relying on Arts & Architecture assumption that public interest

in the published designs would emerge.

WIELER’s contract with Ralph Rapson and Associates Inc. for the

development and use of the Greenbelt was a combination of payment

for design work as it was undertaken and additional payments based

on houses and design licenses sold to WIELER customers. From the

outset, WIELER planned to commission multiple architects to create

a broad range of modern house types and sizes, and intended that

the agreement with Rapson would serve as a model for future archi-

tectural contracts with others. Internal business plans highlighted

this intent to realize a broad catalog of designs and preliminary talks

were undertaken with owners of the intellectual property of Neutra

and Eichler, as well as several noted contemporary architects, but

during its active early years (2003-2007) the WIELER team focused

on the development of the Rapson Greenbelt.

3. Industry Awareness

“And we must repeat again that these materials will be selected on a

purely merit basis by the architects themselves. We have been promised

fullest cooperation by manufacturers of products and appliances who

have agreed to place in the hands of the architects the full results of

research on the products they intend to offer the public.”

The Dwell Home Design Invitational competition and the subse-

quent realization of the winning entry, like the Arts & Architecture

program, sought to integrate the materials and products produced

by manufacturers of the contemporary building industry, many of

whom also purchased advertising in the publication. Nearly half of

the sponsored products involved in the Dwell House project were not

directly applicable to building construction but instead were furnish-

ings or ﬁxtures advertised in Dwell.

Twenty-ﬁve companies, includ-

ing Loewen, Kohler, Neoporte, Jenn Air, and Caesarstone, donated

or substantially discounted their product for the construction and

furnishing of the Resolution: 4 Architecture designed Dwell Home.

Other companies such as Volkswagen, Bang & Olufsen, and Birken-

stock also made donations and were featured in project photography

and other publicity after the house was complete. The WIELER mar-

keting team sought to extend many these product ties with negoti-

ated “preferred provider” product tie-ins and discounts for potential

clients in an effort to provide additional value to its clients.

Because of the prefabrication mandate of the Dwell competition,

most designs were shaped by panelized or modular (box) methods

of market proven prefabrication, though the markets these methods

served at the time generally did not offer many modern house de-

signs. The different construction methods proposed for the original

RALPH RAPSON’S GREENBELT

Figure 2. Preliminary page design for the Wieler LLC website highlighting

the Case Study House history of the Rapson Greenbelt

Figure 3. Axonometric by Ralph Rapson and Associates illustrating the

modules and other major components of the Greenbelt 2

OFFSITE - Philadelphia - 276

Arts & Architecture and the Dwell version of the Greenbelt were

reﬂected in substantial design contrasts. The expression of the

original Greenbelt house was deﬁned by its construction: a modular

frame and panel system in which solid surfaces were ﬁtted be-

tween the narrow proﬁle exposed steel frames. Although both hous-

es shared the deﬁning sky lit interior greenbelt ﬂanked by living

and sleeping spaces they looked markedly different. Both designs

are deﬁned by the scale of constructional unit as it arrived to the

site: the newer design expressed the individual module boxes even

delineating the seam between two stacked boxes with contrasting

trim, while the modularity of the original design was resolved at the

scale of the frame and panels from which it was constructed.

Despite their differences, a closer look at the atrium and storage

details of the later Greenbelt designs show the inﬂuence of the

original Greenbelt’s construction methods and expression on the

later WIELER Greenbelt designs.

The massing of the two-story Greenbelt was clearly derived from the

box dimensions available with modular construction, which are deter-

mined by road transportation regulations. Meetings and site visits to

several modular factories which were pricing the project were made

in 2003 and 2004 to coordinate the individual factory’s capability

with the evolving Greenbelt designs. As the WIELER Greenbelt was

developed, however, the construction method for the central atrium

was debated. The Design Development drawings issued by Ralph

Rapson and Associates in 2004 speciﬁed modular box construction

for only the side volumes, leaving the atrium end walls and roof to be

constructed on site. An exploded axonometric included in the Design

Development drawings of the Greenbelt 2 (Figure 5) illustrates the

contrast between an expression of clad surfaces at the wood-frame

modules and an exposed frame and inﬁll condition at the atrium end

walls and roof. However, it was the extensive dependence on site con-

struction which led to substantial cost overruns on the Resolution

4: Architecture Dwell Home and the WIELER team was determined

to constrain the target price for their product. The atrium roof of the

second constructed Greenbelt, located on the Maryland shore of the

Chesapeake Bay was made as a single module and the atrium end

walls were factory panelized. These changes, made with design guid-

ance from the Rapsons, included bottom chord struts on the atrium

roof and substantial trimmed surfaces between glazing panels in end

walls of the atrium, both quite different in appearance from the Rap-

son’s earlier designs.

The articulation of storage closets as unitized wardrobe elements in

the WIELER Greenbelt also recalls original spatial strategies of the

Greenbelt. Spatial enclosure in the original 1945 Greenbelt pub-

lished in Arts & Architecture is characterized by solid panels and

volumes ﬂoating within a ﬁeld of space deﬁned by vertical grid ele-

ments and an overhead roof surfaces. In the WIELER Greenbelt, the

walls of the side modules form typical closed corner conditions, but

many of the closets are treated as free-standing volumetric ward-

robes within their host space in a manner which recalls the solid

storage and bath volumes in the original Greenbelt.

Although the proposed construction methods are different and in-

ﬂuential in the design expression in both the Arts & Architecture

Greenbelt and the WIELER Greenbelt, the primary organization, the

initial proposal for construction of the atrium, and the even the

closet strategy of the later designs illustrate conceptual links to the

principles of the original Greenbelt.

4. Prototypicality

“Each architect takes upon himself the responsibility of designing a

house which would, under all ordinary conditions be subject to the usual

(and sometimes regrettable) building restrictions. The house must be ca-

pable of duplication and in no sense be an individual ‘performance’.”

The goal of the Arts & Architecture program was to advance the

state of the single family house through design that could be re-

peated. The standardization of the WIELER Greenbelt houses,

however, was challenged from the earliest expressions of interest

HOUSING II

Figure 4. The range of Greenbelt house variants illustrated on the WIELER

website in 2007

277 - 2012 ACSA Fall Conference

by WIELER clients. While the land development arm of WIELER

had plans to build speculative iterations of a number of the house

designs, most early clients were interested in the Greenbelt de-

signs for particular lots they owned or were actively seeking. The

response to initial publicity came from a very wide geographic range

in the US and Canada, and the standard WIELER package for both

a delivered house and a design license (for those clients interested

in contracting their house construction without WIELER) included

client customization consultation with Ralph Rapson and Associ-

ates through the WIELER staff.

Three types of variation were introduced to allow house custom-

ization. First, an ever expanding range of Greenbelt house types

of different sizes were created, with the genesis of new versions

often spurred by requests of speciﬁc clients. These variations were

incorporated into WIELER’s public marketing material. Second,

different spatial layouts for the side modules alongside the green-

belt were inventoried and drawn to help WIELER project manag-

ers guide clients to appropriate possibilities. These variations were

produced over time in response to client requests and illustrate

that the most requested changes involved kitchens, utility rooms,

pantries and other building service intensive components of the

ﬂoor plan. Third, though not fully realized, WIELER intended to

expand the house range with the designs of other architects to pro-

vide additional house concepts to the individual client, but also to

populate WIELER land development projects with a variety of house

types and avoid excessive repetition within a single development.

The two story Dwell competition house design was named the

Greenbelt 2 and this house, along with a single level variant called

the Greenbelt 1, were the original house designs introduced, pub-

licized, and used for soliciting investment funding by WIELER.

Pricing, material speciﬁcations, client coordination protocols,

and construction schedules were initially developed on the basis

of these two house designs. As discussions with interested clients

began, speciﬁc client desires for ﬂoor area and room type, as well

as the circumstances of particular sites generated adjustments to

the Greenbelt 1 and 2 designs. When more comprehensive design

changes were requested, the resulting designs were evaluated by

the WIELER team as potential new Greenbelt products and several

of these designs were formalized, named, and added to the market-

ing materials as additional product options.

The Dwell competition criteria included a very low cost target and

subsequent publicity of the project in the magazine did not fully dis-

close the actual costs of the project (or the value of the donated prod-

ucts). WIELER’s pricing strategy was modeled on automotive sales,

with a publicized base model cost that could be supplemented with

option packages. The Greenbelt Starter was subsequently created to

ensure there was a Greenbelt product suited to the lowest cost seg-

ment of the new home market. Nathan Wieler’s emailed response to

the ﬁrst Rapson sketches for this house, “could this be our $100K

house?”, illustrate the desire for this product for market penetration.

Other variants, such as the Greenbelt 1½ and the Greenbelt Walkout

evolved from the circumstances of particular client sites. For example,

the Greenbelt Piloti was initially designed by Rapson as a modiﬁca-

tion of the Greenbelt 1 for a speciﬁc client with a lot situated next to

a rural airstrip in North Carolina. The elevated living spaces provided

shaded parking below as well as desired views of the airstrip activity.

There were also other Greenbelt house variations produced for various

clients, such as the Greenbelt Courtyard and Greenbelt Basic, which

were not publicized in the WIELER marketing material.

Despite the range of variations, most clients were interested in the

Greenbelt 1 and 2 designs. Because customization was encouraged

by the package marketed by WIELER, customers asked for changes

– most often in the living and service space conﬁgurations. With the

stair of the Greenbelt 2 within the atrium, variations of the module

layouts for both the Greenbelt 1 and 2 were easily interchanged,

and the Rapsons produced a set of module layouts (Figure 7) for

use by the management team in speaking with clients about cus-

tomization options. Substitution packages for materials and ﬁxture

selections were also drafted to allow standardized upgrade options

to be priced and marketed. These ﬁnish and ﬁxture packages were

particularly challenging to specify because each module factory

had an existing supply chain and delays in acquiring elements out-

side of their predictable supply systems carried the potential to

slow the production of their high ﬁxed cost facilties.

The ﬁnal element of the planned product – additional house designs

by other architects – was never fully realized due to the low number of

house construction contracts attained. However, speciﬁc negotiations

with architects occurred, and design and licensing terms with ﬁrms

including Resolution: 4 Architecture and Gomes + Staub were drafted.

5. Evaluation

“All eight houses will be opened to the public for a period of from six to

eight weeks and thereafter an attempt will be made to secure and report

upon tenancy studies to see how successfully the job has been done.”

RALPH RAPSON’S GREENBELT

Figure 5. Internal document produced by Ralph Rapson and Associates

illustrating module component variations to further customize the

Greenbelt house types

OFFSITE - Philadelphia - 278

HOUSING II

The genesis of WIELER was Nathan Wieler’s frustration as the cli-

ent of the Dwell house, and his belief that the modern prefabricated

house market could be better served. Because few houses were real-

ized the types and subjects of evaluation within WIELER markedly

differ from descriptive narrative evaluations of the case study houses

published in Arts & Architecture.

Unlike many modern prefab ventures which are centered on an ar-

chitect trying to generate a market for his or her design production,

WIELER was directed and funded by experienced business leaders

with marketing expertise. Internal evaluations focused on market

perception, management and delivery systems, cost control, and the

production of value – with a clear belief that the lifestyle supported by

modern design was a substantial part of that value. These evaluations

shaped the development of Greenbelt design.

From a construction perspective, differences in cost between modular

and site-framed construction techniques were examined by WIELER.

Like the Dwell house and many other modern modular examples, por-

tions of the house such as the exterior siding were ﬁeld installed in

order to use materials or techniques outside the normal methods of

the factory. As site mobilization of additional subcontractors was re-

quired, potential cost advantages of prefabricated construction were

diminished. Comparative pricing was solicited from multiple modu-

lar factories, SIP panel manufacturers, and general contractors by

the WIELER team during the development of the Greenbelt designs

and the differences between the in-place completed cost of partially

modular and full site built construction methods in the mid-Atlantic

region were not signiﬁcant.

The value of shorter delivery time, however, was a deﬁnitive advantage

in terms of market reception as well as extension of the available

geographic range for the product. Both advantages were evident in

the Greenbelt 2 built in Maryland, which was constructed by WIEL-

ER LLC as the general contractor. In 2004, WIELER also added an

experienced builder to its staff to both inform the delivery methods

and qualify the company for state General Contracting licenses – a

qualiﬁcation that allowed WIELER to control quality and receive con-

struction overhead and proﬁt revenue. With construction contracting

in-house, modular construction also aided management because the

modules could be manufactured locally and the modular manufactur-

er’s shop drawings and internal trade coordination of the factory built

portions of the house reduced the amount of subcontractor manage-

ment provided by WIELER.

From an economic perspective, WIELER experienced far greater sales

and proﬁts from the growing land development arm of company. The

initial intent was that the land development would provide sites for

communities of the Greenbelt and other houses, but the buyers of

both lots and entitled developments were not the same population as

those interested in the modern house products developed by WIELER.

CONCLUSION: PROTOTYPE AND CIRCUMSTANCE

The balancing of prototypical elements with responses to the par-

ticular circumstances of an individual project was a central issue in

the development of the Ralph Rapson Greenbelt designs marketed

by WIELER. The idea of the standardized efﬁcient industrial product

was challenged both by negligible cost advantages and client desires

for customization.

WIELER cost estimates indicated that even in its most prefabricated

version, the portion of a Greenbelt built in the factory comprised less

than half of the total construction costs. As additional elements such

as exterior siding, roof membranes, decks and other elements were

built outside the factory package, this ratio declined further.

WIELER marketing strategies which emphasized customization at-

tracted clients from the custom designed housing market typically

served by architects, and ability to achieve these customizations were

an important component of attracting customers. Achieving custom-

ization for each Greenbelt house was time and management intensive

but also funded the development of considerable variations of the

Greenbelt design.

Ironically, the land development efforts of WIELER, which are by

deﬁnition intimately tied to the physical and regulatory circum-

stance of a particular place (and for which Ralph Rapson also did

design work) became the most successful element of the WIEL-

ER enterprise. Simultaneously, the prototypical Greenbelt house

evolved into a family of differentiated designs through which re-

sponses to the circumstances of the individual client’s site, use,

budget, and self-image could be constructed.

ENDNOTES

1. Gomes + Staub PLLC, 1249:Wieler Modern, 1270:Wieler Consult-

ing, 1289: Wieler Topographic (Raleigh, North Carolina: 2002-2009

project ﬁles).

2. Esther McCoy, Case Study Houses: 1945-1962 (Los Angeles: Hen-

nessey & Ingalls, 1977), 1-10.

3. John Entenza, “Announcement: The Case Study House Program,”

Arts & Architecture, January, 1945, 37-41.

4. Entenza, 37-41.

5. Entenza, 37-41.

6. Allison Arieff, “Prefab, Proven,” Dwell, December, 2004, 112-122.

7. Gomes + Staub, 2002-2009 Wieler project ﬁles.

8. Entenza, 37-41.

9. Arieff, 112-122.

10. Entenza, 37-41.

11. Gomes + Staub, 2002-2009 Wieler project ﬁles.

12. Wieler, Chesapeake Bay Greenbelt Images, http://wieler.com/homes/

featured-projects /chesapeake-bay/images/ (June 23, 2012)

13. Entenza, 37-41.

14. Gomes + Staub, 2002-2009 Wieler project ﬁles.

15. Gomes + Staub, 2002-2009 Wieler project ﬁles.

16. Gomes + Staub, 2002-2009 Wieler project ﬁles.

17. Entenza, 37-41.

18. Gomes + Staub, 2002-2009 Wieler project ﬁles.