ARCHIMEDE INSTITUTE

1980-1985

1980 is the year when Jacques Poirier, our founding derector at the Institute and Placide Poulin, a successful businessman got together to set up Archimede Systems Inc. This new housing manufacturer set in Eastern Quebec got its start in an incredibly bad financial crisis (interest rates at around 20%!) yet quickly sold hundreds of revolutionary houses in several countries. Based on the rhombic dodecahedral geometry as shown in our top of the page spinner, these shells were incredibly sturdy*. Poirier designed the machinery and modified an injection process he had earlier learned in the RV and in the ski business. Canadian and US Patents were granted in 84, at which time Poirier chose to pursue the development of these ideas in the US, seling his Canadian Patent to his partner(s).

1974-1980

In the later half on the seventies, Poirier's familiarity with production systems brought him to the booming RV business. Starting with tent trailers, he graduated to camping trailers and then motor homes. Finally, a revolutionnary mobile home building technique was developed by a team led by him as chief designer with Bellevue Industries. These ho,es were made up of only 4 wall panels, one roof panel and one floor panel, forming a box that was both rigid and insulated. The world's largest press was built 25m x 5m x 5m deep, a giant concrete and steel 'toaster' capable of 9 million pounds of pressure, enough to contain these giant panels while they were being injected with polyurethane foam.

This box construction allowed for maritime shipping without deconsolidation of the structure. Export to 3 continents of prefab homes, double and triple wide, was the next step. Algeria, Crete, France, and several other countries have received those house. Poirier's foray into a field that quickly became his own was the first of a large export effort from Canada.

The Institute ows a lot to those intense five years that in the end gave birth to the Archimede concept. Poirier was rewarded by his peers as the architect who did the most for the housing export trade.

PANEL PRESSES: 1991, FOURTH GENERATION

INJECTION MACHINERY- 1990, FIFTH GENERATION

Ron Smith and myself put together this $20,000. press, one that is easily transportable and reassembled anywhere, sometimes under different formats. Capable of batch injecting up to thirty thinner panels or ten extra thick panels, it has it's own loading and unloading setup in the form of an overhead moveable beam and electric hoist. This feature makes it practical to remove the different size press platen between jobs. This press has the greatest potential for third-world reconstruction applications projects.

1969-1974

The Quebec of the early seventies provided our director with the chance to develop as an industrial designer, his first love. The snowmobiling boom quickly made him chief designer with a snowmobile manufacturer. At age 30, Poirier already signed the design of over $2 billion's worth of sold production . This included cross-country skis and several other products including RV's , motor homes and mobile homes.
To this day, Jacques swears by that initial jolting job in the industrial field; how else could he have acquired 'in-the-field' notions of resistance of materials, after-sales service, environmental problems, production machinery design and the like. Nothing like a good little war to form a great general later on.
Also, this is where he met another highly successful business man by the name of Placide Poulin. The latter was the original partner in the Archimede factory set up in 1980. After taking the MAAX corporation to a billion dollar conglomerate, he is now retired and chairman of the board of Camada, a venture capital group led by his brilliant daughter Marie-France. It was only fitting that this group is also the biggest sponsor of the Institute.

CANADA- Boucherville QC - Archimede Condo Groupings - Garden Style

In this 40 condo project near Montreal, 2 story condos (1600 ft2 + basement) are grouped three together back to back, forming large hexagons that are then grouped together2 or three at a time. The result is an advantageous set of clusters that give each owner an opening on a landscaped area without the view of his immediate neighbors. And the superior soundproofing and spatial qualities inside make these condos especially attractive for a medium density area that can benefit from landscaped paths and a geometry that for once is not orthogonal like Versailles gardens, but more like an English garden with much less compositional rigidity.

Custumized Groupings Fitted To Tradition And Local Taste

THE PERFECT DEMOLITION SYSTEM

When a hurricane passes over a house, the first part of the transit has winds coming from a fixed direction, swirling in gusts and dragging a vibrating tail behind the house, especially if it is one with square corners. Think of the swirls behind a large semi on the highway. Materials and connectors are quickly loosened but might still hold together.
Then comes the restful eye with no winds at all, after a maximum velocity was attained near the eye. Think of 185 mph as was topped on our Sint Maarten condos!
Then comes the wall of pain: from the opposite direction new winds hit suddenly with a punch equal to those just before the eye. What was loosened is now detached or broken off, flying away to destroy other houses. Those winds are also a lot wetter, in most cases.
Think of you one bends things in either directions to break them. That's what a decent hurricane does. In some cases, the hurricane will travel very slowly, compounding the damages. Luis in Sint Maarten had the bad idea to shake and vibrate it's way through the island in 12 hours, enough to disable the island for tourism for almost three years!
And we had no damage to speak of, in spite of the fact that concrete block houses all around had to be demolished and rebuilt.
Satisfaction for us, as those years of design and wind-tunnel testing had finally paid off in a conclusive way. The weaker hurricanes like David and Frederick and even Hugo did not provide the proof we needed. We needed a monster and we got it on the 5th of September 1995. I was there. Thanks Luis!
Jacques

VARIETY AND ADAPTABILITY WITH 'ABREFS'

Spontaneous groupings adapting to both in-place sociology and ground conditions are the main feature of our 'ABREFS' -Economy of land use results and, when the users have a hand in putting these together, pride of ownership, albeit temporarily, an attractive bonus.