Designing for Cowshed Functional Flexibility

The flexibility of physical planning layouts was central to the effort to design cowsheds for changing production models as the country moved from subsistence to mixed and then to specialized farming. Indeed, the series of cowshed models Yalan designed in 1956, 1960, 1961, and 1964 represented a progression from the cowsheds that had accommodated 1-2 cows, to providing space for 5-8, 8-15, and 15-30 cows, respectively.

In addition to their expandability, Yalan’s open cowshed designs provided a systematic and relatively independent design of the facility as a whole and as a set of components. Central here was an effort to envision the capacities of an agricultural

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development that could be pursued within a single-family land plot. Yalan also sought an ideal and economic configuration of the village and plot patterns in view of the efficient distribution of village- and region-based services that would cooperate with the family production unit.354

The 1960s designs’ emphasis on multi-use shaped the relations between the components of the facility and its structure as a whole as well as the complementarity of adjacent functions.355 Principles acknowledging both the possibility of future adaptation by the farmers and the inter-relations among parts of the facility were central to Yalan’s version of an open shed that would sustain the transition between economic production phases.

These principles permeated the design at various levels. As the plan drawings reflected, the models promoted a definition of a preliminary spacious shed that would be based on a grid of square modules. These would be realized through foundations for columns invisible above the ground (Figures 4.25 – the Rural Building Research Bureau plan, 4.26 – an English farm model from which the principle was adopted). Similar to the idea of the open, structurally gridded plan in a reinforced concrete skeleton, this solution sought a preliminary arrangement of a dormant structure in view of the changing functions and growth of the shed. In this way they conformed to the major issues of post- World War II revised functionalist thinking. They adopted these issues to respond to constrained land development conditions under the Jewish Agency.356 This relatively

354 _{An issue discussed in greater detail in chapter 3. Efficiency here refers to compact in size, relative to}

development investment and to daily settlers’ comfortable practices.

355 _{Yalan purpose-related vocabulary made use of rav shimushiut, rav matratiut. Yalan, (1975). 12.}

356 _{In this respect it differed from the more expressive and “organic” reasoning with respect to the parts and}

whole relations that Blundell Jones interpreted as central to Hugo Haring’s cowshed design. Ibid. This aspect of Yalan’s facility design bespoke his broader interest to define an economic configuration of the village and plot

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neutral grid privileged a linear expansion of its major functional strips in the longitudinal direction of the plot (roughly a 30 by 100 meter parcel).

The models displayed various other ways of altering or provisionally forming components in view of alterations.357 These included the basic programmatic components of the shed, such as the elaboration of a milking parlor and the displacement or extension of the covered and non-covered pasture areas and storage area (Figure 4.27).358 _{The 1960}

and the 1964 models described the integration under the new shed’s roof of a new structure of milking parlor, supplanting the older structure (Figure 4.28). Similarly, the peripheral functional strips of the shed, serving as storage and as a covered pasture area for the cows, defined alternative solutions. The storage section demonstrated its optional allocations to varying adjacent farmstead functions.359

Alterations also included smaller scale components such as the arrangement of the trough, the roof, ors the feeding and manure collection and removal areas. The 1960 model included a survey of local and international trough systems on the basis of which it advanced an optimal solution for the cooperative village (Figure 4.29). As presented in the survey, the kibbutzim’s in-situ poured trough system, embedded in the ground or in a larger concrete floor, did not permit alterations of function for a gradual intensification of labor. Instead, the model included preliminary tests and standardization of two trough

patterns. In this he sought an efficient distribution of village- and region-based services that would cooperate with the family production unit. Chapter 3 discusses this in greater detail. Efficiency here refers to compact in size, relative to development investment and to daily settlers’ prior practices.

357 _{The publication notes possibilities such as housing a poultry run, areas for drying of different crops, and}

future development such as a shed housing calves, sheep, or goats for meat. Ibid.

358

The 1960 and 1964 models envisioned the integration under the new shed’s roof and re-use of the historical universal cowshed as the milking parlor. I noted the use of this solution when I visited several farmsteads in the Taanach region in December 2014. The peripheral functional strips of the shed, which served as storage (on the right) and a covered pasture area for the cows, defined alternative solutions. Adjacent to the central alley from which the farmer fed the cows, the storage was well-placed for hay but could also fulfill other functions.

359

The flexibility of the shed was more thoroughly addressed in the 1961 model, a 3-phases shed unit (in International Seminar on Rural Planning) that was in part a more theoretical model than that of 1960.

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solutions, a concrete pre-fab version or a self-built version using available farm materials (figure 4.30, 4.31).360 In contrast to the surveyed troughs units created at the scale of the facility as a whole (common in the Kibbutzim and in Europe), these smaller-scale units facilitated an individual process of construction at the farmstead level. They permitted easy extension of the components and the facility as needed, as well as the repurposing of sections of the shed or its general function.

In a similar vein, the roof solution for the sheltered pasture area, which was made of asbestos or corrugated iron, was to be partially demountable (Figures 4.32, 4.33). This allowed for the removal of one of its strips during the summer months to improve ventilation and simulate the cows’ natural habitat.361 Self-deployable and maintenance solutions for the suspended rafters in the covered feeding area and the organic waste removal (from the sunken container beneath the suspended rafters) both permitted adaptation to specific situations.

All in all, the sub-units of the 1956-1964 shed models responded to changing conditions of use due to multiple circumstances. The user could tailor them to the farmstead’s land type, the availability of funds and machinery, and the presence of

360 _{This second solution was most likely known to Yalan’s team through a survey of American farmsteads in the}

1930s that appeared in the Jewish calf breeders’ journal. Ha’sade, 1936. See discussion in Volcani, ibid.

361

Cowshed for 5-8 Milking Cows, 6. The publication referred to surveys conducted at the Zvuluni Farmstead in the village of Kfar Hasidim in the Jezreel Valley in which the farmers defined two shadowed and better- ventilated open strips for recumbence. The open-shed models reviewed in this chapter differ from the contemporary open-sheds that emerged in the 1990s as a means to reduce methane emissions. While contemporary open-sheds emphasize a sheltered open space intended to simulate cows’ natural habitat, until the 1980s open-sheds were based on a rational distribution of functions and work flows through designated areas under the shed. These areas were delimited by more or less massive limits. The Corrals shed that gradually substituted for the 1960s Rural Building Research Center designs after 1975 increasingly resembled contemporary open-sheds in erasing interior functional differentiation. This approach was furthered in the 1970s and 80s through the works of rural engineers and architects, Hai Evron, Uri Kofman and Yehuda Shprecher.

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tractors.362 _{Finally, alterations had to reckon with changing climate conditions. The}

flexibility of this system of parts demonstrated an economy of means in view of the farmstead’s fluctuating systems of production and distribution.