Quonset Huts, Well-Rounded Architecture!

In March 1941, the U.S. military needed cheap, easily assembled, portable shelters that were better than tents. U.S. involvement with World War II was becoming more possible and they realized that they would need a way to quickly shelter troops and supplies. They knew the British had developed a light prefab semicylindrical steel structure called a Nissen Hut (named for its designer and patent holder, Major Peter Norman Nissen of the 29th Company Royal Engineers) during World War I and wanted something similar-but better.

Rear Admiral Ben Morell, Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks, wanted to develop an improved version of the British Nissen Hut. Although it was better than a tent by being more sturdy and more wind resistant, the Nissen Hut had many complaints that it was too cold and drafty in cold northern climates and hot and stuffy in hot desert and tropical climates. It didn't have insulation and had a complicated internal structure that required a system of cables and turnbuckles for supporting its arched roof and upright sides.

George A. Fuller and Company was one of the construction companies contracted to build the Naval Air Station and Naval Construction Battalion Center at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. The facility was almost completed, so Admiral Morell asked engineers Peter Dejongh and Otto Brandenberger of the Fuller Company to design and produce a mass-production, prefabricated, lightweight, knockdown shelter to US specifications. The shelter had to be easily deployed anywhere for multiple uses and quickly assembled and disassembled in the field by untrained troops using nothing but hand-tools. And, there was an extra contingency-Fuller had 60 days in which to come up with something!

Dejongh and Brandenberger and their design team consisting of Tomasino Secondino, Domenic Urgo, and Robert McDonnell scrambled to work on improving the Nissen design at the Fuller production facility. They adapted the British design using corrugated steel and semi-circular steel arched ribs as the best material solution to the issues of portability and adaptability. Strength was also greatly increased and assembly simplified by carrying the roof arch all the way to the foundation. The Anderson Sheet Metal Company of Providence, RI bent the corrugated sheets into a usable form, which were then attached to the frame and each other with nuts and bolts. The two ends of the structure were enclosed with plywood, which had openings for doors and windows. Major improvements over the Nissan Hut, however, were an interior Masonite (pressed wood) lining, insulation, and a one-inch tongue-in-groove plywood floor on a raised metal frame. It was later discovered that the Quonset huts had incredible strength that would withstand the pounding of northern arctic blizzards and tropical typhoons and hurricanes.

A month before the two-month deadline, Fuller's first Quonset Hut was ready-even while the design was still being tweaked.

This first half-tubular, 16' by 36' building constructed out of heavy 1-inch thick "T-angle" steel arches and covered in galvanized, corrugated steel sheathing was known as the "T-Rib" Hut".

A crew of eight could erect it in one day--very fast for such a solid structure!

Larger versions were also built, including a 20' by 48' model with a usable inside space of 720 sq ft, and a warehouse-sized 40' by 100' model. All of the Quonsets were made such that they could be connected to create massive storage areas if needed.

Historian Michael Lamm said that during World War II, after the U.S. recaptured and liberated the islands in the Pacific, the largest assemblage of huts comprised a 54,000-square-foot warehouse on Guam called the "Multiple Mae West."

After the war, when the U.S. military sold thousands of the surplus Quonset huts for about $1,000 each to the general public, the Quonset huts were moved and quickly adapted to be single-family homes, churches, meeting halls, small businesses, warehouses, barns, garages, airplane hangers, and retail shops-and more were built to accommodate the postwar economic and population growth.

Architects tinkered with them and fixed them up in creative and innovative ways. They were popular enough with the American public that articles on how to adapt the buildings for domestic use appeared in newspaper features and magazines such as Home Beautiful and Popular Mechanics.

Many of the original Quonset huts are still standing throughout the United States and abroad-although they are not always immediately recognizable. Maybe a porch has been added to one or both ends, dormier windows or side flaps have been built in, or half of the arch has been removed and replaced with floor-to-ceiling picture windows, or a false front has been built to make the front more square and less distinctively round.

Because the military wanted to avoid patent issues with Great Britain, Captain Raymond V. Miller, Civil Engineer Corp, suggested that instead of calling them Nissen Huts, the shelters could be called "Quonset" huts-named for the Quonset Point area where they were originally designed and built. In the local Native American Narragansett language, the word "Quonset" means "boundary". Since the huts also resembled the shape of Iroquois council lodges, the name had even more significance and "stickability"-making these huts a uniquely memorable American contraption.