Database of recorded serial manufactured MLK-buildings (GDR) (Release 1)

Lightweight construction in structural engineering meets the principles of contemporary requirements for resource-efficient design and has already established itself as a building block for sustainable management in the construction industry of the high modernism. However, little is known about the planning, execution and sale of marketable lightweight metal structures, which were developed in parallel in the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany under disparate conditions from the end of the 1960s onwards. The "VEB Metalleichtbaukombinat" (MLK), a association of enterprises of structural steel engineering in the GDR, represents an association of constructive steel construction companies in the GDR in the years 1969 to 1990.
In order to record and classify the serial manufactured buildings from the years 1969 to 1989, it is necessary to evaluate corresponding archival records, interviews with contemporary witnesses and material investigations, which provide the basis for a critical assessment of serial manufactured buildings built and still standing today. In the subsequent analysis from an industrial archaeological perspective, existing serial manufactured MLK buildings will be viewed from the perspective of monument conservation.
Specific characteristics of individual systems can be derived from hall structures, such as the centre distances of the frames, the skylights and the roof pitch and shape given via the supporting structure. These represent the attributes for the manual as well as for the systematic evaluation of aerial photographs. For this purpose, the approach of deep learning, a special method of machine learning, is used to automatically record such structures.
Submission of additional locations is encouraged via Email (a.heinrich@bauwerkserhaltung.tu-braunschweig.de). Publication of the data will make use of revisions, released irregularly.
The focus of the locations is on serial manufactured steel buildings with lattice constructions, but the buildings may be helpful also without serial properties or with solid wall beam.
The content is a compilation of recorded locations of rod network nets »Type Ruhland« of the MKL (GDR).