Ken Isaacs was a designer/architect who focussed a lot on the idea of creating multi-use items that didn't require massive woodworking or craftsman skills to modify, or even build in the first place. His Matrix building 'system' (long before the Movie, no relation in any way) survives today in the form of Grid Beam building.
Think 'wooden erector set'. Well, no need to just think it, you can look at it (bottom of linked page) because it actually existed in kiddie size, right around the time Ken Isaacs was developing his first ideas along those lines. Scale the stuff in that picture up a bit and you have almost exactly what he came up with. I have never seen any suggestion that there was any connection, it's just a neat coincidence as far as I know.
And now I'm finally doing it.
Books
Culture Breakers, Alternatives & Other Numbers - (1970) the lesser known of his books, this one covers more of his experiments with less nuts & bolts construction detail. Also less hippity-doo-dah early 70s jargon than the other one. Excellent idea book.
How To Build Your Own Living Structures - (1974) the one most referenced of his two books. Doesn't quite cover as much of his full idea span, but goes into much greater detail on how to actually build the stuff.
Despite how the name sounds, he's not (just) talking about housing in this book, he covers many different 'structures for living', i.e. highly multi-purpose, flexible arrangement furniture. Great DIY book, all of the stuff combines simple DIY skills with high utility.
Lots and lots of flower child talk, including some things I suspect he just made up on the spot because it sounded 'hippie'.
How To Build With Grid Beam - by some later advocates of his system. They tweaked it over the years to be still more flexible and ironed out a few wrinkles, then put their accumulated knowledge together into this book. I would say this is a required book if you really want to use this stuff instead of just read about the early phases of Ken Isaac's work. They have a web site, but it seems to be stagnant. I have never succeeded in contacting any of them, by email or 'phone.
Articles
Home In A Cube - Life, 1954 Oct 11, p91
Matrix At Cranbrook - Industrial Design, 1958 Mar
The Knowledge Box - Life, 1962 Sep 14, p109
Isaacs was a PS Design Consultant until one of the PS editors supposedly accused him of not being able to design anything but cubes, or something like that (can't find the reference now...). Up until then, he made a fairly regular contribution to the magazine. Not all of the PS work is in his books.How To Build The Superchair - Popular Science, 1968 Mar, p160 (the article is missing from the online archive, but it is reproduced in the Living Structures book)
A Roomful of 2x2s - Popular Science, 1968 Apr, p170
How To Build The Microdorm - Popular Science, 1969 Mar, p138
The Living Cube 4x4 - Popular Science, 1969 Mar, p216
Way-Out Fun House for Your Vacation Lot - Popular Science, 1969 July, p131
An I Table and a Set of Cube Chairs - Popular Science, 1969 Oct, p162
Build Yourself The Delta Desk - Popular Science, 1969 Nov, p160
A Security Shelter for Your Snowmobile - Popular Science, 1969 Dec, p148
Channel Modules (shelving) - Popular Science, 1970 Apr, p84
Building the channel modules - Popular Science, 1970 Apr, p94
Guest Room in a Ten-Inch Space - Popular Science, 1970 Sep, p86
Building the Ten-Inch Guest Room - Popular Science, 1970 Sep, p104
Your Very Own Meditator - Popular Science, 1970 Nov, p92
The Table That Tops Off a Wall- Popular Science, 1971 Jun, p80
Jungle Cylinder for Backyard Fun - Popular Science, 1972 May, p158
Build a Vacation Cluster - Popular Science, 1972 Jul, p88
Ken Isaacs: Matrix Designer - The Politics of the Artificial, 2002 Mar 15, p60
Nice Quads - Dwell, 2007 May, p141
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