[HN Gopher] How to design a house to last 1000 years
___________________________________________________________________
How to design a house to last 1000 years
Author : ddubski
Score : 406 points
Date : 2022-01-05 15:42 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (constructionphysics.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (constructionphysics.substack.com)
| supperburg wrote:
| Yuck, colonial.
|
| Here's the best way to build a 1000 year house or a 10,000 year
| house: build a giant in-place concrete form with the following
| features: deep waffle grid foundation slab, rounded corners and
| arches everywhere, thick walls and of course tasteful layout of
| rooms and embossings. Lay out tons of carbon-fiber reinforcement
| and then fill the entire form in one monolithic pour with ultra
| high performance concrete. Attach a thick layer of rock wool to
| the outside with masonry screws.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| Pressure treated wood: I see this as an essential material in
| modern building. Our own house used non-pressure-treated, regular
| boards for the sill (the walls attach to these sill boards, which
| are directly on top of the poured foundation, which had moisture
| seeping in). We got ants and termites who loved this damp wood,
| and they turned it to shreds in just 40 years. Will pressure
| treated wood last for 1000 years? I have no idea, but regular
| ole' wood didn't last 50 in our case.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Stainless steel rebar is an often overlooked option. In theory,
| solid SS rebar should outlast the concrete, but it is a difficult
| thing to accurately study. In favorable conditions, regular rebar
| reinforced concrete starts to need major repairs after ~40 years
| due to corrosion.
|
| The Progresso Pier in Mexico was build over 80 years ago with SS
| rebar, and reportedly has not needed any renovations. A pier
| built 20 years later using mild steel rebar has been almost
| completely destroyed by the ocean.
|
| I wish more large infrastructure projects would use it. The up-
| front costs can be 2x higher, but the lifetime savings win out in
| many situations.
|
| https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/10/progreso-pier-worlds-l...
| rsync wrote:
| I came here to mention that. SS rebar is, indeed, a thing and
| would be an interesting combination with long lasting (fly ash)
| concrete, etc.
| yosito wrote:
| How long lasting is fly ash concrete?
| rsync wrote:
| "How long lasting is fly ash concrete?"
|
| We don't know. Existing structures that use "Roman
| Concrete[1]" are (roughly) 2000 years old and counting ...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete
| lenkite wrote:
| Wish we could re-discover how to produce Roman Concrete, which
| has already proven its long-lasting efficacy.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete.
| ThrustVectoring wrote:
| My understanding is that modern concrete would last as long
| as Roman concrete would, if we built the same types of
| designs that Romans used concrete for. The big difference is
| that we want to span gaps without using large unwieldy
| arches, so we need tensile strength, so we need to use steel
| reinforcing bar in our concrete, which is the eventual
| pathway to failure. (Well, that and heavy machinery like
| semi-tractor trailers, which the Romans _also_ didn 't have
| to design around)
|
| The Romans did not have the quantity of cheap steel necessary
| for this, so they ensured only compressive loads on their
| concrete, so it lasted about as long as you'd expect a random
| rock subject to only compressive loads in a field to last.
| foofoo55 wrote:
| Stainless steel needs oxygen[1], otherwise it will eventually
| corrode with pitting and "crevice corrosion"[2]. I wonder what
| the ingredients are in stainless rebar, and what the oxygen
| environment is like.
|
| [1] https://www.thermofisher.com/blog/metals/is-stainless-
| steel-...
|
| [2] https://www.cruisingworld.com/how/beware-stainless-steel-
| cor...
| prox wrote:
| How does the Pantheon in Rome keep its structure? Is it just
| concrete?
|
| Since it's 2000 years old now.
| brixon wrote:
| Roman concrete is not like modern concrete. The process in
| modern concrete does not stop and eventually makes it too
| brittle and falls apart, Roman concrete does not do this and
| can last a very long time.
|
| https://science.howstuffworks.com/why-ancient-roman-
| concrete...
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Compressive shapes and good concrete.
|
| You start talking about rebar and other complexities when you
| want a shape that puts concrete in tension (where it's very
| weak), instead of compression.
|
| Basically - lots of domes and arches.
| kibwen wrote:
| Here's a good video on the use and tradeoffs of Roman
| concrete engineering:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL0BB2PRY7k
|
| TL;DW: whereas modern construction uses rebar as a way to
| keep concrete from fracturing under tensile stress, the
| Romans made their constructions enormous so that the weight
| of the structure itself would compress the material and keep
| it from failing from tensile stress. Their monuments weren't
| built huge just because it cool, but also because it was
| practical. But large concrete constructions are both
| expensive and take years and years to cure, and depending on
| your concrete chemistry the strongest mixtures can also be
| much more difficult to work with.
| prox wrote:
| Thanks, so very cool how they were able to make such
| structures!
| lqet wrote:
| Judging from the old towns where I grew up in in Europe, the
| problem isn't building a house that won't collapse for a 1000
| years (a classic half-timbered house [0] will get you through
| most of the earthquakes to expect here for centuries). The
| problem is getting it through town fires [1], floods [2], and
| wars [3, 4].
|
| [0]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Ma...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary_Magdalene%27s_flood
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg
|
| [4]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Lu...
| londons_explore wrote:
| The biggest risk to a house built today for the next 1000 years
| is regulatory.
|
| Eg. The government coming round and saying "this isn't up to spec
| for [energy efficiency, fire safety, future housing
| requirements], it needs to be torn down and rebuilt".
|
| The way to _defend_ against that is to make it a building of
| historical importance, so that rules or exceptions are written
| specifically for it.
|
| So my 1000 year building will be a massive artpiece, cathedral,
| or something along those lines.
|
| As soon as you get famous enough, it doesn't matter what
| materials your building is made of, it will end up being
| maintained.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Look around you at the houses which are still standing after 1000
| years. Copy their design.
| arethuza wrote:
| You could also look at houses that are still mostly standing
| after ~5000 years, complete with some furniture:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae
| jethro_tell wrote:
| 1. Be rich 2. Don't not be rich 3. Make sure your
| kids marry in a way that keeps the money in the family 4.
| Build a castle/house of stone.
|
| Congratulations, you own a castle
| chrisseaton wrote:
| 4 is the only really relevant one.
|
| Plus just 'don't knock it down'.
|
| Stone is far more durable than the wood and plaster they use
| in the US.
| franch wrote:
| Not all stone houses are castles or luxury residences. My
| family's house (northern Italy in the Alps) is at least 600
| years old (there is a painting on the outside that has been
| dated to around 1420) but it is a working-class home. The
| interior has been repurposed many times over the centuries,
| but it is still there and inhabited.
|
| edit: spelling
| arethuza wrote:
| Entire cities in the UK are famous for the kind of stone
| they are largely built from e.g. Aberdeen and its granite,
| Edinburgh and sandstone:
|
| http://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Building_stones_of_Edi
| n...
| polymerist wrote:
| My only issue with this was the steel potentially rusting over
| 1000 years. There is a lot of water vapor that moves in and out
| of a house and mitigation of that water is important. Stainless
| steel will rust given enough time/water too.
|
| Anti-corrosion coating on the steel and waterproofing of the
| foundation slab with a self adhered membrane are two overlooked
| points imo. Easy enough to tie in waterproofing of the slab with
| a water/vapor barrier on the walls and the roofing underlayments
| too.
|
| Unsealed brick is also relatively weak if there is a significant
| amount of water vapor and prolonged years of freeze/thaw will eat
| away at the brick/mortar and reduce structural integrity of the
| facade.
|
| I may be biased since waterproofing product development is my day
| job.
|
| As for the other comments on the cost of steel being obscene, I'd
| counter that volumetric steel modular construction is a growing
| market. Steel is also more easily recycled than wood and lumber
| costs in 2021 were really high. Probably part of the reason
| Katerra went bankrupt too (mismanagement played a role too I'm
| sure).
|
| I agree on the steel in the ground with corrosion, I'm guessing
| the author implies there is an anti-corrosion coating on there
| already (since not having one seems idiotic), but I suspect it
| wouldn't last that long and honestly it seems a little excessive
| since slab on grade is pretty common and I've seen 200+ year old
| homes sitting on big rocks that are sitting on compacted soil.
|
| Fun article though.
| yob89 wrote:
| sebben wrote:
| For those interested this project has been built with longevity
| in mind.
|
| The MiniCO2 Houses: The Maintenance-Free House
| https://www.realdaniabyogbyg.org/projects/the-minico2-houses...
| 0000011111 wrote:
| It is fun to think about how you could build something to last
| for 10 generations or 1000 years.
|
| I personal would look to the subsurface. In the right location
| unground dwellings could last longer that human civilization the
| earth. https://www.atlassurvivalshelters.com/
| melenaboija wrote:
| 1 meter wide stone walls, mortar, no foundations and wooden beams
| is what my family house in Spain is made of. It has been there
| for several hundred years with absolutely 0 structural
| remodeling, some cosmetic work has been done. Seeing the house
| will be there for few more years, not sure 1000 though.
|
| If I am correct some of the Romanesque constructions don't need
| wood and those have been there for 1000 years.
|
| The seismic activity in Spain is almost null, which I guess
| matters for this structures.
| EricE wrote:
| Wow - when I got to the comment about brick and moisture... it's
| a solved problem. In fact there are even better solutions like
|
| https://youtu.be/WuYvDuOQ-5M?t=375
|
| Indeed if the author would just follow Matt Risinger's channel
| they would get quite a few far more practical ways to address
| their concerns.
|
| Expert in a vacuum vs. experience in the field. Also a prime
| example of "no plan survives contact with the enemy".
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| Also don't build the house in Florida.
| klaussilveira wrote:
| I know this is a joke, but there are several advancements in
| coastal engineering that are quite interesting:
|
| https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/fema_tb_2_f...
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| Hmm... very interesting.
| biztos wrote:
| Apologies if someone already made this comment, but if you want
| your house to last 1000 years I think you ought to start with
| giving your fellow humans a reason to want that too.
|
| Your future self, revived from a frozen brain in your Auckland
| compound, is unlikely to find the house still available
| regardless of how you built it. Because laws, incentives, needs
| and desires change. This could work to your advantage, with
| future generations valuing your project-house for reasons you
| can't predict, but it's more likely to go the other way. Even if
| your sarcophagus is good for eternity, you need folks to leave it
| alone.
|
| Maybe start by founding a religion.
| ravedave5 wrote:
| Did he just make a castle with more steps and not as good?
| Robotbeat wrote:
| One problem is that stainless is valuable. So is aluminum. Even
| regular steel has scrap value. The Great Pyramid lost its nice
| smooth exterior simply because the rock it was made of was nice
| and not easily available in that area.
|
| Build it out of basalt blocks in an area with lots of basalt. Low
| seismic activity, ideally no freeze/thaw cycle, little to no
| water, and no humans.
| danans wrote:
| > But this cycle of replacement is relatively modern - medieval
| houses would often last for centuries,
|
| Most people in medieval times lived much cheaper structures made
| of fast degrading materials like wood, mud, and thatch, not stone
| houses. Therefore most medieval houses did not last centuries.
|
| People reused the much rarer stone structures for centuries
| because without the aid of machines, it was extremely labor
| intensive to build stone structures. Obviously, they were more
| valuable since they were more durable.
|
| Populations and technological advancement exploded during the
| centuries afterward - especially after the industrial revolution
| - so it's not a useful comparison.
|
| > and there are examples from around the world of buildings that
| have lasted for many hundreds or even thousands of years while
| remaining in use - The Pantheon, Aula Palatina, Brihadeeswarar
| Temple, Verona Area, Chartres Cathedral are a few examples.
|
| Those are mostly houses for god[s], not people. Their function is
| primarily ritual, not to enable the functions of human life.
|
| Then as now, for human existence, you need facilities to heat and
| cool, provide water, prepare food, and remove waste for a large
| number of people per square meter of building.
|
| Modern buildings perform better at those things due to the
| quantum leap in precision manufactured materials, which are able
| to keep the elements at bay - but time and nature are constantly
| attacking man-made square corners and tight fitting joints and
| seams. Caulk fails. At some point that stuff all needs to be
| replaced and it represents the majority (materials and labor) of
| building/maintaining a house.
|
| What might be original after 1000 years of the author's house
| (assuming it survives cultural change, which the author
| addresses), is only the structure. And a house structure that
| lasts 1000 years is interesting in the same way that a fossilized
| dinosaur skeleton is interesting - but the dinosaur's actual
| plumbing was lost eons ago.
|
| The author seems to understand this because they discuss that a
| goal is for it to survive until the point where people want to
| maintain it just because it is old.
|
| That's great, but it's not a kind of prescription for building
| housing at scale sustainably today.
| alecst wrote:
| I stayed at a farm in South Tyrol, Italy this fall. (South Tyrol
| is actually in northern Italy, near the Austrian border.)
|
| The oldest property record for the place dated it back to the
| year 1200. It's a large, normal looking house, and the walls are
| made out of irregular stone blocks mortared together.
|
| For what it's worth, buildings like this aren't that uncommon in
| Italy.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| Do you have a picture?
| alecst wrote:
| This is the only one I have of the exterior:
| https://imgur.com/a/q1Y4nlL
| xondono wrote:
| Why would you want a house to last 1000 years? 150 year houses
| are already a PITA to adapt to modern standards.
| irrational wrote:
| Step 1. Build it on solid bedrock in a location not prone to
| earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, rising
| ocean levels, volcanoes, etc. Build it in a location unlikely to
| be bombed or otherwise involved in human conflict.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| so... Mars?
| irrational wrote:
| I'm thinking some places in central Canada. Currently you
| would have to deal with lots of snow, but climate change will
| shortly sort that out.
| sfx77 wrote:
| I live in the midwest. Would this hold up against a tornado?
| boringg wrote:
| This is interesting. About to do a major reno on an old home
| (early 1900s) and definitely had questions about making upgrades
| that would last a long time. One of the greenest things that you
| can do to a home is not build a new one as I understand it.
| Another one would be to build it so it lasts ... not like this
| throwaway society we live in. That said I don't think I can do
| steel girders to extend the life of the house -- that would be
| tough ask. Any thoughts anyone? Thanks.
|
| Other green benefits -- electrify as much as reasonable, thermal
| regulate, insulate etc.
| johne20 wrote:
| Look into Passive House designs, and videos by Joseph Lstiburek
| if you are interested in energy efficiency and building
| structures to last with modern materials.
| jakeinspace wrote:
| At this moment in history, building a cheaper 50-100 year house
| now and letting a future developer rebuild it with hopefully
| carbon-neutral materials might be more sustainable, assuming
| that building it to last now would cost more in dollars and
| carbon and immediate environmental impact. If we haven't
| figured out how to build in a more sustainable way 100 years
| from now, then there might not even be any developers around
| anyway, so it's a win-win (sort of).
| timeon wrote:
| You can build with straw bale and wood today.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| But on the other hand, it's probably greener to build a house
| to last 50-100 years and then tear it down in 75 years when
| housing preferences change rather than build a house to last
| 1000 years and then tear it down in 75 years when housing
| preferences change.
|
| On the one hand I think this is a worthwhile experiment, on the
| other hand I can see why most houses are not built this way.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > One of the greenest things that you can do to a home is not
| build a new one as I understand it.
|
| I would need evidence for this statement. There have been many
| great advances in technology over the years, to the point that
| I can see old insulation/wiring/plumbing to not be worth
| repairing and replacing. Not to mention if any of the previous
| stuff used harmful materials such as lead and asbestos.
|
| I also think it is unreasonable to assume current lifestyles
| and needs will be satisfactory for future generations.
| boringg wrote:
| I would surmise that by not sourcing new materials (that
| currently aren't that green from a carbon footprint
| perspective which is probably the largest part of your
| footprint) you are saving a lot of carbon cost. There are
| challenges with old homes such as sealing the building
| envelope and updating wiring/heating etc.
|
| Maybe I am telling myself that - I'm not sure. My argument
| does resonate though.
|
| New builds require the destruction of the old material,
| sourcing of new material, energy and time spent to put that
| together. And if you don't get a good build is all going to
| have to be rebuilt in the not too distant future whereas the
| house I have has lasted over 100 years and is still in great
| shape - I figure I can get another 100 with the proper
| maintenance/updating etc.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I have yet to come across an old house that I did not want
| to gut. To update wiring, plumbing, gas lines, central air,
| siding, roof. By the time you are done, you are only saving
| on replacing the frame, but tearing down a frame of spaced
| 2x4s and plywood sheets are not that much waste in my
| experience.
| darkwater wrote:
| There is a big chunk of the world that doesn't live in
| wooden houses, so rebuilding the frame indeed is a big
| deal compared to "just" redo all the wirings and
| plumbings.
| boringg wrote:
| I would also posit that your own preferences aren't the
| same as everyone else. Such that there are many people
| who prefer not living in many of the newer homes.
| politician wrote:
| Buckingham Slate shingles are currently not available.
|
| [1] https://www.buckinghamslate.com/roofing/
| culi wrote:
| If you really want to build a house that will last, you need to
| build with decay not against it. The reason Japanese
| architectures are some of the oldest in the world is because
| they're built to be modular. The prioritize form over material.
| If one part breaks, you can replace it without having to destroy
| the entire building. This is also true with Kath Kuni
| architecture in India. Not only are these building forms
| extremely resistant to earthquakes and other disasters, but they
| can also be continuously rebuilt piecemeal
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58O7SRy46DM
| bdamm wrote:
| A building to last a thousand years, but it has no eaves at all?
|
| Good luck with that. The building might last, but only if each
| successive owners can afford all the maintenance costs of
| replacing windows, flashings, sidings, sealants, etc, and all the
| other exterior materials that will rot quickly due to no eaves to
| protect them.
| DiffEq wrote:
| You should still use reinforcement in the concrete: Use basalt
| rebar instead of steel; it will not corrode. Use a nylon fiber in
| the mix to protect against impact and spalling from fire. Use
| 5000 psi concrete instead of 2500. This is much stronger and will
| be less likely to break down under any environment. Use a vapor
| barrier underneath to help prevent moisture and gas from coming
| up into the house. Put the foundation on 8 to 10 inches of 1"
| rock. This will help protect against soil expansion and allow
| water to quickly flow underneath or out of underneath the house.
| It will also prevent critters from digging into any possible
| underground utilities, etc. Any cracks after the concrete sets,
| fill and then seal the entire pad. Be sure to keep the concrete
| wet and covered for 30 days to aid in maximum strength.
|
| Instead of a steel frame, use insulated concrete forms, again
| using basalt rebar. This makes a concrete walled house. Use
| stainless steel trusses (or onsite galvanized steel) for the roof
| or build a concrete roof with similar construction methods as the
| insulated concrete forms.
|
| The siding of the house should be concrete board or other non
| combustible material (brick or stone)..or both where it makes
| sense. But be careful on the mortar used..seal it at least if you
| expose any of it to the weather.
|
| Make sure the eaves are at least two feet out and the eaves over
| doors more than that. This keeps water away from those areas and
| the house as a whole.
|
| Make sure you have gutters...good ones.
|
| Make sure your land around the house moves water around it - even
| in flash flood events.
|
| Have real shutters for your windows.
|
| Where it makes sense, especially those areas exposed to weather,
| do not use wood.
|
| Instead of slate..use aluminum shingles.
|
| Forget the fireplace...too many potential issues with fire,
| leaking, etc. They are hard to build for 20 years let alone 1000.
|
| Use Fiberglass windows. The best ones will outlast any hardwood.
| LunaSea wrote:
| Thanks for all the insights!
|
| I have a few questions regarding your suggestions:
|
| > Instead of slate..use aluminum shingles
|
| - Is this purely a question of price?
|
| > Use Fiberglass windows. The best ones will outlast any
| hardwood.
|
| - Wouldn't long term exposure of the fiberglass windows to the
| sun weaken the fiberglass (this effect seems to be called
| "Fiber Blooming")?
|
| Finally, do you have any links to share regarding these topics
| for people wanting to build a house but without the technical
| background?
| jacquesm wrote:
| And build it either on bedrock or on a stable sand layer. The
| foundation is key.
| boringg wrote:
| Why do you need shudders for your windows? Is that for
| hurricane/storm protection?
| arethuza wrote:
| Out flat in Edinburgh New Town had built in shutters on the
| _inside_ of sash windows - these were actually really
| effective at helping to keep the place warm - far better and
| easier to care for than curtains.
|
| Edit: I should point out that the Edinburgh New Town is quite
| old, but not as old as the Old Town, obviously.
| LunaSea wrote:
| But wouldn't that be an apples to oranges comparison
| because shutters are fully opaque while curtains are only
| partially opaque?
|
| I would also expect outer shutters to insulate the window a
| little bit and thus limit the heat loss no?
| arethuza wrote:
| "curtains are only partially opaque"
|
| Not any curtain I've ever encountered - people used to
| have net screens for privacy and curtains for warmth. But
| that's going back a bit (i.e. my youth).
| LunaSea wrote:
| Indeed that's what I'm thinking about where the curtains
| are open most of the day but the net screens are always
| closed.
|
| It is still a decently common practice in a lot of
| European countries.
|
| Other option would be to use rolling window shutters on
| the outside.
| DiffEq wrote:
| Yes. And if a window is broken long term (who knows what 1000
| years may bring) the opening can be somewhat protected still
| and easily so.
| jdmichal wrote:
| I think the constraint of expanding the house prevented a build
| like you're suggesting. I personally think it's a silly
| constraint when the plan is already 3000+ sqft, which is larger
| than anything used as non-communal shelter by humans for our
| species' duration.
|
| I also dislike how the author completely punted on insulation.
| I think that's a very important part of any new building. It's
| easy to insulate your proposed design.
| DiffEq wrote:
| Yes, insulation is very important. I actually built this
| house for myself. Took 2.5 years...the insulated concrete
| forms I used have built in insulation for the walls...and for
| the foundation I used special foam around the edges of the
| foundation to help with that. A commenter mentioned elsewhere
| that you would not be able to find contractors to build a
| house like OP designed - that is a true statement even with
| my build and that is why I had to build 90 percent of myself
| (my sons and wife helped too).
| jdmichal wrote:
| That's awesome! It's a dream of mine to someday design my
| own home, though more from an architectural perspective and
| not a technical one like this. Will likely be unrealized,
| though, for financial reasons. Unless I win the lottery or
| something, but it's kind of hard to do that when you don't
| play -\\_(tsu)_/-
| GavinMcG wrote:
| It's "steel" here, and "shutters"
| DiffEq wrote:
| Thanks...fixed.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It still says 'steal'.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Solved problem:
|
| https://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm
| 6510 wrote:
| Nice but no cigar. You start bij looking at structures that
| lasted thousands of years.
|
| So you start with a giant blob of rock (mountain) then carve your
| cave out of it.
|
| Have a reliable source of water nearby and carve out a trompe for
| compressed air. You cant beat a solid state megalithic generator.
|
| For heating you carve out a chicken coop with a thin wall
| bordering the living room.
|
| Use finger paint on the walls to explain how everything works and
| for decoration.
| ctdonath wrote:
| Related resource: https://twitter.com/1000yearhouse
| tigerlily wrote:
| Living in a coastal area and having lived through a couple of big
| earthquakes, what you want is housing that can be recycled or
| composted after a lifetime of around 60 years. Long enough for a
| generation or two and probably 3-4 renovation cycles.
|
| Hurricane Katrina and the Christchurch earthquakes created a lot
| of green spaces afterwards. It was amazing to see a house
| disappear and be replaced by grass before long. Or sometimes just
| an empty section with a letterbox.
|
| In my experience it's better to work with entropy when it comes
| down to it.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| Eh, I'm somewhere in between the article and your reply. You
| need to work with entropy, but you can do that AND have 1000
| year houses by trying to optimize for cheap, locally-sourced
| materials that regular people can work with, and tailoring your
| architecture to the challenges of your region.
|
| I saw a thread on Twitter once about how some old Japanese
| homes are built on stilts that sit on flat rocks. When
| earthquakes happen, at worst the house shifts off the rocks.
| That kind of thing. Don't force a style on a place that can't
| accommodate it.
|
| If a stainless steel beam goes out in 500 years, the people
| living in the area might not be able to replace it. But if it's
| made of wood, you've got a better shot at finding a tree and
| someone who can work with it.
| berkeleynerd wrote:
| Build with stone blocks. Even if it gets knocked over the blocks
| just need to be reassembled to be useful whether as a wall, a
| tower, a road, or another house.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Add some mortar and before you know it you'll just be building
| a house in the traditional way.
| arethuza wrote:
| I actually went on a course a couple of years ago to be
| trained in how to prepare and use traditional lime mortars -
| the course had us building a wall that was going to be
| knocked down and the stones re-used for the next class:
|
| https://www.scotlime.org/
|
| NB I did this because our house is an old Scottish farm
| building that was converted to a house ~12 years ago - I
| wanted to be able to do proper wall repairs and build garden
| walls in the same style.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Neat! I just added a very small section to an existing
| brick wall and I'm super frustrated with the result because
| the original wall had it's bricks in the weirdest lines and
| I had the choice of following them or trying to improve it.
| I tried the latter and ended up with something that was
| less bad than it could have been but it still isn't
| perfectly level at the top so I'll have to do some
| improvisation to make the connection to the ceiling.
|
| If you see experienced bricklayers at work, the speed with
| which they go and the perfection of the result then that's
| always a good reminder that plenty of the 'trades' that IT
| people tend to look down on are actually highly skilled
| professions that can take the better part of a lifetime to
| master.
| peter303 wrote:
| Lets see, Bill Gate's 1990s house had ethernet ports and a 512K
| screen on every wall. Perhaps he should have consulted Gordon
| Moore (still alive) first.
| mvaliente2001 wrote:
| Thank you very much for sharing this. In more of one occasion
| I've asked myself this exact question, even if for only as a
| thought experiment.
| jandrese wrote:
| One thing he didn't mention in the location section: Make sure
| your spot is at least 20 meters above sea level. Not only do you
| need to account for the ground subsisting, but you also need to
| account for sea level rise. I wouldn't put it near moving water
| larger than a creek at all, riverbanks can shift over time and so
| can coastlines.
|
| His suggestion to build in New York City is a bit dubious in a
| future where we may be forced to abandon the city due to
| flooding.
| dekhn wrote:
| What's more important? Building a house that lasts a thousand
| years, or building a culture that lasts 1000 years and can build
| houses on demand?
| postalrat wrote:
| How to build a house that lasts 1000 years: tunnel into stable
| hard rock.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| This might work in a universe with spherical cows but they seem
| to hand wave away all human elements. My eyes rolled a loop in my
| head when they advised an urban location. That's a great way to
| ensure it gets demolished when a marginally better use for the
| land comes along.
|
| If it were me I'd just build some monstrosity of a palace in
| somewhere that nobody wants such a thing and I'd build it out of
| stuff that's highly inefficient to repurpose, not steel beams.
| The best way to keep something around is to make its continued
| use better than any other option so that people take care of it
| and give it the capacity to withstand a couple generations of
| neglect without falling in on itself. A castle (metaphorical or
| literal) on some cheap land along the highway in North Dakota
| should suffice.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I would expect a southwest desert to be better than North
| Dakota. Fewer freeze/thaw cycles while wet, and milder weather.
|
| But yes.
| [deleted]
| rsync wrote:
| This is a very odd design document and it makes me think this
| author has _thought_ a lot about materials and buildings but not
| _actually built anything_.
|
| The steel moment frame, to someone with shallow knowledge,
| _sounds so strong and resilient_. But in fact, a rigid steel
| structure is more vulnerable to seismic (and even wind) loads
| than wooden framing which can flex and move and dampen those
| loads naturally.
|
| The _stainless_ spec for the frame is just pure silliness.
| Looking at my notes now, for steel beams _buried in the ground_ :
| 200 microns of rust per year in very aggressive soils, but it
| rusts on both sides, so make that 400 microns.
|
| ... which means that it takes ~25 years to rust through _naked_ 3
| /8 steel _buried in the most aggressive soils_.
|
| ... which also means that unburied steel, protected from
| elements, up in the air, is going to last more than 1000 years.
|
| Oh, and also, the SS is more brittle so you've made your seismic
| issues _even worse_.
|
| ...
|
| If I had an unlimited budget and was aiming for >1000 years I
| would pour the piles to bedrock with stainless rebar inside fly-
| ash concrete and top those pilings with plate connectors into
| which you could socket large wooden columns (perhaps 8x8) and
| build the structure with large wooden members connected with
| steel connectors and column caps, etc.
|
| I would only use steel members if the span called for wood that
| was too big (like a 24' span needing a 8x14 or whatever).
| mikewarot wrote:
| Steel beams buried in the ground, no matter what they're made
| of, are going to rot away quite rapidly if they contact any
| other metal, due to galvanic corrosion. I think you'd be better
| off with basalt fiber reinforced concrete for anything going in
| the ground. It's going to be strong, and it won't rot.
| entangledqubit wrote:
| There is also basalt rebar. Last I checked, some building
| codes allow equivalent 1:1 tradeoff with classic rebar - even
| though the basalt rebar is stronger.
|
| From what I understand, basalt rebar does not have the usual
| problem of regular rebar where oxidizing (rust) expansion can
| cause cracking in concrete. Additionally, the temperature
| expansion rates are much closer (rebar vs concrete).
|
| My main hesitation would be that it is relatively new so we
| don't have that much data on how well it ages. Overall, it
| seems better than rebar classic by far (other than cost -
| which hasn't been scaled) - but I don't build structures for
| a living.
| tzs wrote:
| > If I had an unlimited budget and was aiming for >1000 years I
| would pour the piles to bedrock with stainless rebar inside
| fly-ash concrete and top those pilings with plate connectors
| into which you could socket large wooden columns (perhaps 8x8)
| and build the structure with large wooden members connected
| with steel connectors and column caps, etc.
|
| Are there any existing buildings constructed that way that have
| stood for >1000 years?
|
| If not, my approach would be to copy an existing building that
| has stood for >1000 years in a region that has had several of
| the same kind of natural disasters that happen at the place I'm
| going to be building.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I would certainly use wood, and then just design it like the
| Japanese do for their old buildings, which are continuously
| repaired and after 1000 years you would still have the same
| home but it would be a Ship of Theseus type of situation.
| Wood has been used for building for thousands of years, and I
| _wood_ imagine that humanity will forever be using wood for
| building, so there is a small chance you would lose the
| knowledge of how to build with it.
| frnkng wrote:
| Unfortunately German only: https://www.rheingau.de/sehenswert
| es/sehenswuerdigkeiten/gra...
|
| The oldest stone house of germany, ca. 1k years old. The wood
| is dated to 1035..1075 ad.
|
| But Im sure that house is pretty young for Italian or
| Egyptian standards...
| abainbridge wrote:
| York Minster in England is mostly 1000 years old. There are
| some nice stories about how it handled a serious fire in 1984
| here, (starting about 18 minutes in)
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0007pws. eg, the 2000 year
| old Roman drainage system got used for the first time in 1000
| years because lots of water got inside the building from the
| fire hoses.
|
| When rebuilding it, they had to decide whether to remake it
| in the same way it was originally, or to use a modern
| approach. They decided to use oak beams again because of lack
| of evidence about what happens to steel structures after
| hundreds of years. But then they couldn't find any oak trees
| big enough.
| tempestn wrote:
| Could be prone to some survivorship bias.
| maxwell86 wrote:
| Sure, but what's the alternative?
|
| Dig out all other buildings that failed over the last 1000
| years, figure out how they failed and why, and take action?
|
| You can just copy what is known to work instead.
| hwillis wrote:
| Or like, look at any of the million dilapidated houses
| and realize that 1. most houses leak at some point and 2.
| termites eat wood. Then conclude that actually, maybe
| .0001% of wood houses lasting for 1000 years is not
| actually good evidence that wood is a material that
| easily lasts 1000 years. Then think twice about using
| wood.
|
| Personally I'd a concrete dome:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome
| skylanh wrote:
| > author has thought a lot about materials and buildings
|
| > but not actually built anything.
|
| That was my impression. As soon as they started talking about
| unenforced concrete pilings (drilled? monopile?) to bedrock and
| stressed steel framing I wasn't certain I would enjoy anymore
| or that it was a good use of my time.
|
| I think costs at this stage are unrealistically low "probably
| in the neighborhood of $1000-2000 per square foot ... (8 to 16
| times as much as conventional construction)". ~$250-400 sq ft
| is the cost of modern labour expediated and material optimized
| building. They're describing stainless steel framing with what
| would be (what?) 316 SS in S-beam with a custom end plate? A
| blob of rolled 1" x 6' 316 SS is $200.
|
| There are the examples we could draw from:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_known_surviving...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans
|
| Material wise we'd look at clay, solid high-density rocks, non-
| ferrous metals (lead, aluminum, copper, tin), dense naturally
| mold resistant woods (cedar, redwood), high density with high
| oil content woods (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignum_vitae),
| and easily replaceable sacrificial surfaces, dirt with live
| plant, cobble rock.
|
| Building techniques aren't going to improve with technology, we
| already have examples that have lasted -- we're looking at
| building a heap temple with ancient style water and sewers.
| This is either a rock temple or a log-house with highly
| resistant woods.
|
| Either we aim for a light-weight footprint or we find solid
| rock for building on. Solid rock is the most appropriate.
|
| Our fasteners are all based on managing gravity. Rock with
| concave and convex connections under gravity. Wood pegs in non-
| load bearing configurations. Lead sheets with crimped folded
| seams. Solid copper sheet trays with crimped folded seams in
| rock trays.
|
| The first thought should be "what happens if I drive a truck
| into the side of this building 10 times?" And the answer should
| be "not much, you move a few things around, but there is
| limited stressed coupling, and things rest on top of each
| other." If you do substantially damage the building, all you
| should be doing is reassembling the pile.
|
| I called the author out for not having built anything, and in
| honesty, I haven't built using these ancient approaches, so,
| perhaps this is a self-destructing prophecy.
| lstodd wrote:
| No you're right.
|
| Stainless steel is insane, in those conditions it will
| corrode in several decades, if not faster.
|
| Foundation is just laughable, it won't last 200 years, much
| less 1000.
|
| Like you say, a structured pile of rocks with everything else
| easily replaceable is the recipe.
|
| The question actually should be not of a several truck hits,
| but of several fires, like, complete burnouts. That's what
| would happen in 1000 years.
| Animats wrote:
| _" rigid steel structure"_
|
| Steel is springy. Tall steel-framed buildings and bridges
| routinely sway in wind, which is usually harmless to the
| structure but annoying to occupants. Unless you get harmonic
| oscillation, where the energy stored in the motion builds up,
| which can be a problem and has destroyed bridges. Much of
| seismic design involves connections which raise the resonant
| frequency of the structure so it can't oscillate at a low
| frequency with high amplitude. That's what those triangular
| reinforcement beams one sees in San Francisco really do. It's
| also what all those rectangular trusses under the Golden Gate
| Bridge do. Those were a retrofit.
|
| Wood's flexibility usually causes problems at joints. Nailed
| joints are not very strong in tension. Most construction today
| in areas with earthquakes or high winds involves metal
| reinforcement of joints. There's a collection of galvanized
| sheet metal parts for that at any Home Depot.
|
| Tension joints for wood are seen in classic Japanese
| construction, in boats, and in cabinetry. Not so much in modern
| houses, partly because they work better in hardwood. I wonder
| if, in the next installment, the author will discuss those.
| clairity wrote:
| > "Steel is springy. Tall steel-framed buildings and bridges
| routinely sway in wind, which is usually harmless to the
| structure but annoying to occupants."
|
| exactly, i recently mentioned my swaying-in-an-earthquake
| story[0], which was in a class A (steel+concrete) highrise
| office building. driving steel into the ground doesn't
| automatically mean it will rot and/or break in the first
| earthquake/windstorm that hits, even if that's a general
| possibility, given that engineers do think about that stuff
| when designing buildings. the gp comment is classic bullshit,
| plausible sounding but unconcerned with truth.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29665129
| rsync wrote:
| You misunderstood my comment about steel in the ground ...
| I was trying to convince the OP that they _don 't_ need to
| worry about the corrosion since _even in terrible
| circumstances_ the steel still lasts quite a while.
|
| With regard to your skyscraper experience:
|
| I'm not sure this is an apples-to-apples comparison.
|
| Skyscrapers are not made of skyscraper-height columns -
| they are a stack of elements that are connected every X
| height that has a well known flex per connection. It's also
| (hopefully) a uniform flex at every connection.
|
| But a smaller building would, indeed, have unbroken steel
| members (like a column) and you might "successfully"
| connect them to one another with an incredible amount of
| rigidity.
|
| It will either be _tremendously strong_ throughout (good
| for you) or there will be some tiny piece of the chain that
| isn 't as strong and can fail.
|
| I would be confident attempting this on a very small
| building.
|
| I would be hesitant to attempt this on a medium, two-story
| building. I would want wood framing.
|
| For aesthetic reasons, I would want that wood framing to be
| big timbers. I'd rather spend my money on those than on
| stainless steel roof framing :)
| clairity wrote:
| gotcha, my bad for misconstruing your point. joint
| strength relative to span strength is definitely a non-
| obvious issue to the average home owner-builder.
|
| i also vastly prefer wood/mass timber for aesthetic
| reasons. mass timber has better burn characteristics than
| steel, and i'd recently read that builders are actually
| starting to surround steel columns with cross-laminated
| timber (rather than concrete) for that reason[0], while
| providing greater strength/flexibility and better
| aesthetics. that's probably what i'd want if money were
| no object.
|
| [0]: mentioned in this article, but i'd read more about
| it elsewhere: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-
| environment/2020/1/15/2105805...
|
| p.s. - i've also daydreamed about building warehouse
| style: a separate steel superstructure for the roof
| integrating solar panels and solar heating, with a simple
| stick-built house underneath.
| rsync wrote:
| "... and i'd recently read that builders are actually
| starting to surround steel columns with cross-laminated
| timber ..."
|
| Somewhat relevant - might interest you:
|
| https://easternwhitepine.org/this-office-buildings-
| wooden-fr...
|
| TAMedia office building in Zurich.
| ggcdn wrote:
| Rigidity is good for some things and bad for others. In
| seismic design, inertial forces tend to decrease as
| structures become more flexible (Good!). But the
| consequence is that things move more (Bad!) meaning that
| all the nonstructural things get damaged - drywall,
| chimney, ceilings, etc. If things move too much, they
| also are subject to various types of degradation -
| yielding, fatigue, etc.
|
| The other structural aspect not mentioned in the above
| discussion is strength. You can trivially get an order of
| magnitude more strength than required by even the
| harshest of loads using steel in a small structure like
| this. The same cannot be said about wood. For instance, a
| single 3/4" A325 bolt will be able to resist about
| 40,000lb shear or 70,000lb tension. The entire base shear
| of this size of structure in a code-design earthquake
| would be somewhere around 4,000lb.
| Animats wrote:
| _they are a stack of elements that are connected every X
| height that has a well known flex per connection. It 's
| also (hopefully) a uniform flex at every connection._
|
| The flex is supposed to be in the beams, not the
| connections. Stress concentration is bad. Here's an
| intro.[1] Beams are easy to analyze, and tend to meet
| their specs, while connections are hard to analyze, and
| are subject to construction mistakes.
|
| The January 1994 Northridge CA earthquake caused damage
| at beam-to-column connections in steel moment resisting
| frames. That got a lot of attention. Few buildings
| collapsed, but a lot of joints needed to be fixed or
| reinforced.[2] Welded flanges with bolts turned out to be
| weaker than expected.
|
| Now, there's a style of construction where all the joints
| are rotational. That's seen in older truss bridges.[3] In
| classic designs, all components are in pure compression
| or pure tension. This shows in the construction; the
| tension components are flat plates or cables, and the
| joints are big steel pins. Those are easy to analyze, and
| if you take a statics class, that's a homework
| assignment. Popular for railroad bridges.
|
| But building skeletons aren't usually built that way.
| They usually have rigid connections. You do see some
| buildings with lots of diagonals and pin joints. Long
| span roof trusses, which are a lot like bridges, are
| often built that way. Look at buildings with large
| atriums and you'll often see pin joints.
|
| [1]
| https://www.thestructuralmadness.com/2014/04/possible-
| types-...
|
| [2] https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/IR/nistir562
| 5.pdf
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truss_bridge
| nashashmi wrote:
| Rigidity is actually a variable. rigid in the simplest of
| definition does mean no springy action. Rigid through various
| fixed connectors implies some spring like behaviors.
|
| This is my favorite topic and I could go on and on about
| this. Point: it is a matter of precise definition. How rigid
| are we talking?
| alex_sf wrote:
| But everything is a spring.
| archontes wrote:
| Literally everything. Harmonic oscillators all the way
| down.
| jahewson wrote:
| > That's what those triangular reinforcement beams one sees
| in San Francisco really do.
|
| Interestingly enough that's not quite right. They were added
| in response to the Tacoma Narrows collapse which was not, as
| is popularly misstated, destroyed by harmonic resonance but
| by aerostatic flutter.
|
| Certainly resonance due to cars or pedestrians can damage a
| bridge, but that's a separate issue.
| Animats wrote:
| Right. But you have to have a structure capable of long-
| period oscillation to be vulnerable to that particular
| problem. That's an inherent problem for long span bridges,
| but a building has to have a big unsupported span to be
| vulnerable to that problem. Sports stadium scale, though...
| All that potential lift.
| rsync wrote:
| I would agree that connections should be steel - I like the
| thick gauge, heavy duty simpson connectors, plates and column
| caps, etc., which allow you to lock in beams and columns with
| 3/4 machine bolts, etc.:
|
| https://www.strongtie.com/boltedcolumncaps_columncaps/cct_ca.
| ..
| roywiggins wrote:
| I'd carve it out of a cave somewhere.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/anglo-saxon-cave-house-sc...
| strken wrote:
| The dugouts in Coober Pedy are a modern example of this. I'll
| bet they're still there in 1000 years, albeit with damage to
| the exterior facades.
| hwillis wrote:
| With .5" of monthly rainfall and nearly no seismic or
| insect activity to speak of, you could make _any_ house in
| Coober Pedy last nearly forever.
| rrobukef wrote:
| Here is a testimonial about a modern cave home:
| https://dengarden.com/misc/The-Pitfalls-of-an-Underground-
| Ho...
| tyingq wrote:
| >makes me think this author has thought a lot about materials
| and buildings but not actually built anything
|
| Here's an interview with the author:
| https://on.substack.com/p/what-to-read-construction-physics and
| his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-
| potter-6a082150
|
| Anything's possible, of course, but he does seem to have the
| right credentials and experience for the subject matter.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Agreed on the design.
|
| I worked in a post and beam barn built in the 1600s. It will be
| there in 2200. Basically, if you need the roof maintained and
| those buildings will last forever.
|
| Personally, I'd do a stone foundation with post and beam. Over
| 1000 years, luck and location mean more anyway. Chances are the
| building will be flattened by a war or other calamity over that
| timeline.
| rlaanemets wrote:
| I would like to know more reasoning behind choosing a frame
| without diagonals. I have had to repair many old garages and
| shacks which had wooden frame but lacked diagonals. Often we
| had to push them upright and brace the frame with diagonals to
| avoid problems in the future.
|
| A cube-like building frame without diagonals or shear walls is
| unstable and does not sound so strong or resilient at all.
| clairity wrote:
| in a typical wood-frame wall, it's (usually) plywood nailed
| to the studs that acts to resist shear forces. you shouldn't
| need diagonal cross-members, unless there's not enough
| structural plywood cladding or not enough studding.
| voisin wrote:
| > I would only use steel members if the span called for wood
| that was too big (like a 24' span needing a 8x14 or whatever).
|
| What about laminated timber to achieve these spans?
| phkahler wrote:
| >> If I had an unlimited budget and was aiming for >1000 years
| I would pour the piles to bedrock with stainless rebar...
|
| Yeah they reject reinforced concrete, but the reason it doesn't
| last is the type of rebar used. To then site stainless later
| seems odd. IMHO our roads need to be built with stainless
| rebar.
| avereveard wrote:
| > If I had an unlimited budget
|
| at some point on the price scale you can just build a titanium
| cast for a house and pour molten rocks in, probably a basalt.
| what's the yield strength of igneous rocks? maybe the roof need
| to be arched.
| MR4D wrote:
| So, a cave in a basalt mountain then.
|
| I like your thinking. ;)
| samstave wrote:
| What are the load-baring capabilities of a Basalt Cave
| during the Apocalypse?
|
| /MontyPython style...
| sedatk wrote:
| Is that a European basalt cave, or African?
| titanomachy wrote:
| Is that something that we've actually done at any kind of
| scale?
| wongarsu wrote:
| Many cold war bunkers are kind of like this, but using rock
| that's already in-situ: start with solid rock (either in a
| mountain or in bedrock), remove some of it, in the cavity
| add linings of concrete, copper and steel to enhance
| properties as desired (copper for better EM shielding).
| samstave wrote:
| On a global scale, probably, yes... but I'm either 1 or 0
| correct.
| gridspy wrote:
| Well, we've done it with concrete tents [1].
|
| It seems plausable you could begin with that kind of
| shelter and use that as a basis for further reinforcement.
|
| [1] https://www.concretecanvas.com/cc-shelters/
| Anon1096 wrote:
| Not the same, but the Pyramids of Giza are essentially huge
| rock houses. I don't think they provide very modern
| amenities though :)
| entangledqubit wrote:
| Maybe tungsten molds instead?
| HPsquared wrote:
| Titanium is quite expensive though; a house made from
| titanium likely would be broken up and stolen for the scrap
| value.
| hwillis wrote:
| Okay, so your step #1 for building a 1000 year house is to
| just... have a house that never has any leaks or termites? I
| can see some issues.
|
| If you want something to last, you plan for when it _does_ go
| wrong. You should be designing a house that survives _ten_
| once-in-a-century floods and storms. Freezing pipes. Hot and
| cold. Termites, carpenter ants, mice.
|
| > ... which also means that unburied steel, protected from
| elements, up in the air, is going to last more than 1000 years.
|
| Rust is protective. That's why cars can rust so quickly,
| because vibration breaks the rust flakes off and exposes steel
| to more air and water. Steel beams are subject to bending and
| vibration. Steel buried underground is not. A larger problem is
| also that rust is expansive. I'm not positive what you mean by
| plate connectors, but nailed tie plates push their nails out
| over time. Screws and bolts work fine.
|
| The biggest problem comes with using treated wood and steel
| together. Treated wood, even the non-arsenic ones, use copper
| compounds. That causes galvanic corrosion. It'll even eat
| through zinc-coated steel. Galvanized steel is enough for at
| least a couple decades, but I have no idea about a millenium.
| t_minus_4 wrote:
| Build a pyramid and call it a day ...
| pharke wrote:
| They forgot the most important part about making a structure last
| 1000 years: it cannot be made of materials that people would
| conceivably want to repurpose in times of duress _or_ those
| materials should be in such a form that it is extremely difficult
| to remove them from the structure. This is how many historical
| buildings were lost, they were mined for stone to use in other
| structures. It 's also how many modern buildings get ruined by
| people looking to sell the copper wiring or pipe, and that's in a
| politically stable era.
|
| A better strategy would be to build the house from massive blocks
| of the most common stone in the area. The blocks should be large
| enough that they would require significant effort to move or
| demolish. I wouldn't recommend using any metal in the structure
| of the house at all. Even wood could be conceivably stripped in
| times of need.
| jerf wrote:
| "We're also taking something of a risk using something as
| valuable as stainless steel - a common failure mode for
| buildings is for valuable material to be ripped out and
| repurposed. This can range from looters ripping the copper
| piping out of a house to sell for scrap, to Londoners reusing
| the stones from ruined Roman buildings, to countries at war
| melting down building components to make munitions. I don't see
| an obvious way of addressing this problem - the risks of
| corrosion we're avoiding with stainless steel seems like it's
| worth the tradeoff, and covering it with masonry or concrete
| seems like it would make it less likely on the margin. But this
| is another reason not to use something as durable as Inconel -
| the value of the material would likely exceed the value of the
| building, which is inherently risky for long-term survival."
| pharke wrote:
| Missed it, thanks. I still take issue with the design. I
| think over 1000 years the risk is much higher than they
| imagine.
| jerf wrote:
| All you can really do is minimize it. You can't eliminate
| it. I mean, you can't even tell me whether humans will
| exist in 500 years, or whether intelligent non-humans will
| be running around (doesn't even have to be "aliens", humans
| will create them), or what. Trying to second guess how
| people will valuate things in 900 years is a joke.
| jcadam wrote:
| Centuries-old wooden buildings have the advantage of being made
| from old-growth wood, which isn't available to modern builders.
|
| My current house is made out of logs. We'll see how long it
| lasts, though I suppose I won't be around to see it in 1000
| years.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Constructing a building that would last 1000 years is not
| particularly hard with modern engineering and materials.
|
| The hard part is, first and foremost, getting someone to pay for
| it. I'm not going to live 1000 years. My great grandkids likely
| won't even live to see the year 3022. Why would I spend orders of
| magnitude more for a house if a structure meant to last ~100
| years serves my needs perfectly?
|
| My friend just needed to redo the foundation on his house. He
| could have spent 10-100x what he needed to and installed a
| reinforced concrete foundation with deep steel pylons. But that
| would have been a waste of his money when wooden peirs works just
| as well for all his intents & purposes.
|
| The second problem is making sure people want to maintain the
| structure for 1000 years, or at least not tear it down. I don't
| think this is as hard as the other comentors are saying, though.
| Just don't build the house in a city. The house will be torn down
| if it's in a city. The house has a good chance of staying a house
| if it's built out in the countryside on a decent plot of land.
| Nobody will ever want anything from that structure but to live in
| it, so it will be maintained.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| You and your grandchildren are only so relevant.
|
| I for one adore walking around built up areas where the
| original builders thought further than that. There is beauty in
| solid houses. They carry history. An old part of town tells so
| many stories. They embed culture and provide some degree of
| continuity.
|
| The initial cost is higher. But your grandchildren can sell it.
| Many generations can profit from an existing building. Floor
| plans can be adjusted to some degree and modern comforts added
| at any time.
|
| A flimsy plywood house built to be replaced in 15 years is an
| expensive tent. It is nothing.
| ghaff wrote:
| >The second problem is making sure people want to maintain the
| structure for 1000 years, or at least not tear it down. I don't
| think this is as hard as the other comentors are saying,
| though. Just don't build the house in a city.
|
| I live in about a 200 year old house but it has been
| extensively reworked over its lifetime including by me. And
| given that it's on a nice piece of exurban property it's hardly
| a stretch to imagine someone in that time deciding a teardown
| just made more sense than all the upgrades that have taken
| place over that period. Just as one example it presumably
| didn't have indoor plumbing when the first part of the house
| was built.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| There's a bit of a question about how much of the house is
| actually left from 200 years ago.
|
| My house was technically built in 1897 but was moved in the
| 1920s on to a new foundation and we basically knocked the
| entire thing down and rebuilt it a few years ago after we
| bought it. Now we're adding to it again. It shares some of
| the DNA of that house from 1897 but basically none of the
| parts anymore and is much nicer looking whilst keeping the
| old timey style.
| ghaff wrote:
| Probably not much.
|
| My contractor for a couple of big renovations I did figured
| that the 4x4-ish posts on the first floor were probably
| original along with at least some of the subflooring (about
| half of which I redid because it was collapsing). We think
| there was a substantial addition (probably including a
| second floor) around 1900. That's when the demolished barn
| on the now adjacent property dated to.
|
| The house I grew up in was similar. It dated to either the
| 1700s or possibly even late 1600s. But the original house
| was just two rooms (two stories) built into the side of a
| hill.
| bkfunk wrote:
| Mentioned earlier in the series:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
| azalemeth wrote:
| I grew up in a 600 year old house. That isn't particularly
| unusual in the part of the UK I was born in. The village
| church is 1200 years old. There's a chapel not too far away
| that dates from around 600 AD.
|
| We're not going to change it much. We fix it when it breaks.
|
| Most of North America (or at least, the bits I've visited)
| seems to be fixated with new buildings of sometimes
| questionable construction standards, and they tend to get
| replaced fairly regularly. One of my Canadian friends told me
| that "People prefer to live in new houses". Here, the
| opposite is much more common.
| kleiba wrote:
| It's funny - I grew up in a country with the same mentality
| as in the UK. But I've now come around a bit more toward
| the American approach: I still see the merit in preserving
| history but besides that, what is a good argument for
| constructing a house to last for a very long time? See,
| whenever you buy an older house and start renovating it,
| more often than not you start running into unexpected
| things that need to be updated. Partly because the original
| construction may have been especially shoddy (think post-
| war years), but even for houses that are younger than that,
| changes in the building code often require updates to the
| building.
|
| But then, why did the code change in the first place? Some
| cynics will say "so that they can keep making money" but
| most of the times it is to synchronize with changes that
| have happened all around is, including the development of
| new materials, gained knowledge about the impact of natural
| factors (not only in earth quake regions), and - in our
| generation - increased expectations regarding energy
| consumption (insulation).
|
| All the old houses that do not undergo renovation are way
| out of sync with modern considerations that manifest
| themselves in any current building code. So why not tear
| down a house after 100 years and build a new one from
| scratch? That process is, of course, quite a bit simpler
| for the more light-weight wooden houses in North America.
|
| A lot of the construction snobism in Europe against
| American construction standards is unfounded. As far as
| residential homes are concerned, I don't believe that there
| are many advantages of brick constructions over wooden
| framing besides better soundproofing for most intents and
| purposes.
|
| Of course, one important thing to consider in this
| discussion is the availability of land: in North America,
| outside of the big cities, there is still plenty of land
| available for building new building while Old Europe is
| already pretty tightly built up. A lot of the land is in
| private hands and often unlikely to be turned into lots.
| Plus, for North America with its car-centric developments,
| it's easier to find usable unoccupied land that will not
| force you into crazy long commutes. This is more difficult
| in some parts of Europe, where the ratio of people to
| square foot of land is much higher.
| osullivj wrote:
| A house, or any other infrastructure. IMHO a big factor
| in America's capacity for reinvention and renewal is not
| being saddled with infrastructure designed to last for
| centuries. Disclose: I live and work in England, love old
| buildings and own a 19th Century home made from Malvern
| Stone.
| cafard wrote:
| What do you get with new houses? Well, you get wiring, with
| outlets conveniently located. You get modern plumbing. You
| ought to get good insulation.
|
| You may not get good design, you may get shoddy
| construction, true.
| azalemeth wrote:
| This is all true (although not all old houses are poorly
| insulated -- the ~60 cm of thatch and wattle and daub
| construction also is surprisingly good at insulation. It
| even comes complete with Tudor-era built in biomass
| heating!).
|
| I think a lot of the bad press that goes on about new
| builds in the UK at least at the moment are due to
| "chicken coop Barrett Homes", i.e. a large developer
| building the largest number of houses possible with the
| cheapest construction method. There are horror stories in
| the tabloid press of people buying houses from ~2000 that
| are starting to have major structural problems, or have
| other major flaws. The rooms are meaner in size and there
| is a lot of resentment about developers making ~PS300k
| profit on each property (and building ~200 of them at a
| go).
|
| Obviously, there's a massive selection / survival bias
| here. Bad homes are more likely to be demolished. Good
| homes are more likely to survive.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > The house will be torn down if it's in a city
|
| The world is varied, it's not just a copycat of the terrible
| design affecting US cities.
|
| One example? I live in Venice, Italy. The city is 1,600 years
| old. Most houses and palazzos are at least 400 years old; a big
| chunk of them is at least 600-700 years old. No one is going to
| tear down these places. And no, rising sea levels will not
| destroy Venice (see the MOSE dam [0], which is working, despite
| the big corruption scandals).
|
| Besides Venice, which I'd agree it's a rather unique place,
| many other places in the world consist of small/medium towns,
| not huge megalopolis where a small house will be tore down to
| make space for a skyscraper.
|
| Finally: I'd love to build a house that will last 1,000 years.
| Even if my great-great-great-grandkids will not be around to
| see it.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mose
| dahfizz wrote:
| > Finally: I'd love to build a house that will last 1,000
| years. Even if my great-great-great-grandkids will not be
| around to see it.
|
| I mean yeah, in the abstract I think anyone would agree. I
| would also love to be able to build a 1000 year house. But it
| costs a tremendous amount of money, and there are things
| higher on my priority list than the status of a structure 900
| years after my death. Until you fork up the cash for it, my
| point stands.
| perth wrote:
| a good society is one where old men plant trees who's shade
| they'll never sit in
| [deleted]
| tiredofU2 wrote:
| zokier wrote:
| > The hard part is, first and foremost, getting someone to pay
| for it.
|
| Isn't that merely a matter of establishing a foundation/trust
| fund arrangement with the explicit purpose of maintaining the
| building? Of course you need enough capital so that it can
| sustain itself indefinitely through low-risk investments, but
| that is just the nature of the game.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I don't think anything 'modern' is needed.
|
| There are Roman building still standing and many of those which
| no longer are are so because they were abandoned and/or
| 'recycled'. Buildings like for instance Notre Dame de Paris are
| 800+ years old.
|
| A thick stone structure seems to do the job fine.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Its easy to overlook the constant maintenance and repair
| these historical buildings get. Thick stone buildings are
| definitely sturdy, but I still maintain that modern
| technology makes it significantly easier to make a 1000 year
| building.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The money part of this treatise is the steel frame, right? As
| they stated, things like warehouses and other buildings get
| reused because the steel frame is still useful regardless of
| the other stuff.
|
| The foundation actually seems to be a danger point. I don't
| know much about pylons/stilts for foundations, but it would
| seem a better plan because you can adjust those for the life of
| the structure, can't you? And the design called for a lifted
| first floor/crawlspace anyway.
|
| And that would enable a basement.
|
| American cities rebuild everything. There's at a minimum 500
| year houses and buildings in most European bustling cities.
|
| Which means, I guess, that the structure and its surrounding
| structures should be integrated and beautiful.
| duxup wrote:
| I grew up in a semi rural area. In the more rural area it was
| not uncommon to have on old farmhouse rotting and a new house
| next to it.
|
| At some point those folks wanted a new house and presumably the
| cost of what they wanted to remodel was close enough to new
| that they built news.
|
| The available space that you note can also facilitate just
| building a new house.
| ghaff wrote:
| I live in an old farmhouse on some nice land. I've done
| fairly extensive renovations after obviously no money being
| put into the house for a good fifty years. And it works for
| me.
|
| It's also "quirky" in a lot of ways including a basement that
| still tends to get wet and having one small bathroom and no
| way to easily add another one. I can imagine a _lot_ of
| potential buyers saying "Love the location but the house has
| got to go." (The person I bought the house from actually
| bought the property for the land. He built a new much larger
| house on one of the two plots he subdivided from the original
| property.)
| MichaelApproved wrote:
| > _My friend just needed to redo the foundation on his house.
| He could have spent 10-100x what he needed to and installed a
| reinforced concrete foundation with deep steel pylons. But that
| would have been a waste of his money when wooden peirs works
| just as well for all his intents & purposes._
|
| Is your friend Grady from Practical Engineering? His latest
| episode talks about foundations and replacing the old wooden
| piers holding up his house
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_KhihMIOG8
|
| Also reminds me of the classic phrase "Any idiot can build a
| bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge
| that barely stands."
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Yeah, unless I' rich and thinking about building my family
| somewhere, I wouldn't even touch this idea. And even I do, I'll
| probably purchase an old, but good-standing building and
| heavily renovate it. Modern technology also provides means to
| strengthen the foundation and weight-bearing part of the
| building.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Putting it in London (or any other giant city) seems like a good
| way to have it demolished as soon as possible
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I hate to be a stuck in the mud, but a concrete pad, with
| unreinforced piles is not going to last a 1000 years. those piles
| are going to be impossible to repair without breaking the slab,
| or undermining, which means it's expensive to maintain. (yes
| Roman concrete has lasted 1k years, but thats a different type to
| the cement they use now.)
|
| The other thing that they've not managed to control is moisture.
| You can't mix and match steel with lime mortar (I mean you can,
| but its not wise) You can just put a moisture barrier in there,
| but you need a way to maintain that (its not like a damp proof
| course, its far more extensive).
|
| Personally if you want to make a house last 1k years, just make a
| clay lump house. It'll be far cheaper to build, look more
| realistic and much more well understood how to repair it.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Have they ever figured out how the Romans made concrete and got
| away with not using rebar ???.
| hguant wrote:
| Yes - basically, high quantities of volcanic ash act as a
| much stronger binder than is currently used/available now,
| and the chemistry of the cement they used meant that as it
| aged it got stronger.
|
| Tangentially - it's not that we can't make concrete that way,
| it's that for many structures we're building of concrete,
| building to last 100+ years is over kill, and would increase
| costs drastically for a building or structure that will most
| likely be torn down before it reaches its life expectancy.
| jandrese wrote:
| My making the walls incredibly thick, not having large
| overhangs, and having the foresight to build an empire in a
| seismically dead area.
| joatmon-snoo wrote:
| Yes, the research came out a few years ago: https://pubs.geos
| cienceworld.org/msa/ammin/article/102/7/143...
|
| tl;dr: we took a long time to realize that the Romans didn't
| use potable water, they used saltwater; the volcanic ash they
| had access to was also very important
| coryrc wrote:
| They only used the arch, so everything was in compression.
| Rebar gives concrete tensile strength.
| fumblebee wrote:
| The author cites London as being a desirable city given the
| historical lack of disasters, steady government, and cultural
| preference for preservation etc. London was also my first thought
| as a safe haven for a long lasting build.
|
| On the other hand, I can't help but feel London would be an
| obvious target for nuclear annihilation in some future conflict;
| UK commerce / industry / power / wealth is deeply centralised in
| London.
|
| A better option would be to stick to the UK, but maybe a 100
| miles outside of London proper.
| surfingdino wrote:
| Please build it somewhere else. We have enough eyesores in
| London, don't need another one. Also, based on evidence, houses
| that last ~1000 years are typically built from stone (see
| Italy, South of France, Spain, Greece, Portugal) with easily
| replaceable wooden roof, ceilings.
| notahacker wrote:
| Never mind the small possibility of nukes (think my house
| surviving would be the least of my concerns for humanity then),
| London has the highest value land in the country and most of
| 1000 year old London is buried several feet below much newer
| and bigger buildings. Pretty much any smaller UK town that
| isn't threatened by coastal erosion, flooding or mining
| subsidence offers better survival prospects.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Venice has been around for ages and it is just brick houses build
| on top of a lot of tree trunks driven into a lake and wooden
| platforms with stone on top - no complex engineering here.
|
| I think the biggest issue having a house lasting is doing
| constant preventative maintenance or swapping out bits with more
| modern longer lasting bits e.g replaced all wooden window frames
| with aluminum.
| akeck wrote:
| Building Science Fight Club (I follow on IG. There's also a
| website.) has made me skeptical about these kinds of articles.
| There's a ton of nuance to doing construction correctly for the
| particular environment one is building in.
| yourusername wrote:
| I doubt this house would make it to 50 years in places with a
| moderate climate. The lack of insulation makes it way too
| expensive to use as a dwelling or office (ignoring that you could
| not get a building permit in many places because it would not be
| able to meet energy efficiency guidelines). It is mentioned as a
| detail to be worked out but it is a critical detail. Around here
| not being able to be made energy efficient in a cost effective
| way is one of the main reasons old houses are torn down. It will
| be torn down long before it has a chance to become historical.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| > Adding interior insulation makes the house much more
| comfortable, but also changes the thermal dynamics, potentially
| causing freeze/thaw damage in the brick, and allowing moisture
| to accumulate between the brick and the insulation. This is one
| of the many details that would need to be worked out for the
| complete design of the home.
|
| Yeah, this comment struck me as a more major detail to be
| worked out compared to the other many details listed. Most of
| the others had multiple options with different drawbacks and
| benefits but either would work. This seems like we still
| haven't reached a solution for the exterior walls.
| EricE wrote:
| Yup, that's when I stopped reading. It's clear the author has
| little practical, real world experience with building. In
| another comment I pointed out if he started watching Matt
| Risinger's YouTube channel he would see that things like his
| concern about bricks and moisture have been solved problems,
| with even better solutions that handle the issue better while
| decreasing construction time and cost.
|
| Also is 1000 years really necessary for the vast majority of
| housing? There has to be a balance to these things and that
| seems like way overshooting for most needs.
|
| Rather than shooting for something silly like 1000 years, how
| about focusing on building to climate of the area the home is
| in? I'm thinking of the picture from about 4 or five years
| ago of the major hurricane in Florida where an entire area is
| wiped out except for one house that looked practically
| untouched. The home owner spent about 20% more and got
| something that survived a major hurricane. 20% more is far
| more feasible and will get at least some people's attention -
| but what this person is advocating is a complete non starter
| for any kind of broad adoption. The costs are just too great.
|
| Another example is all the above ground housing in tornado
| prone areas. We should be building partially buried houses
| with domed earthen roofs - no sharp edges sticking above the
| ground for wind to get under or drive debris into at high
| speed. Would be simple to implement - partial in ground
| houses have been a thing since the 70's and had their share
| of problems but as time and experience builds, we have
| techniques and new materials to make their construction
| pretty routine (and they can still be light and airy inside
| despite being partially underground). The real problem is
| people - a major culture change is required to drive
| acceptance of different home styles. Good luck with that.
| Maybe if the government stopped handing out disaster relief
| funds unless the funds required people to take steps like the
| above to prevent future disasters on the same scale - might
| be the only way to get people to think more of long term
| consequences.
|
| The tales of the grasshopper and ant (and the cultural
| analogs) are thousands of years old for a reason. It's far
| easier, short term, to be a grasshopper :p
| unethical_ban wrote:
| > It's clear the author has little practical, real world
| experience with building.
|
| Who gives a damn? Is anyone reading this and checking their
| $2 million bank account to start a build? It's a thought
| exercise and a fun one that has generated some cool ideas
| in my head and some good discussion.
|
| It's one thing to comment on mistakes or corrections to be
| made, but it's frustrating to see someone go "this is silly
| and the author is stupid".
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > partial in ground houses have been a thing since the 70's
| and had their share of problems
|
| Yes, and if you build one, you're almost certain to have
| these problems, while at the same time, tornado is almost
| certain to not actually hit your house.
| m_ke wrote:
| For people interested in construction I really recommend checking
| out Passive House Accelerator on youtube
| (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFsq1de6hTZOuwQd46pRUQg).
|
| Building energy efficient homes from regenerative and recyclable
| materials makes more sense than a stone and steel bunker.
|
| A good intro to Passive House Design:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxeuRByPpeM
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > but reinforced concrete is a poor choice for a long lifespan
| building due to its susceptibility to corrosion
|
| You can reinforce concrete with materials other than rebar. The
| theory behind reinforcement is a great idea, we shouldn't abandon
| it. If you don't reinforce it, it needs to be much much thicker
| and the ground needs to be much more resistant to uneven
| settling.
|
| The most durable construction is solid stone, period. Go to a
| quarry, quarry some gigantic boulders, carve them into giant
| walls and pillars. It will be very difficult to install but it's
| been done before by ancient peoples. It will be a very _cold_
| house, but it will last thousands of years. Some rich dudes in
| Egypt made some pretty big ones a while back, but I imagine we
| could make them more efficient today.
|
| Barring that, just pour the entire house out of a slow-cure
| concrete. The foundation doesn't actually have to last 1,000
| years, it just needs to be modifiable with jackscrews into the
| main load-bearing members of the house.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "you'll still be able to chop your own firewood."
|
| Assuming you own enough forested land and regulations permit
| cutting.
| throwaway879080 wrote:
| bendbro wrote:
| > It should be legible - it should be easy to understand what it
| is and how it works in the absence of drawings or other
| information
|
| I like this use of "legible"
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Why have the chimney outside? It's very inefficient...
|
| https://www.quora.com/Why-do-American-houses-often-have-the-...
| c2h5oh wrote:
| It also causes condensation because of rapid smoke cooling. Tar
| condensate will slowly seep through chimney wall.
|
| Stainless or ceramic chimney liner slows that process down, but
| neither will last a 100 years let alone a 1000.
| franklovecchio wrote:
| I was wondering that too. If I wanted to design a wood-burning
| apparatus that would be efficient and last 1000 years, I'd use
| a design that was more like a masonry stove (centrally located
| on the inside of the house). In any future (I think), a backup
| source of heat in a cold climate is a necessary redundancy? I
| would use the most efficient tech now for the burn chamber
| (rocket?), but also design the burn chamber in such a way to
| allow for it to be replaced with better tech in the future
| (perhaps the masonry stove outer structure and thermal bank
| would support itself - steel exoskeleton? - etc.).
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Why was that done traditionally? Because if you had a chimney
| fire, you could hook your mules to it, pull it down, and save
| the house.
| alasano wrote:
| This seems right but I don't know enough about chimneys,
| mules or even houses to determine if it's true.
| MichaelApproved wrote:
| If we're talking about chimney efficiency then we should talk
| about including heat exchangers within the chimney walls.
|
| Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters added one to his house and talks
| about it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T3nIk3S8Wc
| bigyellow wrote:
| Not to mention wood fireplaces in the home and the noxious
| byproducts they produce is likely to shorten your lifespan
| considerably.
| johtso wrote:
| This is not the case when using modern wood burning stoves
| though right?
| stevekemp wrote:
| Apparently they're not as great as people have been
| thinking
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/18/wood-
| bur...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Or wood burning fireplace inserts that draw combustion air
| from outside and expel the fumes/combustion byproducts
| outside as well. Not ideal for local air quality, but
| essentially eliminates indoor pollution from them.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Well sure, if you are the only person for miles that uses
| a fireplace.
|
| Additionally, I think people who are outdoors still have
| to breathe air.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| To that point -- last summer, my friends moved from a
| mountain town under constant threat of wildfire to a
| pleasant spot by a lake in the Midwest -- their new
| neighbor keeps a fire burning 24/7, so they still get to
| enjoy the terrible air quality all winter long.
| elmolino89 wrote:
| Unless it does turn wood into a pure gas without a trace of
| sulfur, silica etc. it must emit such stuff. Or it comes
| with filters cleaning fine particles, nitric oxide etc. In
| the end it does emit CO2.
| c2h5oh wrote:
| Wood pellets largely solve this.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| the smoke goes up the chimney.
| notahacker wrote:
| _Most_ of the smoke goes up the chimney. You still open it
| to light, relight and sweep away the ash and in that time
| you 're going to breathe in some smoke or dust particles
| which you ideally shouldn't
|
| Mine's gone out...
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Bah. Freezing to death in an ice storm can also 'shorten your
| lifespan considerably'. There's damned good reason to want a
| simple, off grid means of heating your home if you lose
| power.
| almog wrote:
| Not sure about 1000 years but I've been following Dylan Iwakuni
| (Instagram and Youtube) in his process of relocating an entire
| Kominka (a traditional Japanese house) which will turn into a
| chairs-museum.
|
| The beams that make the structure are held together using some
| clever wooden joints that I've never seen before, some of which
| only reveal their secrets when taken apart and reassembled, all
| of which is done almost exclusively using hand tools:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_geUQSlnbQ
|
| https://www.instagram.com/dylaniwakuni/
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| There's an entire field and organizations that study and develop
| contstruction technologies...
|
| https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-001-t...
| bigyellow wrote:
| Having built my own house, I can definitely say this article is
| for intellectual stimulation only, and won't result in the
| construction of an actual home. Not only will you never find
| contractors and subs that give a shit about this level of detail,
| but you will struggle explaining these things to permit
| approvers, county bureaucrats and other people who want to make
| your life hell because you know more than they do, have more
| money than them, and are doing something different. Fun article,
| great information, but won't result in an adobe as planned.
| EricE wrote:
| Hehe - you are very right! Never underestimate the ability of
| the "code enforcers" to stifle innovation.
|
| However occasionally you do see examples of excellence managing
| to push through the bureaucracy - I would love to build a house
| like this someday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuYvDuOQ-5M
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I would absolutely disagree.
|
| My guess is that you have less money than you think you do.
| I've worked on buildings that were coming in around $2500/sq
| foot and if the owner didn't like a knot in the board we'd pull
| it and try again.
|
| My other guess is you don't know as much as you think you do
| and your probably not the building savant you think you are.
|
| If you hire an engineer, county bureaucracy doesn't care. If
| they have to put their stamp on it, and they don't understand
| it, they care, because they are liable. If you know so much
| more then them, why didn't you put your stamp on it?
|
| I've also built a lot of really odd structures and you do spend
| a lot of time making sure that everyone agrees that you are
| doing it in a safe and sane way. Not entirely unlike building
| consensus in a enterprise setting.
|
| There are people that are pros at doing these things. And they
| know how to get things done. And I've worked with them to build
| all sorts of crazy stuff.
| stephencanon wrote:
| A friend grew up in an actual 1000 year-old house in Italy. It's
| made of stone. It's still there. None of this fancy nonsense.
| [deleted]
| ummonk wrote:
| If you're gonna use stainless steel frame, might as well use
| reinforced concrete with stainless steel rebar too, no?
|
| Of course, if you want true longevity, carve out a cave in a hard
| rocky hillside. That'll last thousands of years.
| criddell wrote:
| If I were to design a house with the idea that it should serve
| future generations, I'd design it to be reconfigured, recycled,
| or torn down easily.
|
| After reading some of Stewart Brand's writing, I've learned to
| love ugly buildings.
| kube-system wrote:
| Agreed. The idea that homes don't last 1000 years because of
| their construction quality is conflating correlation and
| causation. Homes don't last that long because ideas about _what
| (or where) a home should be_ don 't last 1000 years. Heck, in
| recent times, they hardly last 100 years.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Agreed. The idea that homes don't last 1000 years because
| of their construction quality is conflating correlation and
| causation. Homes don't last that long because ideas about
| what (or where) a home should be don't last 1000 years. Heck,
| in recent times, they hardly last 100 years.
|
| And (IIRC) in Japan they often don't last past one owner,
| since a new owner will typically want to build a new house
| for themselves on the lot. An old home actually _lowers_ the
| value of a lot, since you have to factor the demolition cost
| into the price.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| > in Japan they often don't last past one owner
|
| This has been brought up before on HN and I remember a
| comment mentioning that they thought it was due to the fact
| that earthquake proofing technology advances quickly in
| Japan so an old house might not be up to the most current
| standard. Curious if that's correct, and if not, why is
| this so common in Japan then.
| Rikuesque wrote:
| A thing I've noticed while attending school in Japan was
| that many old "Machiya" houses get torn down and more
| modern and western houses get built. At least this was
| the case in Kyoto. Earthquake-proofing the house is one
| aspect but I think people in Japan prefer to own a more
| western home. It's too bad because those old Japanese
| homes are getting taken down
| JAlexoid wrote:
| It's not a case of "more western home".
|
| What you see as a "more western home" is a more energy
| efficient outer shell. Which just happens to be fairly
| universal.
| Rikuesque wrote:
| I agree on that, although there are residential homes in
| Japan that implement energy efficient outer shell, while
| still keeping the Machiya look. There definitely is a
| preference in Japanese society for western style homes.
| bluGill wrote:
| Earthquake is part of it. However culture is also part.
| Houses are built to last 20 years: even if you like where
| you live they still assume you will be rebuilding in 20
| years. As such they can cut corners to save money - no
| problem so long as you rebuild every 20 years.
| myohmy wrote:
| I immediately thought about the schools in smaller towns
| around here that were built in the 90s, which were built to
| last, and are now sitting as barely used community or senior
| centers. Society's needs can change a lot in 30 years, let
| alone 1000.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| Wood is pretty easy to reuse and basically lasts forever if you
| keep it dry.
| cschneid wrote:
| Seems like a lot of the article is about just that. A really
| robust, reliable structure & foundation, with progressively
| less permanent things attached. A brick facade can easily last
| hundreds of years, but not a big deal to replace. Interior
| walls made of non-load-bearing-wood makes it "easy" enough to
| reconfigure rooms.
|
| He mentions how the building shape is just a rectangle, which
| makes it reasonable to repurpose for many uses (he mentions
| office & separate apartments). He takes care to allow for
| routing of utilities under and inside the building.
|
| It's not quite as reconfigurable as I think you're getting at -
| optimized for being torn down, but it's much closer than a
| typical 100yr house would be.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| Wood walls are more complext to rearrange, than steel framed
| walls.(that is why offices have steel frames under that
| drywall - easy to install and move)
| boringg wrote:
| I think the reconfigured / recycled easily makes sense. Tough
| to build a product in 2000s for life in the 2900s.
|
| That said the cost to make homes reconfigured/recycled easily
| is probably quite high and who knows if there will be people
| with knowledge to be able to perform that work in 400 years.
| Whereas a shelter can always be used by humans...
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| I personally believe that you need to find a compromise
| between a framework that lasts very long and party that can
| be recycled so you can adopt the house depending on your
| needs without needing to redo everything (for example
| foundation and some integral supports could probably be
| designed as a framework that can be adapted while walls,
| windows, room configuration, doors, etc. need to be changed
| eventually and therefore should be recyclable).
| jethro_tell wrote:
| We already do this with commercial construction. Every
| floor is just a big box that can be sectioned off as the
| new owner sees fit.
|
| The key is that the structure is basically self standing
| with nothing but the outer walls, and if it's a tower, the
| center core instead.
|
| Add a vertical chase way too to bottom for easy
| reconfiguring of cables and pipes and you can basically do
| anything you want until the structure fails.
|
| Modern residential doesn't build like this because it would
| be expensive and probably pretty ugly. It's a lot cheaper
| to get your structure in bits and pieces by stacking walls
| on walls on the foundation then have just an outside
| structure and then have the floors and roof spanning
| outside to outside.
|
| But it could easily be done with the materials we have.
|
| Another major thing is the drop ceiling. It's designed to
| make access easy so that you can run cables and new
| plumbing anywhere you want.
|
| It's ugly so you'd want to find a way to have a modular
| ceiling that isn't a drop ceiling, but maybe that works for
| you.
|
| Last, for residential, you may butt up against height
| issues as to be modular like that you're want to have a
| couple feet extra between floors so you have room to move
| things around without opening things up.
| dpark wrote:
| > _Another major thing is the drop ceiling. It 's
| designed to make access easy so that you can run cables
| and new plumbing anywhere you want._ > _It 's ugly so
| you'd want to find a way to have a modular ceiling that
| isn't a drop ceiling, but maybe that works for you._
|
| If you build with trusses for floors instead of joists,
| you can get a lot of the same benefits as a drop ceiling
| without the ugliness. You can run plumbing/vents/whatever
| though the trusses without destroying the whole ceiling
| to get access. You might not need to cut into the ceiling
| at all depending on what you're doing and what existing
| access you have (e.g. an unfinished utility space may
| allow access to supply new power cables).
|
| Of course patching the ceiling is hardly a big concern if
| you're talking about a structure surviving for 1000
| years.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| The 1000 years is a separate conversation I think than
| the modular concept. One could lead to another, but
| depending on how modular you wanted to be, access to the
| ceiling is a must.
|
| On the other hand, if you make the trusses large enough
| and give an /attic/crawl access you could go up there and
| do the thing without needing to renovate. Then all center
| walls are non structural and you can move them as you
| please.
|
| Come to think of it, I might build a house like this.
|
| You can also leave the mechanical on the outside and not
| cover it too. I guess there's a certain beauty to me in
| the robot parts but I don't think many would like that.
| dpark wrote:
| How often you expect to reconfigure is a huge factor.
| Drop ceilings make complete sense in many commercial
| buildings, where access to change/move cables and whatnot
| probably happens every year. For residences, that sort of
| work happens a lot less frequently.
|
| You can also get away with ugly ceilings more easily when
| they are higher. A drop ceiling 8 feet or less from the
| floor is an eyesore. At 12 feet up it's a lot less
| noticeable. Of course if you have very high ceilings you
| can often just leave them uncovered and have a more
| industrial aesthetic. You have to be more intentional
| about routing all the utilities then.
| criddell wrote:
| The cost may be high, but it doesn't have to be. That's why I
| mentioned Brand.
|
| An example he cites is MIT's Building 20[1]. It only stood
| for 50 years, but that's not too bad for a structure that was
| intended to be temporary. Some amazing stuff came out of that
| building.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_20
| austinl wrote:
| This is what things are like in many parts of Japan (see
| https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-
| reusabl...).
|
| Oddly enough, the value of houses in Japan depreciate over time
| (like cars). It's kind of a cultural thing. People want to live
| in a new house of their own, so many houses are built in a pre-
| fab way, with the intent that they'll be torn down and recycled
| in 20-30 years.
| kuhewa wrote:
| > torn down
|
| Hmmmm. I think that doesn't count on ship of Theseus type
| grounds.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The author basically agrees with you, lots of good commentary
| in the Conclusion section of the article:
|
| > Designing a building for an extremely long lifespan is in
| some sense a bet on a certain kind of future - one where
| tomorrow's physical infrastructure needs aren't all that
| different from todays. And because physical infrastructure is
| hard to change once it's in place, it's also an attempt to
| bring that kind of future into existence. But if you think
| agglomeration effects should push cities to get larger and
| denser, or if you think we're likely to see some cities
| shrinking as the nature of the economy changes, or if you think
| building technology is likely to change significantly, an
| extremely durable, an extremely long-lived house is perhaps
| less desirable.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Be wary of making it too ugly though - people will look after
| it much better if it's beautiful.
| NortySpock wrote:
| The parent poster is probably referring to "How Buildings
| Learn", a book by Stewart Brand with lots of architectural
| pictures and commentary about how various buildings have been
| (re)used over the decades or centuries.
|
| Brand posits (a) human needs change faster than buildings age,
| and thus buildings must adapt to that change over the lifespan
| of the building
|
| (b) there are two reasons a building lives to be more than 100
| years old: either the building is historic / well loved enough
| that we live with a building's warts even though it doesn't
| meet our needs perfectly (a Parliament building, a church, a
| house that cannot be modified) OR it is so flexible or easy
| (cheap) to modify that it can suit many purposes. (A small
| commercial building that can hold a dentist office or a
| restaurant or a law office or a nail salon, a house with an
| extension, a warehouse that can be converted to a modest
| factory floor, etc)
|
| Buildings that cannot be adapted are torn down and replaced.
|
| The book is excellent, and beautiful, and I recommend a
| physical copy to everyone.
| austinl wrote:
| It's fascinating how culture has effects on architecture. So
| many older American homes have small kitchens that are
| separate from a formal dining room. Historically, a family
| member or cook would be making food separately, out of the
| way, and then it was presented in the dining room.
|
| Today, everyone wants a kitchen that's integrated with the
| dining area. Cooking has been culturally elevated - people
| don't feel like they need to do it out of the way. But
| unfortunately, many of these older homes cannot be easily
| modified. Walls are often load-bearing instead of being
| reconfigurable.
| meristem wrote:
| This seems cultural for sure. I grew up in an apartment
| built in early 1970s with separate kitchen. To this day
| most apartments in my country are planned w/o open
| kitchens.
|
| It is actually an ongoing joke with my partner, who has
| lived an open-kitchen life until meeting me.
|
| PS: would be interesting to correlate enclosed kitchen with
| cost and availability of home labourers (slaves, maids,
| cooks, etc)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| What I see a lot of in my region (US PNW) is open kitchens
| integrating with informal dining areas (breakfast nook, or
| seating at a kitchen island) and living rooms. But most
| houses are still built with a separate _dining room_. Heck,
| my house was even built with a butler 's pantry to connect
| them. That's pretty common.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| You have a separate dining room if you're building a 6
| room or larger MANSION. Calling a building with a
| separate dining room on top of a kitchen plus informal
| dining room as a Regular home seems to be a stretch.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's regional, of course. I'm talking bog-standard
| everyday houses in the 2500-3500sf range, no mansions.
| distances wrote:
| 2500sf is 232 square meters. That's three normal family
| city apartments by European standards. I guess houses
| just run bigger there but sounds quite excessive
| nonetheless.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| "Excessive" is a moral judgement. City apartments aren't
| typically 2500sf in the US, either. I was referring to
| single family detached homes, which are by far the
| dominant type of dwelling in my region. Land is cheap,
| wood is cheap. A 2500sf house will be a good bit cheaper
| than a little flat in most western European cities, I
| bet.
| jppope wrote:
| This is super funny to me. I just bought a house where the
| kitchen is separate. My parents, and my mother-in-law were
| all like... "you can knock down the wall and bring the
| rooms together"... and I was like: "hell no. As if I want a
| bunch of kids playing tag while I'm chopping things with
| sharp knives and running around with burning oil."
|
| ...Leave me alone to cook an awesome meal in peace. I'm
| working in there not messing around.
| kgran wrote:
| Not just American homes. In Europe all the new flats and
| houses are designed with kitchens merged with the dining
| room. Even the old flats are often redesigned by owners or
| developers by tearing down the wall(s), separating the
| kitchen from the other room(s). I personally hate this
| trend because I don't like getting cooking odors all over
| the place. I'll probably just build a wall whenever I'd be
| forced to buy such a place.
| _Adam wrote:
| With proper ventilation this isn't an issue. My kitchen
| is centrally located, so I installed a range hood made by
| a Chinese company (Fotile, approximately $1300 on
| Amazon). It works exceptionally well. Even the
| smokiest/smelliest cooking odors don't escape.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| The solution to cooking odors is to have adequate
| ventilation that exits the structure. It blows me away
| that this is not code in every kitchen and bathroom. I
| live in rules-heavy CA and my kitchen vent "exhausts"
| back into the kitchen.
|
| Every time there are people gathering at someone's house,
| they tend to congregate in the kitchen as that's where
| the food action is all at. Give me one big open space
| with kitchen, dining space and a living room all in one.
| Open concept is highly desirable in modern housing.
| contingencies wrote:
| Use a cave. You get shelter and a water supply. Costs nothing,
| zero effort up front. Great view. 10k years guaranteed: a million
| potentially!
| jandrese wrote:
| Stainless steel girders? I see this is a no costs spared build.
|
| At one point the author even considered Inconel girders, but
| practical considerations on builder experience with exotic alloys
| made that a bridge too far.
|
| Even so he is planning to have builders come in an brick up the
| entire frame before the rest of the house is built.
|
| I did like that he realized one of the most important aspects of
| keeping a house around is to make people want to keep it around.
| Make sure it doesn't age poorly because then even if the
| structure is sound people will tear it down because "it is an
| eyesore".
| rootsudo wrote:
| "Eyesore" also depends on the community. Lots of places will
| keep an eyesore place gladly because they can't infringe on the
| property owners rights. Many places in Asia are like this in
| general.
| michaelt wrote:
| Sure, but over the course of 1000 years presumably the
| property will be brought and sold many times. So you need a
| building at least desirable enough that the subsequent owners
| won't opt to demolish it.
|
| Of course, designing widely beloved buildings is easier said
| than done.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > Lots of places will keep an eyesore place gladly because
| they can't infringe on the property owners rights.
|
| This is some fun new meaning of the word "gladly"
| tomthe wrote:
| Stainless steel is also much more brittle than construction
| steel. And this matters a lot. Not only in case of earthquakes
| but also just in construction where you have large tolerances.
| Construction steel will bend plastically, while a more brittle
| steel can just crack. Welding stainless steel is also inviting
| issues, but possible in principle.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That, and using both steel and stone in the same structure
| brings its own class of problems due to the different
| expansion coefficients which needs to be dealt with in a very
| ingenious way if that is supposed to last for a millenium (or
| more).
| masklinn wrote:
| Seems to me like, given the expense and duration goals,
| you'd be much better off forgoing steel entirely and
| creating a stone gravity-bound structure, and making the
| places where you can't go with stone easy to repair or
| replace, something for which I'm not sure structural steel
| is ideal.
|
| > Our other option is slate. Slate roofs have extremely
| long lifespans and are extremely attractive. But, like
| copper, they're more expensive upfront, and require more
| specialized skills to install (since they're less common).
| A slate roof is also extremely heavy, putting more weight
| on our framing and increasing the risk of damage during an
| earthquake.
|
| OP apparently doesn't know that slate roof have to be
| repaired _all the time_. Slates will age and break,
| especially if they 're nailed (because the metal expands
| and cracks the slate).
|
| I've spent 10 years with a slate roof, and it has to
| regularly be fully checked, and missing or breaking slates
| replaced (because they'll leak).
|
| Screw slate, give me terracota tiles any day of the week.
| Lighter, way more flexible, and easier to replace when they
| invariably break.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, another way to spell Slate roof = work. The reason
| is simple: Slate, layers of fossilized leaves, has a
| rough surface and frost and the weather in general will
| work on it and split the layers apart, seeds will find
| enough purchase to germinate (the handy supply of water
| certainly helps) and lichen and moss just love to grow on
| slate.
|
| This whole article to me reads: "I'm planning on an
| overpriced construction for my house and need a plausible
| excuse'. It's a status thing and a discussion piece, not
| a serious project. If you want to build for a millenium:
| copy the Romans. Done. And even then you're going to have
| to re-do _all_ the trimmings every so many years because
| they 'll all give out with use. Even staircases made out
| of solid stone will wear over such time spans.
| scatters wrote:
| Slate is not made of fossilized leaves; its foliate
| structure arises from the metamorphic process as flakes
| of clay (aluminium silicates) align and merge into sheets
| under transverse pressure. Any organic material present
| in the original sedimentary deposit will typically result
| in a graphite inclusion.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Hm, ok! I totally bought this when it was related to me
| but you are absolutely correct. It always makes me wonder
| if there is a faster way to cross check everything in
| your head to fish out the false stuff other than people
| taking the time to point these things out. Thank you.
| arethuza wrote:
| I don't think slate roofs are _that_ bad - our house is
| an exceptionally exposed spot and has a slate roof and we
| lose maybe one or two slates a year to storms. Our wooden
| windows and doors are a far bigger maintenance headache
| than our roof.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| When I got to the part about wood windows it dawned on me
| that the author is less clued in than he lets on. Wood
| windows are a maintenance nightmare. You can't open them
| half the year in a humid climate, or all of the year in
| an old house that has settled. No window is going to last
| 1000 years so might as well pick one that will make you
| hate your house less in the interim.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Count yourself lucky :)
|
| And one or two slates per year is indeed manageable,
| assuming they are in an accessible spot. If you're
| unlucky they are not and then you have to get to the spot
| to apply your fix without breaking more slates, which can
| be quite a bit of work (remove slates to make a path to
| the spot, fix, then rehang all the others, and hopefully
| they were uniform).
|
| I've had one storm bad enough in NL that we lost some
| rooftiles, which were fairly easily replaced. Since in
| the rest of the country people had lost whole roofs and
| other houses in the same street were in much worse shape
| and comparing with the few houses that had slate I'm
| pretty happy with my good old 'dakpannen', which are
| almost maintenance free (due to the angle of the roof).
|
| The worst is thatched roofs. Those require pretty much
| bi-annual upkeep and tend to become rodent infested. They
| look pretty in the first 10 years, a bit garish in the
| second and depending on their state of maintenance horror
| shows in the last 10. I'll never live in a house with one
| of those, people like them for status but they tend to be
| people that can afford to pay others to do their work for
| them.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Slate, layers of fossilized leaves, has a rough surface
| and frost and the weather in general will work on it and
| split the layers apart, seeds will find enough purchase
| to germinate (the handy supply of water certainly helps)
| and lichen and moss just love to grow on slate.
|
| 25 years ago, when I saw some roofers working to replace
| an old slate roof on a church outside Philadelphia with
| asphalt (I was horrified), I asked them why they were
| taking this (to me) horrible step, since my parents live
| and stay in homes in the UK with slate roofs that are
| between 300 and 500 years old.
|
| The roofers laughed and said "yeah, that's probably welsh
| slate. The stuff here in PA is so much worse than that.
| Freeze-thaw will destroy it in 20-40 years"
|
| So the observations you're making about slate are true
| but only for specific slate quarries. There are slate
| sources that can provide slate which could last for
| centuries.
|
| The UK seems not to have much of an issue with moss &
| lichens causing problems with slate roofing (it grows but
| it isn't much of a problem).
| jacquesm wrote:
| Interesting, I never realized that there can be such a
| huge difference in quality, thank you.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That may be more of a typical "newer stuff is garbage".
|
| I live in upstate NY, arguably a nastier climate, and
| it's not atypical to see 19th century buildings with
| intact slate roofs.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I think the roofers would have said "oh, and the upstate
| NY stuff is pretty good too". The slate I've looked at in
| detail in PA really is pretty bad. It just isn't as dense
| as the welsh stuff in the UK.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| >Make sure it doesn't age poorly because then even if the
| structure is sound people will tear it down because "it is an
| eyesore".
|
| This is an interesting one, lots of interesting buildings were
| torn down as old eyesores to be replaced with much more
| efficient modern buildings in the post-WW2 UK. Nowadays _these_
| are considered eyesores ripe for demolition and the buildings
| they replaced are valued, to the point post-War town planners
| are sometimes cursed to this very day. Taste changes often, I
| think the best chance of keeping a building around on these
| grounds are to make it an interesting or particularly elegant
| example of a style subjectively considered by most to be
| timeless.
|
| I know it's purely subjective, but I really think the trend in
| architecture to do away with ornamentation was quite bad from a
| 'places real people have to live in' perspective, even if it's
| interesting from an artistic point of view.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| I live in Florida. That factors substantially in how I'd build
| for longevity. No concern for earthquakes, or snow, great concern
| for termites, hurricanes, flooding. Pick land near Winter Haven,
| Lake Wales.
|
| I'd build a wood frame style house with steel studs, and steel
| roof trusses, aluminum roofing. Pour a concrete slab on grade, be
| excessive with the dimensions, perhaps 10"-12" thick (25-30cm).
| Bedrock is limerock 40' down (12m), brutally porous, lots of
| sinkholes.
|
| Would it last one thousand years? I don't know, it might, but it
| would last for centuries at least, or until the next developer
| decided to bulldoze it.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| If you want a house to be able to exist for 1000 years without
| human contact, you should look at neolithic burial chambers, e.g.
| long barrows[0], and copy their construction.
|
| If you want a house to be able to exist for 1000 years _with_
| human contact, then the only thing you need is for the humans to
| care and to proactively fix problems as they happen.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_barrow#/media/File:Waylan...
| Fiahil wrote:
| I expected something much simpler : bricks, stones, and wood.
| It's not like we are running low on examples of 1000+ years
| buildings
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_century_in_architecture).
| These castles, cathedrals, farms, were built to last, so it's
| appropriate to use them as examples.
|
| We can, however, apply modern technics and materials when they
| make sense : insulation, windows, waterways... Prefer wood, wool
| and steel over plastics or composite materials and you're good to
| go.
|
| On a side note, I'm currently buying a house (old farm) with over
| 200 years old plain oak carpentry. The thing is absolutely
| massive and would be unimaginably expensive to build today. With
| the proper care, it might last another 200 years without issue.
| Remember, Notre-Dame de Paris used 300 years old trees cut in
| ~1150 for its roof -before the 2019 fire-. With the proper care
| it would have still be standing today. I find that to be deeply
| humbling.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| What is behind your thinking that plastic won't last? Plastic
| is estimated to take 1000 years to decompose in landfills.
| Obviously it did not exist millennia ago, but I wouldn't write
| it off as not future proof.
|
| I too have a 200 year old house and the sagging mentioned in
| the article seems inevitable in wood.
| leoedin wrote:
| Plastics break down in sunlight, becoming brittle and easily
| broken. They're also basically impossible to repair if they
| do break. They can also been eaten by rodents.
|
| However plastic is a great material for dark, rodent free
| places.
| ctdonath wrote:
| "Decompose" being the tail end of the deterioration process,
| with the usable period being far shorter.
| ruined wrote:
| plastic becomes very brittle very quickly (years), and falls
| apart into tiny bits. it's these tiny bits that (we expect)
| take forever to decompose.
|
| even if we understood plastic to retain its original
| qualities over time, it is impossible to speculate about a
| thousand-year lifetime. it's unusual to come across any
| plastic a hundred years old, intact or not.
| Fiahil wrote:
| Plastic breaks down in tiny pieces and is almost impossible
| to repair when broken. It's also very difficult to reuse or
| recycle when you want to. If your house is still standing
| after a thousand years, it's also because its habitants were
| able to remodel it without destroying its materials.
|
| As a matter of fact, the amazing carpentry I was talking
| about previously is made from "fresh" oak, but a significant
| part of it was also taken from a previous building (church,
| farm, stable or monastery). It's doing just fine, apart from
| a few out-of-place mortises. I tried reusing plastic pipes,
| once, but that wasn't a great idea. It's fine for a few DIY,
| though.
|
| Stones, bricks, wood are great mostly because they can be
| reused, but also because they will continue to look great
| afterwards.
|
| (Note: You might argue that "your" wood is not easy to reuse
| as well. This happens because we put nails and screws
| everywhere and we prefer less-dense wood over heavier ones
| (pines vs oak))
| tinco wrote:
| The fact that there's still a lot of buildings still standing
| doesn't mean they were built perfect, it just means their
| construction has the possibility of lasting a 1000 years. For
| each of those buildings I bet there were 10 more with the exact
| same building techniques that are no longer standing.
|
| A 1000 years is a lot of time to go without a fire. I think
| just because of the fire risk wood is simply out of the
| question. Well unless you can protect the wood against fire
| like the OP is doing with the steel.
|
| Considering modern times, I think you would have to go one step
| further and also consider gas explosions and possibly being
| bombed as well. Just imagine how many 1000+ yr old buildings
| must have been in Germany before WW2.
| AlanSE wrote:
| There's another bias here that available materials were very
| different 1000 years ago.
|
| Designing with WW2 in mind is preparing for the next conflict
| based on the last one. Climate change will have implications,
| which tend to come out as fire and flooding. This will impact
| siting.
| distances wrote:
| There are more old buildings left in Germany than one might
| first assume. The devastation of WW2 was most concentrated in
| the major cities, and minor cities and villages often have
| old centers that survived fully intact. This was a bit
| surprising at least for me when touring the smaller places.
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| > We can, however, apply modern technics and materials when
| they make sense : insulation, windows, waterways...
|
| The article raises an important point that could be a problem
| when trying to mix old and new build techniques. When talking
| about brick walls it says:
|
| > One tricky thing with this type of assembly is that while it
| has performed well historically, it doesn't necessarily play
| nice with more modern, energy efficient construction. A solid
| brick wall was traditionally designed to be exposed on the
| inside, exposing it to interior heat and allowing it to dry.
| Adding interior insulation makes the house much more
| comfortable, but also changes the thermal dynamics, potentially
| causing freeze/thaw damage in the brick, and allowing moisture
| to accumulate between the brick and the insulation. This is one
| of the many details that would need to be worked out for the
| complete design of the home.
|
| You can't simply build something following the examples of a
| castle or a cathedral, but then add modern insulation, because
| the insulation won't allow the masonry to breath and dry to
| both sides, leading to water damage, mold, rot, ...
|
| At the end of the day, a badly insulated building can be made
| to last for ages passively by just making it breath, so the
| temperature and humidity vary with the weather but are kept in
| check by passive external factors (e.g. the sun shining on a
| external wall dries it from the outside). While a well
| insulated building absolutely needs constant mechanical HVAC
| with fine tuned control. You can have a well insulated building
| or a passive building, you can't have both (by the way, the
| "Passive House TM" insulation standard is a complete misnomer,
| being that mechanical ventilation is its second biggest tenet).
| rebuilder wrote:
| Well yes, but the example house doesn't seem to be all that
| optimized for energy efficiency. Look at the illustration
| showing a fireplace located at the end of the house. That's
| going to waste so much heat compared to a centrally located
| one. So I'm not sure how much attention was paid to energy
| efficiency here.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| A lesson I've been repeatedly learning since buying an old
| house, is that many design decisions that seem dumb now were
| actually optimized very well for what was available at the
| time. It can be a real challenge to try to retrofit modern
| efficiency and comfort into a home that was designed for
| constraints and expectations of another time.
|
| We recently replaced our furnace and found the footprint of
| the original coal-fired "octopus" gravity furnace, and
| learning about the operation of the old furnace makes the
| seemingly inadequate ductwork make more sense. Instead of a
| furnace blower (which hadn't been introduced yet at the time
| the house was built) the air moved around the house by
| convection and relied on a temperature differential between
| the center of the house and the outside walls. Hot air came
| up a few ducts in the middle of the house, and cold air came
| down through return ducts on the outside walls.
|
| Unfortunately the chimney was also acting as a radiant
| heating element, and one of the upstairs bedrooms has become
| much colder since switching to the higher-efficiency furnace
| (which scavenges much more heat from the exhaust, and vents
| out the side of the house). Ultimately I'm sure the much more
| efficient furnace will be worth it, but there are trade-offs
| that will need to be addressed.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Mortar holding stones from even Roman times, is still wet in
| the middle.
| Retric wrote:
| Construction seriously depends on location. However, the
| simplest solution if you want high insulation factors is to
| have a second air tight structure with an air gap to your
| brickwork. Just make sure to properly ventilate that air gap.
| The same approach can then be used on a slate roof.
|
| Essentially you end up with a home inside a shell. There are
| several advantages to such structures such a potentially
| great sound insulation and aesthetics, but it's not cheap.
| Having an essentially air tight structure requires a hvac
| system to match. A combination of heat exchanger, filter,
| humidity control, and temperature control let you have a very
| comfortable environment while still benefiting from
| significant insulation.
| ozim wrote:
| My pet peeve is when people claim that heavy old cast iron
| radiators are "always better" than new flimsy steel ones.
|
| Yes those are better for old houses with old insulation or no
| insulation because then you wanted radiator to keep warm so
| you can sit close to it and get yourself warm. Where with new
| thing ones you want to heat up the air so you don't want
| radiator to be warm but air in well insulated building.
| djrogers wrote:
| > It's not like we are running low on examples of 1000+ years
| buildings
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_century_in_architecture).
| These castles, cathedrals, farms, were built to last, so it's
| appropriate to use them as examples.
|
| This is an easy place to run in to a survivorship bias problem
| - pick a random 1000 year old farmhouse. How many farmhouses
| built exactly the same way _didn 't_ last for various reasons?
| Is the fact that one is still standing due to luck, or was it
| destined to last 1000 years the day it was built?
| tiborsaas wrote:
| If you look at that list, almost all of the surviving
| buildings are churches or religious places. If the goal is to
| build something that lasts 1000 years, then you need to
| factor in political and utility questions as well besides
| fixating on materials.
|
| Your home can have perfect architecture, but if a rich person
| buys your land after you are gone and decides what you've had
| sucks, it will just get demolished and replaced with
| something more modern. That rarely happens with churches.
| aspaceman wrote:
| > That rarely happens with churches.
|
| I agree. If the church didn't survive, they would just
| build a new one.
|
| I imagine there lie the remains of hundreds of separate
| cathedrals under one. But you would never say "the church
| fell down". Rather, "there was an accident and renovations
| were required".
|
| I see them as a Ship of Theseus, where the most long-
| lasting examples were determined through a lot of trial and
| error.
|
| Isn't this a thing with Notre Dame? It's been a while but I
| remember the opening of Hunchback mentions the rebuilding
| right?
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It's not clear how many of the no longer extant old homes and
| farms fell down due to design issues, due to neglect, or were
| pulled down for economic or aesthetic reasons. Most
| architectural styles go through a process where they stop
| being made, start getting neglected, most of them get pulled
| down, and the few remaining ones get lovingly restored as
| they get old and rare enough to become retro rather than just
| outdated. This tells us very little about how well they were
| built, even with survivorship bias in mind, because very few
| buildings will survive an utter lack of maintenance, and less
| still if many were torn down for not being stylish enough to
| command the level of rent that the owner is hoping for.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| It doesn't matter that the others fell, we now know what
| definitely didn't fall - which is all we need to get to.
| sedatk wrote:
| It matters if you want 99% of the buildings that you build
| last 1000 years, rather than 0.001%.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Survivorship bias says to look at all the buildings that
| failed and why they failed rather than looking at the
| building that survived. You might imitate build but you
| will not imitate the environment that allowed this one to
| survive.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Wood is flammable, and so it's kind of out of the question. I'd
| build out of stone or brick, single story but larger footprint.
| Then of course ground source heat pump and all electric
| appliances, and solar nearby..
| anchpop wrote:
| modern wood construction is more resistant to fire than
| steel, steel loses its structural strength when it gets hot
| while wood chars on the outside (becoming fire resistant) and
| doesn't lose its strength
| JAlexoid wrote:
| I mean.... Cheap Old Houses had a 1000 year old house for sale
| not long ago.
|
| There's also plenty of timber buildings that last for millenia.
| specialist wrote:
| Ya.
|
| I'm very curious about this kind of stuff. And now especially
| "activhaus" ideas. Being a software guy, probably from envy.
|
| Ages ago, I started remodeling while my Belgian coworker
| (working from Belgian) started his new home construction. My
| house in the USA Pacific Northwest is timber framed with tar
| shingle roof. Coworker's house, IIRC, was block walls and
| ceramic roof. My house so temporary, their house built for the
| centuries. A real home.
|
| In North America, I now find the homesteading and packed earth
| style homes most compelling. Basically, latest tech Arcosanti.
| (But with better finances.)
| _Adam wrote:
| If wood stays dry it will last for centuries. Of course given
| the climate here you'll need to maintain and eventually re-
| shingle your roof (In the same region and my 34 year old tar
| shingle roof sprung a leak a few days ago) but if you do that
| your house will likely last just as long as your coworker's.
| funcDropShadow wrote:
| Ceramic shingles are replaced after 40-50 years as well. At
| least in Germany.
| hwc wrote:
| Arcosanti is a lot of concrete, as I recall.
| polymerist wrote:
| Rammed earth you definitely need to be careful of the
| humidity and mitigation internal humidity is going to be
| important. Good technique though for arid/desert climates.
|
| Timber Frame + external insulation with anairtight building
| envelope is a really good construction method that will be
| energy efficient and last a long time.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| With the right clay mixture, rammed earth can be made more
| or less waterproof like brick, or you can make actual fired
| rammed earth bricks. Adding graphene flakes can
| significantly improve the structural qualities, and added
| carbon black can increase thermal conductivity (heated
| flooring) or provide em shielding.
|
| There are lots of materials to play with and mix up for
| structures.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Timber frame and a lightweight roof is superior to block
| walls and ceramic in any scenario that includes seismic
| activity, which includes the entire American west coast.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| On a similar note, I've wondered at construction of a million
| year time capsule. Layered I imagine, with the artifact cargo in
| some neutral gel, inside a gold envelope, inside a steel
| envelope, inside a ceramic shell, buried in an ablative material
| like cement or resin, sunk in a deep oceanic trench?
| addaon wrote:
| You're at a time frame where you have to worry about
| subduction. There's areas of the ocean floor that are
| candidates, but I'd seriously consider a high orbit or lunar
| placement if you're going for that time period. Also saves a
| lot of environmental challenges.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| That's true. I suspect the major risk in such a timeframe
| isn't tectonics, corrosion or environmental weathering. It's
| likely 'human interference'. Maybe a million-year orbit? So
| it's safely out of range of meddling for the duration.
| samwillis wrote:
| My parents house in Lincolnshire England was built in the early
| 1500s, so about 500 years old. Have no doubt it will still be
| there in another 500. Obviously many changes have been made over
| the years but the core of the house is the same.
|
| Solid, 3ft thick, limestone walls. Lime mortar. Probably no
| foundations, there has been quite a bit of movement previously
| but none recently. In one room upstairs the floor slopes by
| nearly a foot from one end to the other.
|
| As far as we know the majority of the roofing/floor timbers are
| original.
|
| Limestone slate roof, this needs replacing about every 70years.
|
| Stays cool in the summer and relatively easy to keep warm in the
| winter. Not efficient in the modern sense though.
|
| The way we live changes, trying to build a house for how people
| will live in the future is impossible. All we can do is build
| something that's maintainable, solid and hope for the best.
|
| I think the danger is that if you aim to design something that
| will last 1000 years you will over engineer it and it will be
| difficult to maintain and modify.
| holoduke wrote:
| I would build my house with carbon ceramic blocks. Those will
| last for at least 100 billion years and will even survive when
| earth gets swallowed by a swollen sun.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| The first step to design a house that will last 1,000 years is to
| destroy humanity.
| daneel_w wrote:
| The construction presented uses modern design elements that are
| barely 50 years old. While surely sturdy, it's still speculative.
| Europe has loads of original construction from the 11th and 12th
| century, offering valid and proven examples to study.
| peter303 wrote:
| The 1800s era core buildings at MIT (1906) and Stanford (1892)
| are made out of bulk sandstone/limestone and are still standing.
| Post WWII concrete crap are crumbling and being replaced by fake-
| stone cladding buildings. One gem ironically called the Terman
| Engineering Building had to be torn down after only 30 years
| because of severe deterioration.
|
| The core buildings might last a half millennium.
| ramshanker wrote:
| The moment I saw the diagram text "Seismic moment connection with
| Fuses", I knew it was not meant to last 1000 year. The moment you
| introduce seismic fuses, you need active Repair post a large
| earthquake. This is like expecting to keep repairing every few
| years and claim Life.
|
| My first though reading the title was, you need to build it with
| STONE. So was "Taj Mahal" and many other religious structure
| lasting LONG years.
| dpark wrote:
| Nothing about this design seems intended for 1000 years. It
| needs wood fireplaces in case that's the only way of heating
| the space, but yeah, in a world where we've reverted to this,
| they'll be able to weld stainless steel and source replacement
| seismic fuses.
|
| So many elements of this thing don't make sense together. Clad
| the whole thing in a double layer of brick that isn't actually
| going to bear load? Why? This is unlikely to last for 1000
| years anyway. It probably won't survive the first major
| earthquake and even if it does you'll probably have to tear it
| apart to get to those seismic fuses.
|
| In general structures do not remain standing unless they are
| maintained, so plan for that. Assume the cladding can and will
| be replaced. The person who needs to do work on this imaginary
| house certainly isn't going to reclad in this nonsense at 4x
| the cost of the brick veneer it actually needs. Hell, just wrap
| the thing in hardiplank and it will probably be fine for the
| first 100 years.
| robocat wrote:
| Stone is heavy: can you design a stone structure to withstand
| an earthquake? In my magnitude 6.2 experience, stone structures
| without massive steel framing fail in an earthquake.
| kansface wrote:
| Doesn't Italy have stone masonry construction that has lasted
| centuries? Maybe you need a really good foundation to pull it
| off?
| dpark wrote:
| I think you just need a lot more stone than people think.
| Ancient structures still standing had massive construction.
| 3-4 foot thick walls. If I recall correctly, the Roman
| coliseum has arches that are more like 6-8 feet thick.
|
| But most structures standing for that long have also been
| maintained to some degree. Unmaintained millennium-old
| structures are generally referred to as ruins.
| jccooper wrote:
| Rome and its environs are fairly quiet. Italy elsewhere has
| quite a lot of masonry construction that was destroyed by
| earthquakes.
| dpark wrote:
| Were there no earthquakes in the ancient world? Lots of
| ancient stone buildings are still standing.
| robocat wrote:
| In locations hit by strong earthquakes, you don't notice
| the ancient stone buildings that didn't survive and are not
| there.
| dpark wrote:
| Italy was hit by a series of earthquakes in 2016,
| including a 6.6. Certainly there was a lot of damage,
| including in Rome, but most stone structures survived.
| robocat wrote:
| Damage from Earthquakes is usually localised - how close
| you are to the fault really really matters (until you get
| up to the mega-quakes that can affect much of a small
| country).
|
| Christchurch was hit by a 6.2, but most of the damage
| occurred on the suburban south-Eastern half of the city,
| and the commercial buildings in the city centre which
| were more vulnerable. 10's of kilometres away and no
| significant damage to buildings.
|
| The magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake in 2016 had an
| epicentre 100km away from Christchurch, and there was no
| damage here in Christchurch.
|
| Italy is ~1000km long.
| dpark wrote:
| Several of the earthquakes Italy has experienced were
| reasonably close to Rome. None have had the epicenter
| there to my knowledge, though.
|
| It's perhaps more interesting to ask what non-stone
| buildings have survived 1000 years. I don't think there
| are any. So even if stone is more susceptible to
| earthquakes, it might still be the best choice for a
| building to last 1000 years.
| dta5003 wrote:
| Carve it into the side of a mass of stone that has survived
| all the other earthquakes already.
| westcort wrote:
| I think the only way that is proven is to build a passage tomb,
| like Newgrange.
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