[HN Gopher] Largest open dataset of apartment models ever got pu...
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Largest open dataset of apartment models ever got published
Author : standfest
Score : 181 points
Date : 2022-10-14 10:14 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (zenodo.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (zenodo.org)
| 323 wrote:
| One question has been bothering me: why are rooms square?
|
| Some say that it's more economical to build this way, and that it
| causes less problems with aligning furniture to the wall.
|
| But that doesn't explain billionaire houses. They certainly love
| spending money on them, yet despite all kinds of extravaganza,
| the rooms are also mostly square.
|
| So i think it's something deeper, I think it's just too
| suspicious that across most modern cultures rooms are square. My
| theory is that it's related to the fact that we have 4 sides, so
| it's kind of symmetrical that we prefer to live in 4-sided things
| too.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| The sense of space in a room is directly related to its
| shortest dimension.
|
| Round and triangular rooms are not practical for obvious
| reasons.
|
| Square or close to square is thus optimal.
| legulere wrote:
| You might like Friedensreich Hundertwasser, he designed
| buildings lacking straight lines, sometimes even undulating
| floors.
| dxbydt wrote:
| pg wrote about this a couple years back. big-boxy architecture
| of american suburbia vs all the diverse architectural styles in
| europe/asia etc. in many parts of costarica, panama &
| especially in upscale indian houses, the house looks more like
| an art project. i've been to houses with what would be called
| gaudy colors - blood red, bright yellow, parrot green walls.
| non-square rooms, oval spaces with arches and round pillars
| inside the house. in those places, people use their art skills
| not just on canvas but also in living spaces. it might not look
| conventionally pretty, but everybody gets a say - like in the
| kitchen, my mom had holes of different shapes in the wall, so
| bottles of different sizes fit into specific holes. no actual
| shelves! i wanted a table so i got a table built of concrete
| and cement! just put a tablecloth on top. no need to buy a
| table, table was an actual part of the house itself. i've been
| to bathrooms with a raised mound of cement to hold pots of
| water. you carry water from well and you can place the pot with
| water on the raised mound without bending down all the way to
| the floor. very thoughtful ideas.
| phphphphp wrote:
| High-end houses aren't square in the same way that a normal
| house is square: often they'll be open plan, where rooms join
| together through shared spaces that are all sorts of shapes. A
| better description of the consistency amongst property is
| "straight" walls.
|
| If you spend much time looking at high-end real estate, you'll
| encounter much more than just the standard square rooms you
| would see in the average house, but ultimately, they're still
| square(ish) because straight walls are convenient and
| practical.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I think the best description would be "right angles".
|
| Ultimately, not only is furniture designed for right angles,
| but so are all the construction materials and equipment.
| Doing anything else is custom and more expensive but also not
| usable because of the furniture limitations.
|
| The best you can get without going into custom stuff il are
| those bay windows that pop out.
| alex_young wrote:
| Furniture is pretty difficult to make for for rooms with odd
| wall configurations. You have to custom design every piece and
| wind up losing a bunch of space in a dresser or closet in most
| cases.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| pottertheotter wrote:
| You're thinking too deep and already know the answer. It's
| expensive to build non-square rooms. And it sucks for
| functionality.
| dwater wrote:
| What 4 sides do you have?
| twitexplore wrote:
| seahorses have 4 sided spines. parent poster is of the
| pipefish family, and their question is not about human
| housing, but frustratingly rectangular aquariums.
| lostlogin wrote:
| But that's worse. You could leave the top off the aquarium,
| leaving 5 sides, but getting it down to 4 means the water
| falls out. M
| didgetmaster wrote:
| Interesting data set. I am building a new kind of data analysis
| tool (https://www.Didgets.com) so I am always looking for good
| open data sets to download, import into my tool, and see what the
| data shows and to test out my tool.
|
| I downloaded both CSV files (geometry and simulations) and built
| a couple relational tables with them in a few minutes. I am
| confused by a few things. There are 42,207 unique values in the
| 'apartment_id' column. The most common one is
| d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e which is referenced 1451 times.
| At first I thought that it might actually be some kind of
| 'plan_id' where the same plan was used to build multiple
| apartments (this id is associated with 13 different 'building_id'
| values) but drilling down to each one reveals some very different
| features.
|
| It is certainly possible that the same plan could be used with
| slight variations (e.g. one has a tub in the bathroom while
| another had a shower installed), but some of the features were
| very unique. For example there are 26 different KITCHEN areas
| associated with the id, but only 21 LIVING_DINING areas.
|
| My tool is great for finding and fixing anomalies in data sets if
| they exist. This one is a bit confusing about what some elements
| mean and the site doesn't explain them very well.
|
| If the same plan is being used across multiple buildings, it
| might be interesting to see how the amount of light entering the
| building differs based on if the same plan was used to build an
| apartment on the north side of a building vs the south side.
| screature2 wrote:
| I think d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e is the md5 sum of
| "nothing", e.g. md5 reverse will get you a zero-length stream
| of characters.
|
| (granted this is entirely without looking at the data) but my
| guess is that they MD5 hashed whatever was in that apartment_id
| column and if it was empty it spat out
| d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
| Quarrel wrote:
| Yep:
|
| touch null ~ md5sum null d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
| null
| tleilaxu wrote:
| >Ah yes, I recognise that particular md5 hash value from
| memory.
|
| Excellent, I certainly know I am reading HN.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| Wow! I have memorized some bizarre things before, but I don't
| think I ever went that far to recognize an md5 hash.
| tiagod wrote:
| This is a nitpick that's not related to the article itself, but I
| found that sorting by most viewed, the asc/desc dropdown has an
| effect from what I expected.
| Oarch wrote:
| As someone who knows Matthias, I can vouch for the engineering
| effort behind Archilyse's work. I'll admit I was a tiny bit
| jealous when I first watched their pitch!
|
| They have identified an area where they can clearly add
| significant value and the analysis their software runs on a
| dwelling is robustly built and incredibly thorough. I wish them
| well with their expansion beyond Switzerland!
| cameron4 wrote:
| I'm an architect (of buildings) and mostly lurk here but this
| is very interesting and had to comment - many designers don't
| like the idea of quantifying design value through measurable
| data, but it's most definitely the future. The design time and
| cost savings that can be had from using datasets or software
| like Archilyse's will continue to grow, while also (hopefully)
| ensuring a higher baseline design value of buildings. I'm
| personally just beginning my journey of coding/programming
| because of exactly this sort of thing (among other reasons).
| terminalcommand wrote:
| Since you're an architect, I have a question. Considering the
| housing shortage everywhere and the land scarcity, wouldn't
| it be more logical to build higher apartments? My
| neighbourhood doesn't allow any apartment building taller
| than 5 floors for example. Why not grant 30 floors? I live in
| an earthquake zone sure. But there are residences that high
| allowed in the area, but for middle-class apartments maximum
| height is limited with 5 floors. I don't get this. Let's
| build higher, denser apartments and solve the housing
| shortage. Am I too optimistic?
| nanomonkey wrote:
| Oftentimes the 5 floor limit is for timber framed walls. In
| the United States this is due to fire codes and the ability
| to evacuate buildings. You'll often see two stories of
| cement construction for stores and parking with 4 or 5
| stories of apartments above, or just 5 stories of
| apartments alone. Larger buildings are possible, they just
| don't have the return on investment.
|
| There are some interesting articles on the design choice,
| but it's a bit sad that we've gelled on this design.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Every era has its "standard" models of construction that
| people complained about then, and now today people eye
| watering sums for "historical character."
|
| The thing that sucks about the current model is that
| everybody seems to be making retail spaces designed for
| chain tenants which small businesses don't need and can't
| afford.
| cameron4 wrote:
| Your logic is correct, or at least most would say so!
|
| Denser housing could solve a lot of housing issues. The
| problem is getting denser housing built, especially in not-
| so-dense neighborhoods. This could be for any number of
| reasons - the accusatory voice in my head likes to think
| it's mostly due to NIMBYs ("not in my backyard!" or folks
| that don't want to live in higher density neighborhoods)
| because of their warped perception of these spaces: higher
| crime, higher traffic, unsafe for children, etc. Some of
| these views may be true, but it's not a given in every high
| density neighborhood. Safe, walkable, dense neighborhoods
| exist in many places already.
|
| Another issue can be policy, and specifically zoning, which
| a lot of NIMBYs fight _very_ hard to control. I 'm no
| expert on zoning, but the general consensus among
| architects and pro-housing people is that it's holding back
| a lot of potential homes from being constructed. Check this
| out for some opinions on zoning:
| [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/can-the-us-
| ho...]
|
| In my previous city there's a popular type of "middle
| housing" (not high end single-family, and not small
| apartments) called a dingbat. They at one point in time
| were crucial for filling the gap in housing but have now
| been regulated away. Check this out for info on dingbats:
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlWvcsGlHA4]
|
| For your neighborhood in particular, zoning regulations
| have likely limited height to 5 floors. Maybe folks in the
| community lobbied for this regulation to keep density down,
| or maybe your towns infrastructure can't support a higher
| density of cars (and this brings up building code and
| parking requirements that we have in America) - there could
| be many combinations of reasons for this density limit, but
| you should look into it! A city's history of zoning policy
| can be very interesting, as they oftentimes stem from
| decades old regulations or segregation.
|
| Your optimism is valid - optimism is incredibly important
| for solving problems like these, especially when so many
| solutions exist! Implementing those solutions is usually
| the toughest part.
| metapsj wrote:
| are there other options besides increasing the density of
| housing?
| cameron4 wrote:
| This is a good question - I haven't studied much aside
| from densifying existing neighborhoods but when thinking
| about other options, I suppose suburbs come to mind.
| Before going any further, I should clarify that I live in
| the US and look at this through an American lens.
| Anyways, a primary issue with suburban affordability is
| that demand is high and space is limited[1]: many folks
| want to live in the suburbs but maintain their jobs in
| urban centers, and you can only have so much low density
| housing within commuting distance to a city. Since urban
| centers are where the majority of jobs are, it's tough to
| suggest that people "just move to the country", for
| example. Remote work could help with reducing density
| while allowing people to relocate to more remote and/or
| affordable places. More public transportation may also
| allow suburbanites to move further away (think high-speed
| trains and commuter rails).
|
| I've also heard arguments for an urban model that focuses
| on smaller, more community-centric cities instead of huge
| urban centers like New York or LA. I don't have any
| primary sources for this, but I think the idea is to keep
| density low-ish, and increase the distribution of these
| urban nodes evenly across a region
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_village]. To me this
| sounds similar to the mundane suburban towns I grew up
| around.
|
| Urbanity/density is likely the easiest[2] solution, but
| I'm sure it's not the only one. There are likely many
| thoughtful solutions that don't rely on density - I may
| look around to see if I can find any.
|
| [1] I guess this issue applies across the entire spectrum
| of housing, which is why there's a housing crisis
|
| [2] Easy is relative - obviously, this is has proven to
| be a very difficult problem to solve.
| metapsj wrote:
| appreciate your response.
|
| i get the impression dense urban environments are ripe
| for various types of capture not to mention the variety
| of competing interests that end up diluting the
| effectiveness of policy to address these issues.
|
| also, i get the impression incentives for housing
| developers aren't aligned to addressing this problem
| because in the end it would mean lower margins and a
| smaller pipeline of future housing development projects
| effectively putting them out of business.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Keep in mind that, if the barriers of entry are low
| enough, property development is nothing like a cartel.
|
| Developers will happily undercut each other to steal
| their competitors' lunch.
|
| The current model actually promotes cartel behavior;
| there is so little developable land that it is possible
| for a few people to hoard the small supply of land.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| LA is close to the logical end of the model you describe;
| downtown LA is a fairly weak center and there are other
| nodes as well.
|
| In practice this just means that instead of commuting in
| long distances in one direction, you do it in every
| direction. People just tend not to live that close to
| work due to different desirability characteristics for
| jobs vs homes. And for multiple income households this is
| even more difficult, because how often do all the people
| in a single house work or go to school in the same
| neighborhood?
| CalRobert wrote:
| Fortunately, in California the local politicians have had
| the power to deny homes taken away from them. The process
| began yesterday in Santa Monica, where developers
| automatically obtained permission to build over 4,000
| units because Santa Monica's housing element is
| noncompliant.
|
| San Francisco's housing element should fall out of
| compliance in early 2023, making it possible to build
| things without dealing with the local housing cartel.
|
| https://twitter.com/emily_sawicki/status/1580360066300928
| 002 Discussion at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33186186
| terminalcommand wrote:
| Thank you for your detailed answer and the links!
| stardenburden wrote:
| This is exactly what city planners call the missing middle
| in the US. There's skyscrapers, and two blocks over you
| have single family suburbs.
|
| If it wouldn't be for political opposition most cities,
| undoubtedly, would upzone (permit higher density) areas
| near downtown and other hubs, but even in "progressive"
| cities progress is slow because of opposition of the people
| who currently live there (commonly called NIMBY's)
| rubyfan wrote:
| Can you say more about what Archilyse is doing?
| standfest wrote:
| Archilyse provides a SaaS tool to convert floor plans (raster
| images) into 3d models of buildings (IFC or GeoJSON) with
| embedded contextual information. the 3d model accuracy gets
| verified via additional data sources (governmental building
| hull data, client database entries) and all buildings are
| geolocated. subsequently, in a 25cm grid multiple simulations
| (3d view shed analysis, daylight, traffic noise, centrality,
| discrete metrics) are computed and aggregated into feature
| vectors. these are used for training AVMs (reducing
| prediction errors in half), architectural analysis (judging
| architecture competitions), construction cost estimation,
| life cycle cost estimation, energy load peak prediction, ...
| different research groups use this dataset to derive design
| patterns and to come up with augmented ai workflows for
| architectural design (like copilot) or as benchmarks for
| novel fitness/cost functions in MCO strategies.
| nchudleigh wrote:
| Really cool thanks for explaining
| seleenz wrote:
| Probably not the kind of comment that's usually left on HN but
| whatever, please tell Matthias (and if he could tell his team)
| that they went CRAZY with this dataset. As a data nerd I d*mn
| near started BARKING. Can't stress enough how HARD they went, I
| hope their bills are ALWAYS paid, I hope they catch EVERY green
| light they need to, I hope their pasta dishes are NEVER watery.
| You get the drift by now. Matthias and gang if you're reading
| this thanks for all your hard work. BEYONCES of data FORREAL.
| standfest wrote:
| matthias here. damn ninjas are cutting onions again. thanks a
| lot for your kind words, it was an incredible team effort
| over the last years to create this. we simply hope that the
| community is going crazy with the data. and there is one
| more, even bigger thing, we will announce soon. so if this
| data amazed you, buckle up!
| schnevets wrote:
| I think the improvements and increased acceptance of
| prefabricated construction and machine learning can make for an
| intriguing combination. I am by no means a construction
| specialist, but if you distill ML to new innovation from
| historical data sets, architecture certainly has untapped
| potential.
|
| Just imagine being able to input a geolocation and automatically
| receiving insight about construction that optimizes for usable
| space, energy efficiency, or even the prospective homeowner's
| lifestyle (an AI that recommends different layout options for a
| family of 5, lifelong bachelor, and non-family roommates on
| identical quarter-acre plots)
|
| On a slightly more disruptive angle, imagine an AI that could
| understand a municipality's building code and optimize the space
| while complying with the literal requirements. Your town has
| banned finished attics without two methods of egress? Here is an
| ideal renovation that will provide that necessary balcony while
| maintaining budget (and here are 4 other buildings in the town
| that were approved with the same design).
| hooverd wrote:
| We can also throw genetic algorithms at the problem and come up
| with some really unhinged floorplans.
| m463 wrote:
| I'm sorry, but that makes me think of a trapdoor under the
| welcome mat for unwanted solicitation.
| stairlane wrote:
| if the genetic algorithm was built such that it used
| simulated traditional building materials and assembly
| techniques then sure.
|
| otherwise most genetic algorithms essentially boil down to
| calculating local minima and maxima of stresses and strains,
| and optimizes accordingly. The resulting geometry is
| generally fine for a manufacturing technique such as 3d
| printing.
|
| Otherwise, despite the material efficiency the labor involved
| might explode exponentially.
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(page generated 2022-10-14 23:01 UTC)