Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#61

Post by shimon » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:23 PM UTC

dworin wrote: post #23

There are some other great explanations in this thread (survivor bias seems very plausible), but I'll throw out another based on my experience with other construction trades: economics. If you look at old buildings, you tend to notice that they also have a lot of intricate plaster-work that you never see anymore. Why? Because it used to be much cheaper to hire skilled labor than it is today. You can see a similar tre…

I think you're on the right track but your comparison fails to take into account the productivity of the bricklayer. A good bricklayer today ought to be more productive than an 1891 bricklayer, because he has motorized mixers, vehicles to move bricks to the right place, laser lines to level his rows, etc. Even in a craft that seems legendarily nontechnical, you have to give some credit to technological advancement. But it's still probably not enough to fully compensate for the 75% increase in labor cost.

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#62

Post by jfoutz » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:23 PM UTC

ealexhudson wrote: post #39

Retric wrote: post #10

Survivorship bias is a really important caveat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias Many cheap brick buildings from 100 years ago are gone, where the high quality ones are more likely to remain. Also, steel Lintel are often used over windows in brick buildings. They don't last as long, but are fine for cheap construction that is not expected to last. AKA the kinds of building that are unlikely to be aroun…

My last house was built in ~1936. It was cheap for the time, but the entire estate of houses it sat in was complete - virtually nothing had been removed. The form of the buildings had changed somewhat (extension for bathroom instead of toilet in the garden), but the brick walls were incredible and the internal timberwork (joists, frames, etc.) was all hardwood of a quality that would be very expensive now. My current…

It's also interesting to see 2x4s that are actually 2 inches by 4 inches

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#63

Post by hugh4 » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:23 PM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #27

amelius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that survivorship bias is not much of an issue here since the old building still looks a lot better than that new building.

Actually that confirms the point; the old building was clearly state of the art for the time, and the new building is a cheap rush like student dorms sometimes are.

I dunno, there's a lot of cheap 1880s "workers cottages" around here which have nonetheless been built with a lot more style and care than the average new building.

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#64

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:25 PM UTC

Marazan wrote: post #55

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #20

If you are curious about this topic you should bring it up with some architects from different countries. From my understanding there are indeed regressions in building quality in some countries but it's not entirely clear what causes it other than decisions that have been made at the time. In particular the brick did not decrease in quality but the way they were built did. For instance for a while people paid less a…

Brutalism gets everywhere in modern british arcitecture. The idea that any archtiect should be designing a flat foor bulding in, say, Scotland is totally bonkers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Peter's_Seminary,_Cardross

It's a beautiful ruin, but it seems never to have been a properly functioning building. Artistic success, total waste of resources for church that built it.

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#65

Post by MisterBastahrd » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:26 PM UTC

Because brick has become affordable for the common man and building techniques value speed? The average person building a house in 1915 would have a house built with wood siding because brick would have been out of his price range, even with the slave labor wages and lack of sufficient building regulations.

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#66

Post by fa » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:27 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #2

Loginwall.

Firefox specific. about:config -> javascript.enable -> "false". Refresh. Reset to "true".

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#67

Post by danieltillett » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:28 PM UTC

ealexhudson wrote: post #39

Retric wrote: post #10

Survivorship bias is a really important caveat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias Many cheap brick buildings from 100 years ago are gone, where the high quality ones are more likely to remain. Also, steel Lintel are often used over windows in brick buildings. They don't last as long, but are fine for cheap construction that is not expected to last. AKA the kinds of building that are unlikely to be aroun…

My last house was built in ~1936. It was cheap for the time, but the entire estate of houses it sat in was complete - virtually nothing had been removed. The form of the buildings had changed somewhat (extension for bathroom instead of toilet in the garden), but the brick walls were incredible and the internal timberwork (joists, frames, etc.) was all hardwood of a quality that would be very expensive now. My current…

I think one thing is buildings are now are built closer to their required engineering tolerances. In the past many building were massively over engineered, while modern buildings seem to be built for their exact expected lifespan.

The one thing I really hate about most modern buildings here in Australia is the ceiling height has been reduced. A lot of modern buildings have ceiling heights around 7’ while old buildings will have ceilings of 10’ to 12’.

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#68

Post by eric_the_read » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:30 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #36

Retric wrote: post #10

Survivorship bias is a really important caveat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias Many cheap brick buildings from 100 years ago are gone, where the high quality ones are more likely to remain. Also, steel Lintel are often used over windows in brick buildings. They don't last as long, but are fine for cheap construction that is not expected to last. AKA the kinds of building that are unlikely to be aroun…

Yes, but when you have entire rows and city-blocks of colonial-era buildings standing, and entire cities of century homes where many new office buildings have gone up and been torn down in the meantime, it's hard to just point to survivorship bias. These aren't a few isolated cases, but large contiguous seas of old buildings.

I would imagine that well-built buildings are not evenly distributed; well-off individuals and businesses, who could presumably therefore afford to build nice buildings, would likely congregate near each other.

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#69

Post by barrkel » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:34 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #33

Animats wrote: post #17

Is the brick actually holding up the building? In many modern buildings, it's just a veneer, about 1cm thick. The steelwork holds it up. The new Box.net HQ in Redwood City looks like a brick building, but it's not; it's steel and concrete with about 1cm of brick on the outside. There's some nice work being done with brick today.[1] Some of this is gentrification, built to fit in with existing brick buildings, or to i…

> Is the brick actually holding up the building? This was my thought as well. The modern building is likely just using the brick as veneer, even if it is full-thickness brick. It's likely concrete walls with brick layered over it. The fact that the brickwork is poorly done likely doesn't matter except aesthetically. If all the brick fell off the building would still be standing. The newer building is indeed ugly, and…

Wouldn't you expect brick for ornamental purposes to look prettier than brick used for functional purposes?

Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?

#70

Post by dazc » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 10:41 PM UTC

oliwarner wrote: post #44

It's an interesting idea worth exploring... ...but comparing a bank (a building that in 1891 had to LOOK expensive) and student flats (a building that has to BE cheap) results in the rather underwhelming discovery that because they had wildly different budgets with completely different aesthetic aims, they ended up with different built qualities. Shocking, isn't it? If they want to make an apples-for-apples compariso…

> "With the rarest of exceptions, there is no "survivorship bias"."

A lot of UK housing built circa 1900 - 1930 was not well built at all; Building regulations as such hardly existed and there was a lot of trial and error. Buildings did indeed fall down.