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

greenbuildingadvisor.com

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

#221

Post by olau »

ams6110 wrote: post #154
danieltillett wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 building…

High ceilings help when you don't have air conditioning. They are nice aesthetically but unnecessary and even detrimental (more air volume to cool) when you have it.

Feels like nitpicket but: volume of air is in itself not a problem. There's not a whole lot of energy in air. The issue with heating/cooling is the surface area.

With active heating/cooling, what really helps is better insulation. In Scandinavia and Germany people are insulating walls in new houses with 40 cm rockwool, or the equivalents thereof.

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

#222

Post by gchpaco »

There are almost no 100 year old brick buildings in San Francisco. Why? Because there was a big goddamn earthquake in 1906, and unreinforced masonry (which is to say, functionally almost all of it) deals badly with earthquakes in general. It deals especially badly with them when they are built on landfill.

There are also lots of mentions of survivorship bias, which is extremely relevant here.

Now that said, I find modern construction to be badly done in general, because it is almost all of it erected as cheaply as possible—and as cheaply as possible as measured by the shortest possible term metric. There is good stuff done still, and it is arguably cheaper over the ten year run or longer, but that's not what people buy and so it's not what the developers make. I'd like to claim this is shortsightedness but I can't shake the feeling that it's because real wages have been stagnant or sometimes declining since around 1972. There just isn't the money to spend.

N.B.: there are a lot of reasons why modern lumber seems like so much crap. About 95% of it is because folks are unwilling to pay for good lumber, as described above. Quality lumber, even quality construction lumber exists, but it's significantly more expensive than #2 common. Of the remainder, it's worth remembering that modern 2x4s are tend to be farmed in sustainable fashion using fast growth species like Douglas fir or Southern yellow pine. The stuff we were building with in the 30s and 40s? Quite a lot of that came from old growth forests, now irrevocably gone.

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

#223

Post by spc476 »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #122
old-gregg wrote: post #109

The quality of modern construction (not necessarily brick) is a big pet peeve of mine and something I keep looking for answers. The way I see it, some time right after WWII, people in US suddenly decided to live in a poorly built and ugly looking dwellings regardless of their income level. It is especially easy to see when looking at NYC buildings, some rentals are even explicitly advertized as "pre-war". Examples of…

A combination of three things, IMHO: 1. Labor specialization, meaning less of the home-buying market is savvy enough in the "handyman" sense to tell the difference. 2. A move away from building the thing you're going to own, and building things that other people will buy later. 3. Minimum standards for housing construction. The third needs to be explained more - instead of aiming towards "building a good home", the c…

Yup. When Hurricane Andrew blew through South Florida in 1992, homes in the direct path that were built prior to modern building standards survived, while more modern homes (I think post-1980) were unlivable (or totally gone, depending on the area).

Part of that was declining building standards (go too long between hurricanes and yes, people get complacent).

But another aspect, I think, is a shift in home ownership---we no longer "own" a home for an extended period of time (average length of owning a home in the US is seven years). Yes, my grandparents eventually paid off their mortgages, but nowadays I think that's pretty rare. Why buy quality when you aren't going to own for very long?

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

#224

Post by mavhc »

AmVess wrote: post #208
old-gregg wrote: post #109

The quality of modern construction (not necessarily brick) is a big pet peeve of mine and something I keep looking for answers. The way I see it, some time right after WWII, people in US suddenly decided to live in a poorly built and ugly looking dwellings regardless of their income level. It is especially easy to see when looking at NYC buildings, some rentals are even explicitly advertized as "pre-war". Examples of…

It is very much a cost issue, although a small one in terms of the overall price of the house. However, money that goes into 2x6 vs 2x4 studs, drywall, doors, insulation, windows comes out of the overall budget. People shop by price because they have to. Fancy appliances vs sturdy floors? People will pick fancy appliances 99% of the time. I built a few dozen homes and only once had a client request 2x6 construction.…

Mostly I'm amused that Americans never got the end of the Three Little Pigs story and still build houses out of wood.

I read once that buildings are the best thing to cheat on the construction of because each layer of underspecced materials is hidden by the next layer.

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

#225

Post by innovator116 »

anonbanker wrote: post #111
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…

> Robotic bricklaying is here. Does this mean there are robot Freemasons in our future?

http://www.fastbrickrobotics.net

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

#226

Post by nkurz »

owenversteeg wrote: post #183

I live in Hanover, NH -- the town mentioned in the post -- and see that building every day. I also know the architect that designed that building personally, and would be happy to forward any questions to him.

I don't have any specific questions, but I'd love to see his response to the article! I'm pretty sure that Martin would add it to the bottom of the original if desired.

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

#227

Post by cobweb »

mavhc wrote: post #224
AmVess wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very much a cost issue, although a small one in terms of the overall price of the house. However, money that goes into 2x6 vs 2x4 studs, drywall, doors, insulation, windows comes out of the overall budget. People shop by price because they have to. Fancy appliances vs sturdy floors? People will pick fancy appliances 99% of the time. I built a few dozen homes and only once had a client request 2x6 construction.…

Mostly I'm amused that Americans never got the end of the Three Little Pigs story and still build houses out of wood. I read once that buildings are the best thing to cheat on the construction of because each layer of underspecced materials is hidden by the next layer.

Wood is a renewable and a carbon trap. On site, dirt is a good choice for a building material. You can also use it to bulk mass. You just need a digger and some grunt work. See building with rammed earth.

I've a friend who has just added to his 17th century thatched cottage with like materials: oak timber frame, timber cladding and wattle and daub, which is dirt and wood/hay/hair. It's lovely and solid. Sadly planning officials insisted on an over the top concrete foundation that negated all his hard work with his sympathetic build.

The wood is good!

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

#228

Post by rwmj »

ashark wrote: post #42
rwmj wrote: post #25

The small house I live in is 100 years old, and built of brick. It is a tremendously (over-)engineered building: two layers of brick even for interior walls , exterior walls are around 1 ft thick, and four massive chimney-breasts (although two were sadly removed by previous owners). My theory is that they just had enormous amounts of cheap labour 100 years ago, and you'd never be able to build such a building today b…

In my experience the timber in buildings that old is of the sort that would be hard to find at any price these days, and ruinously expensive if you could. Single thick, long, flawless pieces used in places where several thinner, knot-filled pieces would be used today. Exceptional (by modern standards) material, used in quantities that would be considered excessive even in nice construction these days.

This is of course why reclaimed building materials are a thing (in the UK anyway). I could go to a place not 10 miles from here and buy a cast iron fireplace that was previously in a home very similar to mine. The irony being that a previous owner of my home probably chucked my fireplace in a skip in about 1980.

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

#229

Post by louithethrid »

Retric wrote: post #168
coldtea wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was generation of Germans for example who thought a good idea to elect Hitler, and then cheer for him even as he dismantled the state. Or there was the boring generation of the 10's, compare with the more lively roaring 20s. Or consider the 60s vs the more conservative 50s.

Hitler was never elected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_presidential_election,_... He ran for office twice and lost by more than 15% both times.

He got voted cancelour by a majority. That is as democratic as it gets. And yes, this should attack anyones assumption that the people always vote for the best. Thats why there are non-voted pillars of power in a good democracy, that can not correct a bad course, but can at least keep it in check.

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

#230

Post by kgwgk »

innovator116 wrote: post #225
anonbanker wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Robotic bricklaying is here. Does this mean there are robot Freemasons in our future?

http://www.fastbrickrobotics.net

I think you've missed the joke...

This link seems more relevant: http://illuminatiwatcher.com/illuminati-freemason-symbolism-...

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