Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dream Homes from the Past Century

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 87 posts

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#51

Post by baybal2 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #15
freetime2 wrote: post #10

Recently my idea of a dream house would something in the traditional Japanese style with wood, tatami, shoji, and a beautiful garden. I remember being really blown away by the Nomura house [1] in Kanazawa many years ago. Of course I would probably want to update it with better insulation, air conditioning, and more glass/screens to let me enjoy the views of the garden while keeping the bugs out. The best part is you…

A lot of those homes are difficult to retrofit with decent heating and insulation. I had a friend thattried this with an old Beijing hutong whose bones simply weren’t designed for central heating. You can put in something, but it will be expensive and/or ineffective.

> thattried this with an old Beijing hutong

And those hutongs are coming at few megabucks apiece now...

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#52

Post by cheesecracker »

soneca wrote: post #19

First I was surprised to see how modern were these houses from the ”past century” . Then I realized that the past century is no longer the 19th century, as it was while I was growing up and got used to the term.

Same here. I was actually hoping to see lots of outdated dreams, like "look what they thought would be cool, but turned out to be completely impractical".

Also, all such posts miss location. What good is a cool house, if the next supermarket is 50 miles away?

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#53

Post by afthonos »

ehnto wrote: post #8
mjevans wrote: post #5

I dislike how much glass is used in many of these houses. I imagine they let a LOT of ambient noise and heat inside.

You might be surprised at how capable the right glass can be. I have never felt cosier than when I stayed at a bed and breakfast with what must have been glazed/airgapped floor to ceiling windows for one wall. It overlooked a raging ocean as it was storming, with alpacas on the porch, and you couldn't hear any of it. I can't speak for radiant heat though, as I was there in winter. You might be right there.

That sounds amazing. Do you have a link, by any chance?

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#54

Post by ryanwaggoner »

pkamb wrote: post #37

I'd love a service that surfaced "architecturally desirable" homes for sale in your area, at various price points. This is a hard criteria to define. But I know it when I see it. Some combination of materials, craftsmanship, age, and design. Not necessarily location or price. It's very hard to filter for using Redfin or Zillow. I wish there was an MLS site that showed you 50+ listing thumbnails on a single page and a…

100% agree. I usually search Zillow with “modern” or “contemporary” or “architect”, which usually means 5-10% will actually be interesting houses. It seems the vast majority of even extremely expensive homes are completely devoid of any sense of design beyond “however the other McMansions look”.

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#56

Post by kaybe »

twelvechairs wrote: post #17
freetime2 wrote: post #10

Recently my idea of a dream house would something in the traditional Japanese style with wood, tatami, shoji, and a beautiful garden. I remember being really blown away by the Nomura house [1] in Kanazawa many years ago. Of course I would probably want to update it with better insulation, air conditioning, and more glass/screens to let me enjoy the views of the garden while keeping the bugs out. The best part is you…

For anyone with a serious interest in traditional Japanese houses, the best book in English is by Heinrich (Heino) Engel "The Japanese house: a tradition for contemporary architecture". It goes through everything from climate to philosophy to woodworking. A few of its chapters were later republished in a smaller version you can borrow free from zlib here: https://b-ok.global/book/2696550/f47105 [edit] Someone else on…

Which chapters are missing from the downloadable version?

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#57

Post by elric »

082349872349872 wrote: post #29
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those homes are difficult to retrofit with decent heating and insulation. I had a friend thattried this with an old Beijing hutong whose bones simply weren’t designed for central heating. You can put in something, but it will be expensive and/or ineffective.

炬燵 are a thing

True. It's long been my opinion that it's more efficient to heat a person (or a couple of persons) than to heat an entire home, most of which is empty at any given time. A kotatsu fits that bill rather nicely.

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#58

Post by seanmcdirmid »

elric wrote: post #57
082349872349872 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

炬燵 are a thing

True. It's long been my opinion that it's more efficient to heat a person (or a couple of persons) than to heat an entire home, most of which is empty at any given time. A kotatsu fits that bill rather nicely.

Kotatsus are limited: they are ok if you are idle, but they don’t warm your hands if you want to get work done on a laptop. I can never get anything done MIL’s apartment in southern China in the winter (southern China gets no central heating, and it still gets cold).

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#59

Post by elric »

the-dude wrote: post #48
fullito wrote: post #41

My biggest worry is, when i finaly have the money and the ground to build my dream, that i'm not allowed to due to building restrictions :(... Germany is densily populated and you can get a house + ground with 2-5 acres for 200-500.000k but they are all in the so called 'outter area' and apparently we don't want that. You have strict building restrictions. you can't just tear it down and rebiuld it (what you often ne…

Germany is not densily populated. Neighbor speaking up here.

Depends on how you look at it. According to Wikipedia, Germany ranks 41st in a list countries by population density, with 233/km2. But not many other countries its size (or bigger) have more. Japan, India & Vietnam seem to be the only ones.

Re: Dream Homes from the Past Century

#60

Post by smiley1437 »

fullito wrote: post #41

My biggest worry is, when i finaly have the money and the ground to build my dream, that i'm not allowed to due to building restrictions :(... Germany is densily populated and you can get a house + ground with 2-5 acres for 200-500.000k but they are all in the so called 'outter area' and apparently we don't want that. You have strict building restrictions. you can't just tear it down and rebiuld it (what you often ne…

Kevin McCloud completely changed my relationship with architecture, no such thing as too much Grand Designs!
Post reply on HN