> 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"
How to design a house to last 1000 years
201–210 of 402 posts
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 as…
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.
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.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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 b…
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 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#204This 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 stainl…
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.
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.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#205I 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, wo…
> 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? I…
It doesn't matter that the others fell, we now know what definitely didn't fall - which is all we need to get to.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Were there no earthquakes in the ancient world? Lots of ancient stone buildings are still standing.
In locations hit by strong earthquakes, you don’t notice the ancient stone buildings that didn’t survive and are not there.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention wood fireplaces in the home and the noxious byproducts they produce is likely to shorten your lifespan considerably.
the smoke goes up the chimney.
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...
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#208I 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.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#209Yuck, 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.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#210I 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, wo…
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 f…
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.