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

How to design a house to last 1000 years

constructionphysics.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 402 posts

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#221

Post by tyingq »

rsync wrote: post #98

This 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…

>makes me think this author has thought a lot about materials and buildings but not actually built anything

Here's an interview with the author: https://on.substack.com/p/what-to-read-construction-physics and his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-potter-6a082150

Anything's possible, of course, but he does seem to have the right credentials and experience for the subject matter.

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#222

Post by dpark »

robocat wrote: post #206
dpark wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Italy was hit by a series of earthquakes in 2016, including a 6.6. Certainly there was a lot of damage, including in Rome, but most stone structures survived.

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#223

Post by nashashmi »

JAlexoid wrote: post #205
djrogers wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Survivorship bias says to look at all the buildings that failed and why they failed rather than looking at the building that survived. You might imitate build but you will not imitate the environment that allowed this one to survive.

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#224

Post by Retric »

SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #175
Fiahil wrote: post #128

I 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…

> We can, however, apply modern technics and materials when they make sense : insulation, windows, waterways... The article raises an important point that could be a problem when trying to mix old and new build techniques. When talking about brick walls it says: > One tricky thing with this type of assembly is that while it has performed well historically, it doesn’t necessarily play nice with more modern, energy eff…

Construction seriously depends on location. However, the simplest solution if you want high insulation factors is to have a second air tight structure with an air gap to your brickwork. Just make sure to properly ventilate that air gap. The same approach can then be used on a slate roof.

Essentially you end up with a home inside a shell. There are several advantages to such structures such a potentially great sound insulation and aesthetics, but it’s not cheap. Having an essentially air tight structure requires a hvac system to match. A combination of heat exchanger, filter, humidity control, and temperature control let you have a very comfortable environment while still benefiting from significant insulation.

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#225

Post by phkahler »

rsync wrote: post #98

This 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…

>> If I had an unlimited budget and was aiming for >1000 years I would pour the piles to bedrock with stainless rebar...

Yeah they reject reinforced concrete, but the reason it doesn't last is the type of rebar used. To then site stainless later seems odd. IMHO our roads need to be built with stainless rebar.

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#226

Post by meristem »

austinl wrote: post #170
NortySpock wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent poster is probably referring to "How Buildings Learn", a book by Stewart Brand with lots of architectural pictures and commentary about how various buildings have been (re)used over the decades or centuries. Brand posits (a) human needs change faster than buildings age, and thus buildings must adapt to that change over the lifespan of the building (b) there are two reasons a building lives to be more than…

It's fascinating how culture has effects on architecture. So many older American homes have small kitchens that are separate from a formal dining room. Historically, a family member or cook would be making food separately, out of the way, and then it was presented in the dining room. Today, everyone wants a kitchen that's integrated with the dining area. Cooking has been culturally elevated – people don't feel like t…

This seems cultural for sure. I grew up in an apartment built in early 1970s with separate kitchen. To this day most apartments in my country are planned w/o open kitchens.

It is actually an ongoing joke with my partner, who has lived an open-kitchen life until meeting me.

PS: would be interesting to correlate enclosed kitchen with cost and availability of home labourers (slaves, maids, cooks, etc)

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#227

Post by Brendinooo »

tigerlily wrote: post #218

Living in a coastal area and having lived through a couple of big earthquakes, what you want is housing that can be recycled or composted after a lifetime of around 60 years. Long enough for a generation or two and probably 3-4 renovation cycles. Hurricane Katrina and the Christchurch earthquakes created a lot of green spaces afterwards. It was amazing to see a house disappear and be replaced by grass before long. Or…

Eh, I'm somewhere in between the article and your reply. You need to work with entropy, but you can do that AND have 1000 year houses by trying to optimize for cheap, locally-sourced materials that regular people can work with, and tailoring your architecture to the challenges of your region.

I saw a thread on Twitter once about how some old Japanese homes are built on stilts that sit on flat rocks. When earthquakes happen, at worst the house shifts off the rocks. That kind of thing. Don't force a style on a place that can't accommodate it.

If a stainless steel beam goes out in 500 years, the people living in the area might not be able to replace it. But if it's made of wood, you've got a better shot at finding a tree and someone who can work with it.

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#228

Post by wongarsu »

titanomachy wrote: post #194
avereveard wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I had an unlimited budget at some point on the price scale you can just build a titanium cast for a house and pour molten rocks in, probably a basalt. what's the yield strength of igneous rocks? maybe the roof need to be arched.

Is that something that we've actually done at any kind of scale?

Many cold war bunkers are kind of like this, but using rock that's already in-situ: start with solid rock (either in a mountain or in bedrock), remove some of it, in the cavity add linings of concrete, copper and steel to enhance properties as desired (copper for better EM shielding).

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#229

Post by polymerist »

My only issue with this was the steel potentially rusting over 1000 years. There is a lot of water vapor that moves in and out of a house and mitigation of that water is important. Stainless steel will rust given enough time/water too.

Anti-corrosion coating on the steel and waterproofing of the foundation slab with a self adhered membrane are two overlooked points imo. Easy enough to tie in waterproofing of the slab with a water/vapor barrier on the walls and the roofing underlayments too.

Unsealed brick is also relatively weak if there is a significant amount of water vapor and prolonged years of freeze/thaw will eat away at the brick/mortar and reduce structural integrity of the facade.

I may be biased since waterproofing product development is my day job.

As for the other comments on the cost of steel being obscene, I'd counter that volumetric steel modular construction is a growing market. Steel is also more easily recycled than wood and lumber costs in 2021 were really high. Probably part of the reason Katerra went bankrupt too (mismanagement played a role too I'm sure).

I agree on the steel in the ground with corrosion, I'm guessing the author implies there is an anti-corrosion coating on there already (since not having one seems idiotic), but I suspect it wouldn't last that long and honestly it seems a little excessive since slab on grade is pretty common and I've seen 200+ year old homes sitting on big rocks that are sitting on compacted soil.

Fun article though.

Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years

#230

Post by ThrustVectoring »

lenkite wrote: post #199
ortusdux wrote: post #53

Stainless steel rebar is an often overlooked option. In theory, solid SS rebar should outlast the concrete, but it is a difficult thing to accurately study. In favorable conditions, regular rebar reinforced concrete starts to need major repairs after ~40 years due to corrosion. The Progresso Pier in Mexico was build over 80 years ago with SS rebar, and reportedly has not needed any renovations. A pier built 20 years…

Wish we could re-discover how to produce Roman Concrete, which has already proven its long-lasting efficacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete .

My understanding is that modern concrete would last as long as Roman concrete would, if we built the same types of designs that Romans used concrete for. The big difference is that we want to span gaps without using large unwieldy arches, so we need tensile strength, so we need to use steel reinforcing bar in our concrete, which is the eventual pathway to failure. (Well, that and heavy machinery like semi-tractor trailers, which the Romans also didn't have to design around)

The Romans did not have the quantity of cheap steel necessary for this, so they ensured only compressive loads on their concrete, so it lasted about as long as you'd expect a random rock subject to only compressive loads in a field to last.

Post reply on HN