Thank you very much for sharing this. In more of one occasion I've asked myself this exact question, even if for only as a thought experiment.
How to design a house to last 1000 years
311–320 of 402 posts
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#312This 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…
I'd carve it out of a cave somewhere. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/anglo-saxon-cave-house-sc...
Here is a testimonial about a modern cave home: https://dengarden.com/misc/The-Pitfalls-of-an-Underground-Ho...
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#313This 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…
Agreed on the design.
I worked in a post and beam barn built in the 1600s. It will be there in 2200. Basically, if you need the roof maintained and those buildings will last forever.
Personally, I’d do a stone foundation with post and beam. Over 1000 years, luck and location mean more anyway. Chances are the building will be flattened by a war or other calamity over that timeline.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#314This 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…
Okay, so your step #1 for building a 1000 year house is to just... have a house that never has any leaks or termites? I can see some issues.
If you want something to last, you plan for when it does go wrong. You should be designing a house that survives ten once-in-a-century floods and storms. Freezing pipes. Hot and cold. Termites, carpenter ants, mice.
> ... which also means that unburied steel, protected from elements, up in the air, is going to last more than 1000 years.
Rust is protective. That's why cars can rust so quickly, because vibration breaks the rust flakes off and exposes steel to more air and water. Steel beams are subject to bending and vibration. Steel buried underground is not. A larger problem is also that rust is expansive. I'm not positive what you mean by plate connectors, but nailed tie plates push their nails out over time. Screws and bolts work fine.
The biggest problem comes with using treated wood and steel together. Treated wood, even the non-arsenic ones, use copper compounds. That causes galvanic corrosion. It'll even eat through zinc-coated steel. Galvanized steel is enough for at least a couple decades, but I have no idea about a millenium.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#315I 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…
Arcosanti is a lot of concrete, as I recall.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#316I live in the midwest. Would this hold up against a tornado?
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could be prone to some survivorship bias.
Sure, but what's the alternative? Dig out all other buildings that failed over the last 1000 years, figure out how they failed and why, and take action? You can just copy what is known to work instead.
Or like, look at any of the million dilapidated houses and realize that 1. most houses leak at some point and 2. termites eat wood. Then conclude that actually, maybe .0001% of wood houses lasting for 1000 years is not actually good evidence that wood is a material that easily lasts 1000 years. Then think twice about using wood.
Personally I'd a concrete dome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#318Lets see, Bill Gate's 1990s house had ethernet ports and a 512K screen on every wall. Perhaps he should have consulted Gordon Moore (still alive) first.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#319This 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 inside fly-ash concrete and top those pilings with plate connectors into which you could socket large wooden columns (perhaps 8x8) and build the structure with large wooden members connected with steel connectors and column caps, etc. Are there any existing buildings constructed that way that have stoo…
York Minster in England is mostly 1000 years old. There are some nice stories about how it handled a serious fire in 1984 here, (starting about 18 minutes in) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0007pws. eg, the 2000 year old Roman drainage system got used for the first time in 1000 years because lots of water got inside the building from the fire hoses.
When rebuilding it, they had to decide whether to remake it in the same way it was originally, or to use a modern approach. They decided to use oak beams again because of lack of evidence about what happens to steel structures after hundreds of years. But then they couldn't find any oak trees big enough.
Re: How to design a house to last 1000 years
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd carve it out of a cave somewhere. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/anglo-saxon-cave-house-sc...
The dugouts in Coober Pedy are a modern example of this. I'll bet they're still there in 1000 years, albeit with damage to the exterior facades.
With .5" of monthly rainfall and nearly no seismic or insect activity to speak of, you could make any house in Coober Pedy last nearly forever.