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Easy solution: live in a gray box. Preferably underground so the rest of us don't have to look at it. I'm only half serious. Personally, I like details, but I

Easy solution: live in a gray box. Preferably underground so the rest of us don't have to look at it. I'm only half serious. Personally, I like details, but I don't like clutter. If it's complexity I have to maintain myself, I don't want it.

vbezhenar 6y ago
I'm thinking about building a house in the future. It should be made from bricks (as I love this material) and I don't really want to make any interior finish. Just huge gray box of pure bricks with exposed electric wires, stone floor, etc. I think it's called loft or industrial style and people trying to mimic it. But I hate mimicking, things must be natural. Not sure if it's practical and I definitely did not see anyone implementing it. But that would definitely reflect my personality in some way.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  A blank/empty building or space is only as right or wrong as why it was made and what is done with it. A grey box is ugly, and even disfunctional if the function of housing humans is any different from the function of storing items. But a grey box may also be a canvas, which ends up being the very opposite of ugly and dead and inhumane. One of the great appeals of the loft/industrial thing is the space is reconfigurable at will. You can have very inventive and artistic weird beds hanginging from chains at novel elevations and producing interesting spaces underneath, curtains for divisions that move around and can be opened to make a big open space one day and cozy spaces the next. There is no single form that is really the one true best form. The ability to change is more soul-filling than anything. It's not practical and most people can't afford to have 3 homes where one is all cozy spaces that feel like a claustrophobic rat warren after a while, and another that is all clean sterile Ikea which is a refreshing break from the rat warren for a while and then feels sterile and un-fulfilling after a while... one perfectly valid approach is an empty space, but empty for the sake of it's configurability, not for the sake of the emptiness itself.
- sidpatil 6y ago
  What would the energy efficiency of such a building be?
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    Well, I simplified that a little bit. Walls are supposed to contain space filled with insulation, so it would have pretty standard energy efficiency.

vbezhenar 6y ago

I'm thinking about building a house in the future. It should be made from bricks (as I love this material) and I don't really want to make any interior finish. Just huge gray box of pure bricks with exposed electric wires, stone floor, etc. I think it's called loft or industrial style and people trying to mimic it. But I hate mimicking, things must be natural. Not sure if it's practical and I definitely did not see anyone implementing it. But that would definitely reflect my personality in some way.

Brian_K_White 6y ago
A blank/empty building or space is only as right or wrong as why it was made and what is done with it. A grey box is ugly, and even disfunctional if the function of housing humans is any different from the function of storing items. But a grey box may also be a canvas, which ends up being the very opposite of ugly and dead and inhumane. One of the great appeals of the loft/industrial thing is the space is reconfigurable at will. You can have very inventive and artistic weird beds hanginging from chains at novel elevations and producing interesting spaces underneath, curtains for divisions that move around and can be opened to make a big open space one day and cozy spaces the next. There is no single form that is really the one true best form. The ability to change is more soul-filling than anything. It's not practical and most people can't afford to have 3 homes where one is all cozy spaces that feel like a claustrophobic rat warren after a while, and another that is all clean sterile Ikea which is a refreshing break from the rat warren for a while and then feels sterile and un-fulfilling after a while... one perfectly valid approach is an empty space, but empty for the sake of it's configurability, not for the sake of the emptiness itself.
sidpatil 6y ago
What would the energy efficiency of such a building be?
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  Well, I simplified that a little bit. Walls are supposed to contain space filled with insulation, so it would have pretty standard energy efficiency.