4 ms·
If you ask me, we’re trying to modularize and standardize the wrong things. Housing will always benefit from being customized to the people inhabiting it. Share
by throwaway316943 6y ago
If you ask me, we’re trying to modularize and standardize the wrong things. Housing will always benefit from being customized to the people inhabiting it. Shared spaces and utilities benefit more from generalization since they are used by a variety of people for a variety of purposes. We should figure out the essence of infrastructure and community spaces and then mass produce those as easy to assemble units so you could build a community hub wherever one is needed.
- ianai 6y agoAh but market factors probably don’t make that targetable. For infrastructure, much of the cost is probably planning and labor, as a guess. It’s probably not standardized as easily. But I could see modular designs helping theoretically.
- throwaway316943 6y agoThe trouble lies in it being a purchase for a group of people I think. Legal and social structures that make that possible on the scale I’m thinking aren’t in common use. You’d need some more mature form of an intentional community structured as a corporation with joint ownership and voting rights. These orgs do exist but they’re all bespoke and only beginning to organize. We need a tried and true system that any group of people can incorporate under, buy land and set up shop. The mind reels at the obstacles currently in place for such an undertaking. But if something like that does become common then there will be a market for hyper local infrastructure e.g. solar, well field, septic, networking, recycling and waste disposal, small theatres, communal kitchens, gardens, walking and biking paths, schools, workshops and motor pools. What you’d want would essentially be a self sufficient university campus in a box, available in whole or in part.