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> Who's the target customer for this? People who fall for stuff like Hyperloop. The biggest problem with housing is not the building itself, its the land and t

> Who's the target customer for this? People who fall for stuff like Hyperloop. The biggest problem with housing is not the building itself, its the land and the scarcity of it. This is yet another tech 'solution' in search of a problem. And that problem is political, not technical. INB4: but we're gonna deploy these on Mars!!

mgolawala 5y ago
Land is not scarce. We literally make as much of it as we want. What makes it scarce is legislation and zoning. Look at Manhattan or Hong Kong. You just stack the homes and offices and stores on top of each other.
- decebalus1 5y ago
  Allow me to rephrase: space in desirable urban areas. Land is too specific.
  - prawn 5y ago
    Also, land with services connected - water, etc. Loads of cheap blocks of land out in the deserts of Texas.
- lmm 5y ago
  Right, which is exactly why this technology does nothing to solve the problem. The housing shortage in SF isn't because they can't build like Manhattan or Hong Kong there, it's because they choose not to.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    Certainly it would be possible to build higher than construction currently goes in SF, but permission is not the only reason why there are fewer skyscrapers. Manhattan and Hong Kong are essentially massive regions of granite that you can build pretty much anything on top of. That sort of geology is not particularly common. You can't just put up skyscrapers everywhere. They'd fall over eventually. https://blog.epa.gov/2015/07/14/the-manhattan-skyline-why-are-there-no-tall-skyscrapers-between-midtown-and-downtown/ https://blog.epa.gov/2015/07/14/the-manhattan-skyline-why-ar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Hong_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Hong_Kong
    - bumby 5y ago
      Counterpoint: Chicago skyscrapers. Chicago typically doesn't have well accessible bedrock. I know of one civil engineer who unexpectedly ran into granite and was able to sell it for added profit on a project. Point being, CE's don't typically expect great bedrock yet have developed methods to build skyscrapers in a city that was formerly a swamp. "He says even though new technology makes it easier to find solid bedrock beneath 100 feet of wet clay, it doesn’t always make sense to drill that deep. Modern engineers still use the same general principle Burnham & Root employed when they floated the foundations of the Monadnock Building on an even flimsier layer of soil known as desiccated crust: They just spread the load."[1] [1] https://www.wbez.org/stories/building-skyscrapers-on-chicagos-swampy-soil/6a18eb6f-95d0-4829-9fb5-56154e9ef0ae https://www.wbez.org/stories/building-skyscrapers-on-chicago...
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    > The housing shortage in SF ... it's because they choose not to. And the choice it's entirely driven by financial speculation, nothing else.
- LightG 5y ago
  Utilities?
baybal2 5y ago
> This is yet another tech 'solution' in search of a problem. And that problem is political, not technical. And the problem they search for has been solved half a century ago — the modern highrise apartment building.
- f6v 5y ago
  But that would mean you wouldn’t be able to use cars and a public transportation system would have to be built.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    It looks to be such a small, and insignificant detail :)
  - developer93 5y ago
    Oh no, that sounds terrible?
    - f6v 5y ago
      I wouldn't want to be the one to rob Americans of their trucks.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    That's good. But if you did want cars - that's totally doable. You build the garages in lower floors / underground and the apartments higher up. There's lots of buildings like that in central Melbourne for example.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      You could decide to have 5 floors of garages from the ground floor up, and have 5 floors of roads to drive on (especially easy if you make it electric only for most vehicles - maybe confine heavy diesel vehicles to the ground floor with appropiate ventilation) Then on the 6th floor have a pedestrian/cycle floor that's sheltered from the elements, and the 7th floor have open parks, with 30 stories of housing and offices above.

mgolawala 5y ago

Land is not scarce. We literally make as much of it as we want. What makes it scarce is legislation and zoning. Look at Manhattan or Hong Kong. You just stack the homes and offices and stores on top of each other.

decebalus1 5y ago
Allow me to rephrase: space in desirable urban areas. Land is too specific.
- prawn 5y ago
  Also, land with services connected - water, etc. Loads of cheap blocks of land out in the deserts of Texas.
lmm 5y ago
Right, which is exactly why this technology does nothing to solve the problem. The housing shortage in SF isn't because they can't build like Manhattan or Hong Kong there, it's because they choose not to.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Certainly it would be possible to build higher than construction currently goes in SF, but permission is not the only reason why there are fewer skyscrapers. Manhattan and Hong Kong are essentially massive regions of granite that you can build pretty much anything on top of. That sort of geology is not particularly common. You can't just put up skyscrapers everywhere. They'd fall over eventually. https://blog.epa.gov/2015/07/14/the-manhattan-skyline-why-are-there-no-tall-skyscrapers-between-midtown-and-downtown/ https://blog.epa.gov/2015/07/14/the-manhattan-skyline-why-ar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Hong_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Hong_Kong
  - bumby 5y ago
    Counterpoint: Chicago skyscrapers. Chicago typically doesn't have well accessible bedrock. I know of one civil engineer who unexpectedly ran into granite and was able to sell it for added profit on a project. Point being, CE's don't typically expect great bedrock yet have developed methods to build skyscrapers in a city that was formerly a swamp. "He says even though new technology makes it easier to find solid bedrock beneath 100 feet of wet clay, it doesn’t always make sense to drill that deep. Modern engineers still use the same general principle Burnham & Root employed when they floated the foundations of the Monadnock Building on an even flimsier layer of soil known as desiccated crust: They just spread the load."[1] [1] https://www.wbez.org/stories/building-skyscrapers-on-chicagos-swampy-soil/6a18eb6f-95d0-4829-9fb5-56154e9ef0ae https://www.wbez.org/stories/building-skyscrapers-on-chicago...
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > The housing shortage in SF ... it's because they choose not to. And the choice it's entirely driven by financial speculation, nothing else.
LightG 5y ago
Utilities?

baybal2 5y ago

> This is yet another tech 'solution' in search of a problem. And that problem is political, not technical. And the problem they search for has been solved half a century ago — the modern highrise apartment building.

f6v 5y ago
But that would mean you wouldn’t be able to use cars and a public transportation system would have to be built.
- baybal2 5y ago
  It looks to be such a small, and insignificant detail :)
- developer93 5y ago
  Oh no, that sounds terrible?
  - f6v 5y ago
    I wouldn't want to be the one to rob Americans of their trucks.
- viraptor 5y ago
  That's good. But if you did want cars - that's totally doable. You build the garages in lower floors / underground and the apartments higher up. There's lots of buildings like that in central Melbourne for example.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    You could decide to have 5 floors of garages from the ground floor up, and have 5 floors of roads to drive on (especially easy if you make it electric only for most vehicles - maybe confine heavy diesel vehicles to the ground floor with appropiate ventilation) Then on the 6th floor have a pedestrian/cycle floor that's sheltered from the elements, and the 7th floor have open parks, with 30 stories of housing and offices above.