6 ms·

So, wait, you're seriously advocating 2 meter thick walls (yeah, I know, let's say starting at 1/2 meter) as a solution for a dense city? Price at build time is

So, wait, you're seriously advocating 2 meter thick walls (yeah, I know, let's say starting at 1/2 meter) as a solution for a dense city? Price at build time is hardly the only problem. Good luck with that.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago
Could you make your comment more helpful? At the moment it can be summarized as "more concrete is more expensive". It's seems you have more thoughts on it, but it's hard to infer much else from it.
- stonemetal12 5y ago
  He mentions density, which to me all most always comes down to height. How tall of a building can you build with meter thick walls?
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    The monadnock building in Chicago [0] partially answers your question: “ The Monadnock's final height was calculated to be the highest economically viable for a load-bearing wall design, requiring walls 6 feet (1.8 m) thick at the bottom and 18 inches (46 cm) thick at the top. Greater height would have required walls of such thickness that they would have reduced the rentable space too greatly.” [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadnock_Building https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadnock_Building
- josephcsible 5y ago
  My reading was that the issue is the massively increased footprint of every building, not the cost of the concrete.
CuriouslyC 5y ago
That's only a problem if you're building with expensive materials. Build those walls with earth and aggregate and the biggest expense is gas for the heavy equipment.
- brudgers 5y ago
  Land is an expensive material.
  - handrous 5y ago
    So's labor, and building anything slightly odd adds even more to costs, for a bunch of reasons. Just building a standard house with somewhat upgraded R-value insulation, solar panels, and a "geothermal" heat-pump, would be a hell of a lot cheaper. Plus you'd actually be able to sell it in a normal time-frame and for a normal price, if you decide to move.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      R-value doesn't really address thermal mass issues. I live near Santa Fe, NM and given our daily temperature swings (up to 40F!) and annual variation (100F to 5F), comfortable housing here benefits from both insulation and thermal mass. Geothermal heat pumps seem less practical than air-source right now, and a 6.6kW array turns out not to be enough even with Mitsubishi units to keep out (adobe) home warm in the winter. Stud-based construction is quick and relatively quick, and might even be appropriate in the right climate. But in places like this (and many others), it's a mistake that you can ameliorate (e.g. with insulation) but cannot actually fix.
- OJFord 5y ago
  It also takes considerably more space, which is the most expensive common/necessary building material anyway.
  - jweir 5y ago
    If you take automobiles out of the equation you will have a lot more space.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      Do you imagine that makes this suggestion more practical/likely?
ecocentrik 5y ago
These days we can achieve insulation with better materials without sacrificing real estate.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  It's not just about insulation. It's also about thermal mass, a.k.a. thermal capacitance a.k.a. heat capacity - how much heat to the falls retain. In a desert, buildings with thick stone or earthen walls will get cool at night thanks to the cool desert night air. They will stay cool throughout the day and the building's interior will remain cool(er) as a result even in the afternoon. (Conversely, the buildings will remain warm at night for the same reason) Of course, this is most effective in an environment like a desert where you have a large diurnal temperature swing: scorching days and chilly nights. But many/all of the same principles can be employed in temperate climates in a modified form, such as with earth-sheltered homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_shelter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_shelter
  - brudgers 5y ago
    In temperate climates mold is a bigger problem than cooling. Especially when building underground. Air conditioning mitigates mold by removing moisture from the air…which doesn’t mean that ac ducts won’t hold mold if there’s improper operation or bad design. Earth homes are uncommon because building science is empirical not theoretical. Because the construction market is efficient even though its efficiency doesn’t mean you can afford a house in a desirable location.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      Mold is problem for modern construction techniques. Mold is ubiqutous in the UK, but wasn't a problem for buildings themselves until the advent of contemporary (English) construction techniques. Those hundreds-of-year-old homes built of stone don't have issues with mold (their inhabitants might). It doesn't take much more than ensuring proper airflow to mitigate mold issues in actually temperate climates. Now, mold in, say, the SE USA (or even the mid-Atlantic region), is a different story, but once again, well built homes there from the 1800s can and have avoided mold issues with good air flow design.
zahma 5y ago
That’s not the point of vernacular architecture. Read or skim the wiki. The beauty of it is adapting to the surroundings to maximize environmental benefits as a way of preventing environmental externalities or other damages — at least in the sense of climate. So to respond to your glib remark, no I’m not seriously proposing 2m walls for everyone. That’s ridiculous. There are better ways of building. (We actually have the technology to make net positive energy buildings with sophisticated materials and capture techniques.) The point of my comment was to show the ignorance of modern building techniques in a desert that was doing just fine until modernity started mixing in concrete. Vernacular architecture doesn’t have to be applied everywhere, but we can learn from it and implement what’s convenient. On a parting note, I like to think of my old building’s thick stone walls built from rock probably quarried at the time on the other side of the hill. We have a southern exposure, and yet the rooms remain chilled without air conditioning so long as I shut the metal blinds at peak heat, and we are warm enough in the winters that we don’t need space heaters everywhere. The same can’t be said for my friend across the city in a newer apartment building that likely isn’t made with hefty stone.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago

Could you make your comment more helpful? At the moment it can be summarized as "more concrete is more expensive". It's seems you have more thoughts on it, but it's hard to infer much else from it.

stonemetal12 5y ago
He mentions density, which to me all most always comes down to height. How tall of a building can you build with meter thick walls?
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  The monadnock building in Chicago [0] partially answers your question: “ The Monadnock's final height was calculated to be the highest economically viable for a load-bearing wall design, requiring walls 6 feet (1.8 m) thick at the bottom and 18 inches (46 cm) thick at the top. Greater height would have required walls of such thickness that they would have reduced the rentable space too greatly.” [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadnock_Building https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadnock_Building
josephcsible 5y ago
My reading was that the issue is the massively increased footprint of every building, not the cost of the concrete.

CuriouslyC 5y ago

That's only a problem if you're building with expensive materials. Build those walls with earth and aggregate and the biggest expense is gas for the heavy equipment.

brudgers 5y ago
Land is an expensive material.
- handrous 5y ago
  So's labor, and building anything slightly odd adds even more to costs, for a bunch of reasons. Just building a standard house with somewhat upgraded R-value insulation, solar panels, and a "geothermal" heat-pump, would be a hell of a lot cheaper. Plus you'd actually be able to sell it in a normal time-frame and for a normal price, if you decide to move.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    R-value doesn't really address thermal mass issues. I live near Santa Fe, NM and given our daily temperature swings (up to 40F!) and annual variation (100F to 5F), comfortable housing here benefits from both insulation and thermal mass. Geothermal heat pumps seem less practical than air-source right now, and a 6.6kW array turns out not to be enough even with Mitsubishi units to keep out (adobe) home warm in the winter. Stud-based construction is quick and relatively quick, and might even be appropriate in the right climate. But in places like this (and many others), it's a mistake that you can ameliorate (e.g. with insulation) but cannot actually fix.
OJFord 5y ago
It also takes considerably more space, which is the most expensive common/necessary building material anyway.
- jweir 5y ago
  If you take automobiles out of the equation you will have a lot more space.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    Do you imagine that makes this suggestion more practical/likely?

ecocentrik 5y ago

These days we can achieve insulation with better materials without sacrificing real estate.

JohnBooty 5y ago
It's not just about insulation. It's also about thermal mass, a.k.a. thermal capacitance a.k.a. heat capacity - how much heat to the falls retain. In a desert, buildings with thick stone or earthen walls will get cool at night thanks to the cool desert night air. They will stay cool throughout the day and the building's interior will remain cool(er) as a result even in the afternoon. (Conversely, the buildings will remain warm at night for the same reason) Of course, this is most effective in an environment like a desert where you have a large diurnal temperature swing: scorching days and chilly nights. But many/all of the same principles can be employed in temperate climates in a modified form, such as with earth-sheltered homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_shelter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_shelter
- brudgers 5y ago
  In temperate climates mold is a bigger problem than cooling. Especially when building underground. Air conditioning mitigates mold by removing moisture from the air…which doesn’t mean that ac ducts won’t hold mold if there’s improper operation or bad design. Earth homes are uncommon because building science is empirical not theoretical. Because the construction market is efficient even though its efficiency doesn’t mean you can afford a house in a desirable location.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Mold is problem for modern construction techniques. Mold is ubiqutous in the UK, but wasn't a problem for buildings themselves until the advent of contemporary (English) construction techniques. Those hundreds-of-year-old homes built of stone don't have issues with mold (their inhabitants might). It doesn't take much more than ensuring proper airflow to mitigate mold issues in actually temperate climates. Now, mold in, say, the SE USA (or even the mid-Atlantic region), is a different story, but once again, well built homes there from the 1800s can and have avoided mold issues with good air flow design.

zahma 5y ago

That’s not the point of vernacular architecture. Read or skim the wiki. The beauty of it is adapting to the surroundings to maximize environmental benefits as a way of preventing environmental externalities or other damages — at least in the sense of climate. So to respond to your glib remark, no I’m not seriously proposing 2m walls for everyone. That’s ridiculous. There are better ways of building. (We actually have the technology to make net positive energy buildings with sophisticated materials and capture techniques.) The point of my comment was to show the ignorance of modern building techniques in a desert that was doing just fine until modernity started mixing in concrete. Vernacular architecture doesn’t have to be applied everywhere, but we can learn from it and implement what’s convenient. On a parting note, I like to think of my old building’s thick stone walls built from rock probably quarried at the time on the other side of the hill. We have a southern exposure, and yet the rooms remain chilled without air conditioning so long as I shut the metal blinds at peak heat, and we are warm enough in the winters that we don’t need space heaters everywhere. The same can’t be said for my friend across the city in a newer apartment building that likely isn’t made with hefty stone.