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Living in a coastal area and having lived through a couple of big earthquakes, what you want is housing that can be recycled or composted after a lifetime of ar
by tigerlily 5y ago
Living in a coastal area and having lived through a couple of big earthquakes, what you want is housing that can be recycled or composted after a lifetime of around 60 years. Long enough for a generation or two and probably 3-4 renovation cycles.
Hurricane Katrina and the Christchurch earthquakes created a lot of green spaces afterwards. It was amazing to see a house disappear and be replaced by grass before long. Or sometimes just an empty section with a letterbox.
In my experience it's better to work with entropy when it comes down to it.
- Brendinooo 5y agoEh, I'm somewhere in between the article and your reply. You need to work with entropy, but you can do that AND have 1000 year houses by trying to optimize for cheap, locally-sourced materials that regular people can work with, and tailoring your architecture to the challenges of your region. I saw a thread on Twitter once about how some old Japanese homes are built on stilts that sit on flat rocks. When earthquakes happen, at worst the house shifts off the rocks. That kind of thing. Don't force a style on a place that can't accommodate it. If a stainless steel beam goes out in 500 years, the people living in the area might not be able to replace it. But if it's made of wood, you've got a better shot at finding a tree and someone who can work with it.