5 ms·

Very respectable. On a side note though, I often see people complain about how things aren't "built to last" anymore and sometimes I wonder (as a person naive

by robswc 4y ago

Very respectable. On a side note though, I often see people complain about how things aren't "built to last" anymore and sometimes I wonder (as a person naive to construction) is that even a good thing? I've lived in a few places over the years and it seems the older houses were consistently not great while the newer ones might have felt cheaper, but all the while felt "designed" for modern life. Perhaps since my family was never really well off growing up, I'm used to "cheap, old houses" and now that things have gotten a bit better, I find myself in newer, more expensive houses... idk, just seems like any house built now wouldn't really suit most people 100 years from now, no matter the quality. A "simple" example, we do have a vacation cottage that was built in the 1800s, passed down each generation, with very few changes. It's holding up well but it feels like it was made for elves and "fixing" that would be next to impossible without redoing most of the building. Again nice to visit but you would have to make a ton of changes to make it more livable...

hparadiz 4y ago
100 years ago no one would have imagined that a couple in their 20s would want a room dedicated to their desktop computers.... or even that each of them might want a separate "office". And I say "office" in quotes cause it's really a nerd cave that I might work in as well. I imagine some folks on HN would even want a dedicated VR space with a cleared out 10x10 square. What is considered luxury housing changes overtime.
- Bayart 4y ago
  > 100 years ago no one would have imagined that a couple in their 20s would want a room dedicated to their desktop computers.... or even that each of them might want a separate "office". And I say "office" in quotes cause it's really a nerd cave that I might work in as well. They were refered to as smoking rooms and boudoirs, but they very much existed.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    As well as cabinets, drawing rooms, parlours (possibly multiple), solars, sunrooms, studies, recreation rooms (billiard rooms), …
- Retric 4y ago
  100 years ago people wanted extra space, they could rarely afford it. A piano for example takes up quite a bit of space, let alone ballrooms or billiards rooms etc. It’s interesting to look at the ownership history of old buildings over time. Often people kept adding additions even though the owners where less wealthy in relative terms they tend to be more wealthy in absolute terms.
  - hparadiz 4y ago
    I wasn't even trying to say that extra space wasn't used 100 years ago. More that the requirements of the space are ever changing. But got downvoted for it anyway. shrug
distances 4y ago
100 year old buildings in European city centers have high ceilings and large windows. Nobody builds that high rooms any more, I would guess in order to fit more stories in the building. They do show their age sometimes with weird floorplans, lack of ventilation, and perhaps noticeable draft. But these will be very livable for a long, long time still. Granted, some survivorship bias is surely in effect, and these were probably the fancy buildings of their time with better construction quality.
- ido 4y ago
  We have some relatives living an apartment (I think) a couple centuries old- I would guess from the early 1800s or 1700s, I have lived in multiple late 19th century and early 20th century apartments and all of them felt a lot more modern than that one. One weird thing is that there is only 1 sink in it, so if you go to the toilet you have to wash your hands in the kitchen sink afterwards. Also only 1 toilet & there's no space for a dishwasher or some other modern appliances. It looks nice but I would definitely prefer to live in a more modern apartment long-term.
  - robswc 4y ago
    Yep, that's another good example. Plumbing has always been an issue in the older houses I've been in mostly because it's next to impossible to change it.
    - ido 4y ago
      Right, I do think you get diminishing returns once you get to "high end and well maintained early 20th or very late 19th century" buildings, a lot of these can accommodate more or less modern lifestyles quite well (albeit not all of them and they'd have to be renovated with stuff like adding elevators to 5-6 story buildings).
- IAmEveryone 4y ago
  Survivorship bias is less of a factor than commonly assumed. If you check, for example, this map showing the age of buildings in Berlin (https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/so-alt-wohnt-berlin/ https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/so-alt-wohnt-berlin/), you will note that it is neighborhoods rather than individual buildings that survived (or didn't). Large parts of Berlin were built in the early 1900s, and the differences between individual buildings is rather small. Survival depended on the war and, to a lesser degree, the east/west split, with policy in the east being more inclined to tear down intact city blocks and replace them with architecture better representing the ideology of the times.

by robswc 4y ago

hparadiz 4y ago

100 years ago no one would have imagined that a couple in their 20s would want a room dedicated to their desktop computers.... or even that each of them might want a separate "office". And I say "office" in quotes cause it's really a nerd cave that I might work in as well. I imagine some folks on HN would even want a dedicated VR space with a cleared out 10x10 square. What is considered luxury housing changes overtime.

Bayart 4y ago
> 100 years ago no one would have imagined that a couple in their 20s would want a room dedicated to their desktop computers.... or even that each of them might want a separate "office". And I say "office" in quotes cause it's really a nerd cave that I might work in as well. They were refered to as smoking rooms and boudoirs, but they very much existed.
- masklinn 4y ago
  As well as cabinets, drawing rooms, parlours (possibly multiple), solars, sunrooms, studies, recreation rooms (billiard rooms), …
Retric 4y ago
100 years ago people wanted extra space, they could rarely afford it. A piano for example takes up quite a bit of space, let alone ballrooms or billiards rooms etc. It’s interesting to look at the ownership history of old buildings over time. Often people kept adding additions even though the owners where less wealthy in relative terms they tend to be more wealthy in absolute terms.
- hparadiz 4y ago
  I wasn't even trying to say that extra space wasn't used 100 years ago. More that the requirements of the space are ever changing. But got downvoted for it anyway. shrug

distances 4y ago

100 year old buildings in European city centers have high ceilings and large windows. Nobody builds that high rooms any more, I would guess in order to fit more stories in the building. They do show their age sometimes with weird floorplans, lack of ventilation, and perhaps noticeable draft. But these will be very livable for a long, long time still. Granted, some survivorship bias is surely in effect, and these were probably the fancy buildings of their time with better construction quality.

ido 4y ago
We have some relatives living an apartment (I think) a couple centuries old- I would guess from the early 1800s or 1700s, I have lived in multiple late 19th century and early 20th century apartments and all of them felt a lot more modern than that one. One weird thing is that there is only 1 sink in it, so if you go to the toilet you have to wash your hands in the kitchen sink afterwards. Also only 1 toilet & there's no space for a dishwasher or some other modern appliances. It looks nice but I would definitely prefer to live in a more modern apartment long-term.
- robswc 4y ago
  Yep, that's another good example. Plumbing has always been an issue in the older houses I've been in mostly because it's next to impossible to change it.
  - ido 4y ago
    Right, I do think you get diminishing returns once you get to "high end and well maintained early 20th or very late 19th century" buildings, a lot of these can accommodate more or less modern lifestyles quite well (albeit not all of them and they'd have to be renovated with stuff like adding elevators to 5-6 story buildings).
IAmEveryone 4y ago
Survivorship bias is less of a factor than commonly assumed. If you check, for example, this map showing the age of buildings in Berlin (https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/so-alt-wohnt-berlin/ https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/so-alt-wohnt-berlin/), you will note that it is neighborhoods rather than individual buildings that survived (or didn't). Large parts of Berlin were built in the early 1900s, and the differences between individual buildings is rather small. Survival depended on the war and, to a lesser degree, the east/west split, with policy in the east being more inclined to tear down intact city blocks and replace them with architecture better representing the ideology of the times.