5 ms·

The issue with wood based homes is that they are really good for SMALL individual homes. NOT for tall buildings despite theoretically xlam and co allow to build

by kkfx 4y ago

The issue with wood based homes is that they are really good for SMALL individual homes. NOT for tall buildings despite theoretically xlam and co allow to build them... It's not only a matter of water-leaks but also of noise, low thermal mass with the need of more effective ventilation and precise heating hard to get in a large building etc. In ecological terms it's a matter of scale: trees keep growing IF we do not cut them too much. So at a certain level of demand wood is renewable, above it's not. In human terms pushing revolutions is not much good because anything have and EOL and if we build much in a short period of time we need to rebuild en mass when it will reach it's EOL and we do not know up front in what kind of situation we will be at that point in time. So better a slow evolution, sparse, to have backups and low "new generation" demand in the timeline... The real points though are IMO: - who need apartments? People or those who sell them/sell the land since selling many apartments means much more profit than single-family homes? - how can dense city/big buildings evolve? We know that they have a limited lifecycle, however no one seems to care up-front about it. Single family homes with a bit of land around can be rebuilt for instance at a generational change, it's easy to reach the decision as a single owner with a single family impacted, it's nearly impossible with MANY families in a single building. - can dense area evolve well? For instance few decades ago cars was not that spread, so cities was not built for them. Cars arrive. Dense cities have struggled enormously to add them and nowadays we mostly agree that in dense are the sole option is public transports for nearly all since there is no physical place for cars for all. Cities built for cars for all on contrary struggle to maintain their road networks, their economy need a continuous growth witch works ONLY until old infra reach their EOL. Again not evolutionary plans was made up front. We are talking about flying cars nowadays, where to land tomorrow? We have seen the shift from shopping centers to on-line retails where to adapt to receive large boxes when we are not at home in a tall building? Spread enough single-family homes with small scattered buildings for work/service purpose on contrary CAN evolve. No matter much if we foresee well or not. Well... IMVHO cities have reached the point of "too much density", there is no more economy of scale in them respect of their many issues. We still need a bit of density, we still are social animals, but instead of evolving toward bigger and bigger dense area, hubs in the middle of nothing, we need to spread, in a partially interconnected and mixed network. Like who? The classic internet vs today's one? In the end actual research shows that "any kind of network" tend to behave similarly... And those seems to be lessons no one want to take...

BurningFrog 4y ago
> People or those who sell... Those who sell apartments are also people!
- kkfx 4y ago
  Sure, far less than those who buy though...
cycomanic 4y ago
It seems a bit like you are just making stuff up without evidence to back this up. Many of the supposed issues have been solved ages ago. > The issue with wood based homes is that they are really good for SMALL individual homes. NOT for tall buildings despite theoretically xlam and co allow to build them... > It's not only a matter of water-leaks but also of noise, low thermal mass with the need of more effective ventilation and precise heating hard to get in a large building etc. Sure at the moment nobody builds sky scrapers from timber, but large apartment buildings are absolutely no issue e.g. https://www.arup.com/projects/haut https://www.arup.com/projects/haut Moreover while you are correct that they tend to have lower thermal mass, they can typically be build much better insulated and air tight. Many low energy houses both small and big are timber houses. Heating and ventilation is not a bigger issue compared to concrete houses and noise is much a function of insulation so typically modern timber houses are better because they get build to a higher insulation standard. > In ecological terms it's a matter of scale: trees keep growing IF we do not cut them too much. So at a certain level of demand wood is renewable, above it's not. What is your point? you can always grew more trees if the demand is higher. The issue is not just that timber is renewable, its also that building based on timber is extremely CO2 and energy intensive. > In human terms pushing revolutions is not much good because anything have and EOL and if we build much in a short period of time we need to rebuild en mass when it will reach it's EOL and we do not know up front in what kind of situation we will be at that point in time. So better a slow evolution, sparse, to have backups and low "new generation" demand in the timeline... I don't know why you're bringing this up in this context, nobody is proposing to tear down cities and rebuild with timber. > The real points though are IMO: > - who need apartments? People or those who sell them/sell the land since selling many apartments means much more profit than single-family homes? ? how about the people living in the apartment buildings. Building cities from single family homes is completely unsustainable. the land use, transport cost and building costs are extremely high. > - how can dense city/big buildings evolve? We know that they have a limited lifecycle, however no one seems to care up-front about it. Single family homes with a bit of land around can be rebuilt for instance at a generational change, it's easy to reach the decision as a single owner with a single family impacted, it's nearly impossible with MANY families in a single building. ? You make it sounds like cities are a new phenomena. We have build cities for hundreds of years, this is a solved issue. Moreover an advantage of apartment buildings over individual homes is that they typically lasts longer. We do not want to rebuild our housing every 30 years or so. > - can dense area evolve well? For instance few decades ago cars was not that spread, so cities was not built for them. Cars arrive. Dense cities have struggled enormously to add them and nowadays we mostly agree that in dense are the sole option is public transports for nearly all since there is no physical place for cars for all. Cities built for cars for all on contrary struggle to maintain their road networks, their economy need a continuous growth witch works ONLY until old infra reach their EOL. Yes building cities for cars makes them very unlikeable, how about we stop? Also blaming this on cities is a bit rich, the issue is that we suddenly changed our transport method to cars, which got us into the mess we are in. But importantly, you completely omit the fact that we can't have modern rural living without cars, so the costs are much higher (both in terms of energy and money). Rural living is completely unprepared for cars to disappear. >Again not evolutionary plans was made up front. We are talking about flying cars nowadays, where to land tomorrow? We have seen the shift from shopping centers to on-line retails where to adapt to receive large boxes when we are not at home in a tall building? Spread enough single-family homes with small scattered buildings for work/service purpose on contrary CAN evolve. No matter much if we foresee well or not. Funny, what you describe is largely suburbia, which has lots of sustainability issues (you need a car to get around, typically not walkable... ) > Well... IMVHO cities have reached the point of "too much density", there is no more economy of scale in them respect of their many issues. We still need a bit of density, we still are social animals, but instead of evolving toward bigger and bigger dense area, hubs in the middle of nothing, we need to spread, in a partially interconnected and mixed network. Like who? The classic internet vs today's one? In the end actual research shows that "any kind of network" tend to behave similarly... And those seems to be lessons no one want to take... So how would this work, how are you proposing to spread out cities like New York, Tokyo or London? I mean you can look at cities like LA or Melbourne to see what happens if you restrict density of housing to largely single family dwellings. The cities become huge in terms of land area. Gridlocked as everyone has to travel large distances and making extensive public transport networks is much more difficult.

by kkfx 4y ago

BurningFrog 4y ago

> People or those who sell... Those who sell apartments are also people!

kkfx 4y ago
Sure, far less than those who buy though...

cycomanic 4y ago

It seems a bit like you are just making stuff up without evidence to back this up. Many of the supposed issues have been solved ages ago. > The issue with wood based homes is that they are really good for SMALL individual homes. NOT for tall buildings despite theoretically xlam and co allow to build them... > It's not only a matter of water-leaks but also of noise, low thermal mass with the need of more effective ventilation and precise heating hard to get in a large building etc. Sure at the moment nobody builds sky scrapers from timber, but large apartment buildings are absolutely no issue e.g. https://www.arup.com/projects/haut https://www.arup.com/projects/haut Moreover while you are correct that they tend to have lower thermal mass, they can typically be build much better insulated and air tight. Many low energy houses both small and big are timber houses. Heating and ventilation is not a bigger issue compared to concrete houses and noise is much a function of insulation so typically modern timber houses are better because they get build to a higher insulation standard. > In ecological terms it's a matter of scale: trees keep growing IF we do not cut them too much. So at a certain level of demand wood is renewable, above it's not. What is your point? you can always grew more trees if the demand is higher. The issue is not just that timber is renewable, its also that building based on timber is extremely CO2 and energy intensive. > In human terms pushing revolutions is not much good because anything have and EOL and if we build much in a short period of time we need to rebuild en mass when it will reach it's EOL and we do not know up front in what kind of situation we will be at that point in time. So better a slow evolution, sparse, to have backups and low "new generation" demand in the timeline... I don't know why you're bringing this up in this context, nobody is proposing to tear down cities and rebuild with timber. > The real points though are IMO: > - who need apartments? People or those who sell them/sell the land since selling many apartments means much more profit than single-family homes? ? how about the people living in the apartment buildings. Building cities from single family homes is completely unsustainable. the land use, transport cost and building costs are extremely high. > - how can dense city/big buildings evolve? We know that they have a limited lifecycle, however no one seems to care up-front about it. Single family homes with a bit of land around can be rebuilt for instance at a generational change, it's easy to reach the decision as a single owner with a single family impacted, it's nearly impossible with MANY families in a single building. ? You make it sounds like cities are a new phenomena. We have build cities for hundreds of years, this is a solved issue. Moreover an advantage of apartment buildings over individual homes is that they typically lasts longer. We do not want to rebuild our housing every 30 years or so. > - can dense area evolve well? For instance few decades ago cars was not that spread, so cities was not built for them. Cars arrive. Dense cities have struggled enormously to add them and nowadays we mostly agree that in dense are the sole option is public transports for nearly all since there is no physical place for cars for all. Cities built for cars for all on contrary struggle to maintain their road networks, their economy need a continuous growth witch works ONLY until old infra reach their EOL. Yes building cities for cars makes them very unlikeable, how about we stop? Also blaming this on cities is a bit rich, the issue is that we suddenly changed our transport method to cars, which got us into the mess we are in. But importantly, you completely omit the fact that we can't have modern rural living without cars, so the costs are much higher (both in terms of energy and money). Rural living is completely unprepared for cars to disappear. >Again not evolutionary plans was made up front. We are talking about flying cars nowadays, where to land tomorrow? We have seen the shift from shopping centers to on-line retails where to adapt to receive large boxes when we are not at home in a tall building? Spread enough single-family homes with small scattered buildings for work/service purpose on contrary CAN evolve. No matter much if we foresee well or not. Funny, what you describe is largely suburbia, which has lots of sustainability issues (you need a car to get around, typically not walkable... ) > Well... IMVHO cities have reached the point of "too much density", there is no more economy of scale in them respect of their many issues. We still need a bit of density, we still are social animals, but instead of evolving toward bigger and bigger dense area, hubs in the middle of nothing, we need to spread, in a partially interconnected and mixed network. Like who? The classic internet vs today's one? In the end actual research shows that "any kind of network" tend to behave similarly... And those seems to be lessons no one want to take... So how would this work, how are you proposing to spread out cities like New York, Tokyo or London? I mean you can look at cities like LA or Melbourne to see what happens if you restrict density of housing to largely single family dwellings. The cities become huge in terms of land area. Gridlocked as everyone has to travel large distances and making extensive public transport networks is much more difficult.