2 ms·
It really brings to the forefront that the hard part isn’t usually the building - it’s figuring out how to build with what is available and can be sourced local
by bombcar 1y ago
It really brings to the forefront that the hard part isn’t usually the building - it’s figuring out how to build with what is available and can be sourced locally - often within tens of feet.
We’re so used to shipping pine boards from the Pacific Northwest to the high desert we don’t even stop to consider there may be another option.
Fun fact: concrete is so heavy and so time dependent that it’s one of the few things that is still almost always VERY local; you probably have a home of cement mixers closer than you think!
- foobarian 1y agoI think my first worry would be how to figure out if the ground will support the immense weight of a one-off stone structure. I guess karsty/rocky areas are a safer choice than run-of-the-mill New England yard where you hit water table in 2 feet of digging
- bombcar 1y agoSome places the "When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England." quote is closer to the truth than you'd expect, but yes, "good strong land" is one of the keys to a long-lasting structure. Building very slowly can alert you to issues there, but they didn't always catch them (Pisa for example).