The interesting thing to me was the requirement that they last 100 years or more. It was my first thought when I saw "wooden" and "college dorm" in the same sen

The interesting thing to me was the requirement that they last 100 years or more. It was my first thought when I saw "wooden" and "college dorm" in the same sentence. Colleges are long-term institutions and can (and should) make architectural investments that are long-term rather than short-term. A cheap throwaway is exactly the opposite of what colleges should do, although there are plenty of situations where cheap throwaway housing is appropriate, where short-term economics outweigh long-term economics in the buyer's eyes. This line of thought brought to you by the superb book, How Buildings Learn, by Stewart Brand. I recommend it to every software professional I know. Sure, it's about physical things rather than software, but the principles are similar.