[Greenbuilding] Fwd: Re: The five hundred year house

[Alan Abrams]

     <<<<
     The contrast, of course, is with modern American housing, which seems to
     last about fifty years before it is torn down and replaced with another
     structure that to all appearances is likely to age just as gracelessly, if
     not more....But how about the structure itself, a durable or
     permanent roof, insulation that would resist decay as well as air or water
     infiltration? It would be hard to imagine fiberglass mats lasting very
     long,
     even if the fiber does not decay, water and rodents would be sure to
     render
     it useless before too long



     >>>


     Great post, the question well put. it's notable that the most potentially
     durable housing stock in the DC region is the stuff built in the late
     30's. It was the pinnacle of American brick manufacture, with fiercly
     hard, intensely beautiful units made in oil fired kilns, assembled with
     mortar that is so hard it's almost crystaline. These homes at their best
     are capped with high quality slate that if maintained could last another
     generation. They have the potential of enduring for centuries.

     Of  course  their  kitchens,  baths,  and bedrooms are miniscule by
     contemporary standards, and they are thermally inefficent, so the houses
     are prime candidates for tearing down, or at least adding onto...either
     way, with the light framing and fiberglass batts as alluded to above...

     we wrestle with the issue of durability every day--looking hard, for
     example, at materials like AAC--but comparing its very high embodied
     energy and relatively low insulation value with thermally efficient
     foamed-in-place platform framing of admitted much shorter life span. There
     does not seem to be a clear answer, so we go with the cheaper and the
     familiar, rationalizing to the extent possible with the paradigm expressed
     (in the extreme) by the Ise temple, which is rebuilt every 20 years...

     extrapolating, the ideal house would be made from rapidly renewable
     biodegradable materials, so it can be razedwith little regret and become a
     mulch heap in two generations. Strawbale, anyone?

     I recently attended a presentation by New Urbanist Steve Mouzon, who
     advocates the durable approach to sustainability. He linked the use of
     beautiful, durable materials, like brick and stone, to the concept of
     "lovability." These strategies (like many sets of green strategies)
     reinforce  each other--to state the self evident; that to endure, a
     building must be "lovable." And these classic, durable materials are--deep
     in our protoconscious selves--inately lovable.

     Of course this Jungian approach is static, in that it does not easily
     anticipate changing concepts of the house, new ultra efficient materials
     and designs, etc. Where am I going with this? I think with a compromise,
     at least for the present, using smart design and the best practices of
     fairly conventional methods and materials, and building for at least an
     eighty year time frame--quite doable, I think, with careful envelope
     design/moisture control.

     Alan Abrams