Congratulations! And sympathies: yea, verily, moving sucks.
I'm happy to review the letters.
I'll tell you right now I'm looking at this through the very cynical eyes of – wait, you know I am a House Person, yes? There was that whole drafting/architectural design/construction engineering thing. Anyhoo: I am very cynical and bitter about the general topic of Why Houses Are So Dumb.
I come by it honestly: both my parents were House People, though each in a different way. From them I was introduced to what I will refer to as Housing Criticism and innovations in housing design and construction. I spent a brief period in my innocent childhood thinking something along the lines of, "wow, it's really great there's all these new developments in how to build houses better, so houses in the future will be super interesting." Then I discovered the fundamental economic truth that the people who build houses are not the people who live in houses, and will throw up the most shoddy piece of shit construction on the simplest damn floor plan with the least features they can get away with. And since we have a housing shortage, they can basically get away with putting together a cardboard box on a slab foundation.
Honestly one of the reasons I didn't go into that field was to avoid the moral injury.
None of which means I think your efforts are futile or not worth pursuing. To the contrary, I think incuclating consumer demand through the media is probably a necessary precondition of getting the requisite legislation passed to force the motherfuckers who put buildings up to do the right things.
We know so goddamned much about building better homes – homes that stay cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter, and dryer when it is wet, and even moister when it is dry, homes that are radically cheaper to operate, homes that pull heat and cooling right out of the ground for almost free, homes that are safer from natural disasters including wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, homes that are made from less toxic materials and do less damage to the environment, or even are effectively forms of recycling in how they use what is otherwise trash – and we, as a society, use approximately none of that knowledge. You basically can't have a house like that unless you can come up with the considerable upfront cash to build one from scratch, or are willing to do it with your own two hands.
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Date: 2024-07-16 10:01 pm (UTC)I'm happy to review the letters.
I'll tell you right now I'm looking at this through the very cynical eyes of – wait, you know I am a House Person, yes? There was that whole drafting/architectural design/construction engineering thing. Anyhoo: I am very cynical and bitter about the general topic of Why Houses Are So Dumb.
I come by it honestly: both my parents were House People, though each in a different way. From them I was introduced to what I will refer to as Housing Criticism and innovations in housing design and construction. I spent a brief period in my innocent childhood thinking something along the lines of, "wow, it's really great there's all these new developments in how to build houses better, so houses in the future will be super interesting." Then I discovered the fundamental economic truth that the people who build houses are not the people who live in houses, and will throw up the most shoddy piece of shit construction on the simplest damn floor plan with the least features they can get away with. And since we have a housing shortage, they can basically get away with putting together a cardboard box on a slab foundation.
Honestly one of the reasons I didn't go into that field was to avoid the moral injury.
None of which means I think your efforts are futile or not worth pursuing. To the contrary, I think incuclating consumer demand through the media is probably a necessary precondition of getting the requisite legislation passed to force the motherfuckers who put buildings up to do the right things.
We know so goddamned much about building better homes – homes that stay cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter, and dryer when it is wet, and even moister when it is dry, homes that are radically cheaper to operate, homes that pull heat and cooling right out of the ground for almost free, homes that are safer from natural disasters including wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, homes that are made from less toxic materials and do less damage to the environment, or even are effectively forms of recycling in how they use what is otherwise trash – and we, as a society, use approximately none of that knowledge. You basically can't have a house like that unless you can come up with the considerable upfront cash to build one from scratch, or are willing to do it with your own two hands.
Edit: recent random example that just crossed my desk: "Awnings: a simple cooling tech we apparently forgot about". Also discusses the thermal virtues of verandas.