Reminded of this feature of Roman architecture, and 1700s European milk parlour or cheese house architecture that I vaguely recall and am too tired to currently re-look into: The Roman villas would have an open air room inside the walls of the house, shaded by overhanging roofs, and there would also be pools of water. The combination of circulation, shade and water evaporation would keep it one of the coolest rooms in the building.
(Vague recollections, please link a good article if handy!)
@sinituulia That is partly because the pace of building in the US greatly out paced deep knowledge of the local environment. Sometimes in spite of it too.
My 1935 home has wildly inadequate foundations because they didn't understand that the soils here are expansive and will cause differential settlement. A modern foundation would be almost 2x as deep.
It's knowing which parts of the country benefits from white roofs vs have it be a drag on heating costs. And be willing to use that info.
I'm an engineer, and live in the professional space of gathering that experience and applying it. The "local architecture" that suits the environment simply didn't have time to get a foothold here.
@sewblue I don't know how it works over there, but here you kind of... Gather the general knowledge as you work, so somebody who's lived in the area and worked for 50 years already knows how things settle from that 50 years, what worked and what didn't. Add in generational knowledge and you'd *think* that regions inhabited by indigenous populations since forever and white since the 1600s... Would have some idea about what works for that area!
Of course it depends if the people doing the work know, you see so much of "unqualified person did a slapdash job for cheap" or "somebody did their best" or "somebody used modern tools to do a historically valid job, but worse" but the general knowledge is there.
I don't know if it's the culture or what, and every new settler doing whatever, but you'd think people knew better?
@sinituulia California isn't that old. The San Francisco Bay wasn't discovered until 1769. We weren't really settled until 1850 due to the gold rush.
The 1906 earthquake in San Francisco resulted in no code changes for earthquake safety. Authorities were far more interested in blaming the fire than making sure homes don't collapse. Rich people buildings started getting reinforced for quakes, but not normal people's homes. Took another 70 years and 2 more major quakes to get serious about earthquake safety, but they did outlaw building in brick around 1930.
To learn what works, you have to have seen generations of failure. It can take 30, 40 years before it is clear that a design isn't good long term. Like early highly insulated buildings rotting out from mold, because they were poorly sealed.
Building for the local environment is surprisingly complex. We will all be gone before it is clear what works from today.
@sewblue @sinituulia it was interesting listening to an episode of 99% invisible about shade in LA, and how the original city layout was 45° off north/south. So that every building gets some shade. The same as how Cerdà designed Eixample in Barcelona also orientated 45° so as to take advantage of the position of the sun/shade. I think a lot of modern architecture has forgotten the importance of building to take account of the sun. Passive solar gain, shading, etc...
@quixoticgeek @sinituulia New tech had always caused dumb design decisions or fads. It is super clear with historical fashions. Net can be machine made, huge trend in net dresses. New dyes, dresses get crazy bright.
Same with buildings, only we have to live with the fad for generations. Takes a while for survivor bias to show what works.
Cookie cutter is lazy design, to make the orginal builders money vs a structure suited for the location. No different that ready to wear that doesn't fit everyone.
But unlike fast fashion, we're building fast architecture.
@sewblue @sinituulia there's a pair of buildings on my street, they are mirrors of each other. The road runs east/west, this means on one building the main living space faces South and can take advantage of passive solar gain in winter, and boils in summer. Across the road. The same room is cold in winter, but doesn't get as warm in the summer. It feels like a massive design oversight to have built like this. Also the south facing living space would benefit greatly from a brised soliel...