Making a House That Will Last for Centuries?

tcyun asks: "The intro text from kaisyain's review brought up a thought that has been floating around in my head as I am a new home-owner. If one wanted to design a home that would last for hundreds of years, what would one have to do? I, and many of my friends, have recently/ purchased homes. As with all homes, some things are in good shape, others are not. Many items are the fault of initial design, many are due to poor upkeep and repairs. Looking around, it is possible to have a home last for hundreds of years (my family's ancestral home is about 400 years old and there are castles in Europe that are older). If one wanted to build/modify a home, what would one need to do to make sure that the home would still be standing, and usable, hundreds of years from now?" M : Wired suggests going underground.

"A few elements come to mind: structural integrity, usability, reparability, ease of upkeep, physical location (geology and neighborhood), technology, and aesthetics.

• Structural integrity: Rock lasts a long time, but has a variety of draw backs. Concrete (poured or cinder block) foundations are common where I live but wood is still the material used for most of the structure. Should steel cross-beams be considered for parts of the structure? I have heard good things about laminated/engineered wood.
  
  
• Technology: Folks on Slashdot have talked about wiring homes with cat-5/7/x and installing empty conduit 'just in case.' Is this really useful with the proliferation of wireless? Would it be more useful if a crawlspace was made available between the ceiling and the attic so that any type of ducting/wiring could be run into a room? Should all rooms have access to a central column through which wiring, plumbing and ducting were run?
  
  
• Usability: I have a small house with a small, combined living-family-dining room. I am fairly sure that 50 years ago the designers were not laying out the space to take into account book shelves, a large television, stereo cabinet, gaming consoles, and more in addition to a couch, chair and dining table. Simply making the room larger is one option, but cavernous space is not necessarily good for usability. What would be a good floor plan and how might different sized rooms be distributed to be useful over time for multiple purposes? Would it need a bathroom? (joke)
  
  
• Reparability: the previous homeowners made a number of DIY 'improvements' which are nice, until one needs to make a repair. Many items are installed in ways where the only option is to remove entire installations. What types of modular improvements can be made that allow for easy repair/replacement over time as needs change?
  
  
• Location: How would one choose where to build a home that would last for hundreds of years? Do you pick an existing neighborhood, space that is at the edge of a town/city or somewhere further out? Does one pick a neighborhood that has been economically/geologically/stable/safe over the longer term even if it is not in great shape at the moment. At first glance, cities in the United States like San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh have all gone through 10-20 years spells of nastiness, but have been fairly stable cities at the macro level for a hundred years.
  
  
• Aesthetics: Does one simply design/architect and deal with the fact that it will variously become attractive/unattractive over time?

And to complicate matters, how different are the options if one imposes a budget for initial construction (depending on your own idea of what a realistic budget is)."

Comments

Re:How to build a house that'll last...

[meringuoid]

Step 1: use stone and concrete. The Romans used stone and concrete extensively, and many of their public works projects are STILL standing two thousand years later.

Step 7: Cultivate the area around the house into a wetland, then make sure every environmentalist in the area is aware that it's there. Then, get the EPA in to declare it a wetland. This is way easier than you might think. It makes it just about impossible for anyone to build anything there ever again.

All the other kings said it were daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it anyway! It sank into the swamp. I built another one; it sank into the swamp too. I built a third one; it caught fire, fell over and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up! And that's what you'll be getting, my lad - the strongest castle in these islands!

Tradition

[falsification]

Are you sure you want to spend your (probably large amount of) money on this? If so, here are my suggestions.

1. Buy a mountain. Research what mountains are available, Choose one that is not a volcano or on a tectonic fault. Make sure it is not too prone to rockslides. Choose one that is away from the big city. Make sure there are no precious minerals underneath your mountain. Make sure there is some freshwater source nearby. Get a geologist to look at the land for you.
2. Buy the mineral rights under the mountain and nearby. You don't want anybody kicking you or your descendants off the land so they can strip mine for gold, and in the process, leveling your mountain. Be sure to consult an attorney at all appropriate time periods.
3. Build a deep, spacious underground lair. Make sure there are two ways to get in and out. The first is at the top of the mountain. You can defend that point with machine gun fire, should there ever be a revolution. The second access point should be near the bottom of the mountain. This is your secret passageway. If worse comes to worse, you can always use it to escape with your life, or retake your home from an invader. Conceal the secret entrance. No one from outside your family should either work on this entrance or know about it.
4. Down the sides of the mountain, plant some nice vegetation. On top, build a nice, handsome house or cottage. Don't make it too ostentatious or you will attract thieves and vagabonds. It should look a little ramshackle from the outside. The inside would be a different matter.
5. Be sure to leave room on top of the mountain for a heliport and such.
6. Whatever you build, keep in mind multiple purposes. Your great-great-great-great granchildren may need to stop using the home as a home, and start using it for commercial activity, such as for a ski lodge. Whatever. The next generation can reclaim it as a residence. Make all the rooms huge. That way they can be subdivided as necessary, etc.
7. Give your home a good, stuffy, but non-arrogant name, like "Old Bramblethorn." Then, mythologize. Give your home a sense of the mystical, a mystique. If necessary, hire a specialist in the area, such as an anthropologist. Make up a legend. Something like this. "One day I was hiking through the mountains, and climbing this particular mountain. Alone, I encountered a ferocious cougar. It attacked me and we wrestled for what seemed like hours. It was a terrible fight. I couldn't get the great, fanged beast off of me until I rolled while prone several times into a nearby bramblethorn. The horrible, hairy cat yelped in pain and limped off. I brushed off the dirt, sat up, and just then I saw a rainbow in the western sky. I knew then that I was master of the mountain. This is where I would build a home for my family. And I would call it Bramblethorn. And that, my young grandkids, is how this home came to be. Now off to bed and catch your forty winks as tomorrow we have a big day planned! Off you go!" You see, that way your descendants will not just like the home; they will love it. It will become a tradition. Then, one day, hundreds of years after you are gone, when one of your descendants inevitably says that the family should sell Old Bramblethorn as it would fetch a huge price on the real estate market, the ancestral home will be protected by its tradition. Another family member, probably the young and well-liked little girl of the family, will chime in and say, "Oh, but we can't sell Old Bramblethorn! We just can't!" The home is safe.
8. Store up tons and tons of money. Your family will need it to fight off the inevitable stream of lawyers, tax men, extortionists, and all the rest who will try to take the home away from you. Diversify your portfolio. Put some of it in gold, and store the gold, secretly, deep in the underground lair. If war or revolution comes, your descendants will be prepared.