Building Concerns (7 of 7)

Building Materials
I am hoping to see the development of a geopolymer. Cheaply made stone, essentially. Cast in
place walls, homes, etc...
I'd like to take a city block as a sort of cell, build four stories high (not sure how wide), and have the
inner sort of street be part garden, courtyard, plaza type thing. Tend to have south facing
greenhouse type of things, but we'd need a system for reducing humidity, if we wanted to channel
the heat into the rest of the structure. Gathering space/community/kitchens on north side facing
south. I suppose there could be both a northern and a southern gate, but it is generally more likely
that there'd be workspace in the north.
Considerable thought should be given to getting eastern windows into bedrooms. The structure
may be four stories high all round, but it may vary greatly. One could assume the western side
might be a bit higher, at least at the roof line, to catch early morning light and get it down into the
sleeping quarters. Some things depend highly on families that live there, but this is part of setting
circadian rhythms, part of the attempt to introduce appropriate evolutionary influences back into the
people,and hopefully, thereby reduce a lot of modern ills.
Light pollution, especially blue light needs to be thought out. There is no doubt there will always
be some night owls in a city. I am not fond of the idea of a 24/7 culture, but I suspect some
businesses (like hospitals) will want to provide that service, and hopefully, people will pay very
well for it. Meanwhile, all attempts need to be made to limit bleed over to other populations and
even help those people who do night shift work to stay healthy.
In the hinterlands, one can go either way- large geopolymer houses, or small cabins- basically well
built rectangles that can be easily moved around and put on semi-permanent foundations. One
expects high cultivation near and in the city blocks, with perhaps this more urban center stuff at the
junction of three or so of these city blocks. Since the city blocks themselves would tend to live in a
poly-culture orchard zone, we'd likely have, further out on the edge between the orchard zone and
the pasture, housing dedicated for the primary farmers. If anyone were to get into dairy, grazing
management, etc... This is were I see some validity for relatively large houses, for larger families and/
or larger workforce.
The further away from the cities, the wilder and more hunter-gatherer-esque the system will get.
So, I assume the housing gets smaller, perhaps transportable. For quite a long time, I have assumed
a basic rectangle with large doors that can ultimately function as either door or window, depending
on site location and application, could be the way to go. It could be put on the back of a truck, or
maybe it could be flat packed. Systems designed to go into such structures could be designed as
essentially stand alone units at standard heights so that they could then be put together. Imagine, for
instance, chest freezer, chest refrigerator, a sink, stove/oven, all clad in essentially the same
material, all the same height, and easily configurable into a kitchen, with functional counterspace
right on top. And all of these things easily unhooked from whatever they might be hooked on, so
that they could then be worked on. Pipes and wires might as well be exposed- easy enough to hide
them via superficial means for aesthetic reasons, but actually putting them into walls tends to
increase likelihood of serious damage when problems occur.
The gestalt or style or whatever it is I am talking about is similar to like what the French did with
the armoire, versus the American way of building closets into the wall.
When you add heavy viewing of small house designs, then you end up thinking of having
everything at counter height so you can drop the ceiling if you want to, but that isn't really relevant
in the hinterlands.