Inspired by this thread and this thread. I got to thinking that despite the efforts of Buckminster Fuller and others, no one’s come up with an inexpensive house design that’s economical to build and doesn’t look freakish, or rely on “exotic” materials. (By “exotic” I mean things that aren’t normally used in building a house, such as tires, cans, corncobs, strawbales, etc.)
Surely it’s possible to come up with a design that:
[ul]
[li]Uses commonly available building materials.[/li][li]Is suitable for a variety of climates.[/li][li]Is simple to build.[/li][li]Can be easily expanded on after the initial construction is completed.[/li][li]Is inexpensive to construct and maintain.[/li][li]And meets or exceeds current building codes.[/li][/ul]
Yes, I know about trailers (I even live in one), but it’s not “normal” looking (well, in this neighborhood it is), and they’re not easy to add on to.
Ideally, the house should cost no more to build than what one pays for a new car, should have all the ammenities of a modern home (i.e. indoor plumbing, etc.), and not require specialized tools or materials to build. Any thoughts?
I don’t know much about construction costs, but I would assume Quonset huts are pretty cheap.
You might look into houses using SIP construction (Structural Insulated Panels). These panels come pre-wired and plumbed from the factory, designed to your specifications. The panels lock together, usually by means of cam locks, are 5-star rated, and are normally cheaper than standard stick construction.
Depends on the building code and availability of resources. F’rinstance, stackwall is dead cheap where we are. However, it’d be stupid to recommend it in Tuktoyaktuk 'cause there’s no trees there.
Here’s a good site for an overview of current Alternative Building Technologies, in order to have a firm foundation for the discussion.
(not to be confused with the Dymaxion dwelling unit or Dymaxion deployment unit).
Bucky’s design could be altered to appear more conventional while keeping many of its advantages.
According to The Dymaxion World Of Buckminster Fuller, Bucky was against such a use but filed a seperate patent to cover it when friends insisted.
The perimeter could be square or rectangular. The house doesn’t have to look like it’s hung from a mast. Rather than aluminum sheets or huge plastic windows, the walls could be the same prefab faux plank, brick, etc siding that is everywhere in suburbia.
They probably are, but they don’t look “normal” unless you’ve spent your entire life on a military base (or at least a good portion of it) and I seriously doubt if they meet building codes. (Doesn’t mean they’re unsafe, of course.)
The big problem with affirdable housing is that it’s not really the cost of building materials or labor that makes housing in certain areas so expensive. It’s the land.
Go to Buffalo, New York, where there’s very highly paid union construction workers and building tradespeople, added costs for weatherproofing, added costs for required basements, and very high building permit fees. Housing there is some of the least expensive in the Unied States. Why? Land is cheap. The local economy has been stagnant since 1950, and demand is relatively low.
Any solution that would involve mobile or modular housing, applied to someplace like the SF Bay area, doesn’t address the outrageously high cost of land.
elmwood, Bucky Fuller called it the “Craft and Graft Industry.” 
The high cost of land in many areas is indeed a problem. Silicon Valley is facing the problem that property costs are so high that teachers are being forced to move out of the city because they can no longer afford housing. (Why don’t teachers get the same kind of salary a doctor does? Their work is just as important.)
Tackling affordable housing is a complex issue. There’s the issue of building codes, permits, zoning, and in some states, the plans must be drawn by an architect in that state. Still, if one can come up with an inexpensive design for a house, that solves part of the problem.
Years ago, in *Mother Earth News*, they published plans for a “micro house.” This was too small to meet codes, but was large enough for one person to live in. The “secret” of the design was that it’s dimensions matched that of standard lumber sizes. Meaning that one had to do very little cutting to construct the house. Perhaps something along those lines, but larger, would be the way to go.
Doc, I love Bucky’s 4D house design (Didja see his tent proposal based on it, that he submitted to the USSR? Stalin rejected it as being “too decadent”!), the problem with that, is it’s an “unfamiliar” design to most people, and even if you made it look like a normal house on the outside, on the inside, it’d still be the 4D house which would throw people off. (However, I don’t understand why someone doesn’t start marketing the 4D design to wealthy folks, given that the house was designed with an “information center” in the 1930s, it’d go over like gang busters with the rich today.) Still, I think that many of Bucky’s ideas from the 4D house and his Dymaxion Dwelling Unit could be applied successfully to any design. Certainly, a solar power generating system such as the one Idealabs is working on, would be a nice feature to add.