Sometimes things can get terrible wrong. On 5th April 1906 more than 50 people died and another 100 were injured, when in the town of Nagold, Germany an attempt was made to lift a building while people were celebrating inside. There is only a German Wikipedia page about the incident, but it has some disturbing before and after photos: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch-Katastrophe
"During the 1850s and 1860s, engineers carried out a piecemeal raising of the level of central Chicago. Streets, sidewalks, and buildings were physically raised on jackscrews."
The Red Line and Blue Line of the L both run underground.
I once lived in a building that connected to the pedway, so I was able to dress in shorts and a T-shirt in a Chicago winter, navigate underground through the pedway to the Blue Line, then take the Blue Line to O'Hare for a flight to Tampa.
The train part was a bit chilly, but it was better than having to drag a winter coat with me on the plane.
Let's demolish this building. How about we just rotate it 90°? Yes, that seems like a fair compromise.
In case anybody was wondering - the important part was that it was moved to an adjacent lot (to clear space for a new building) and happened to be rotated as part of that process.
Moving the building rather than demolishing it meant that they could keep telephone services running. I suspect they moved services to the new building sometime in the intervening years before demolishing the moved building.
> For a master-planned tract house built in the 1990's... maybe.
Not even then. 30 years would be ridiculous. Even in the US, all the houses in my area (west coast, so nothing is all that old) back to the late 1800s are still being used as residential housing. Renovated, of course, probably several times, but the bones are the same.
Yeah the subdivision my parents lived in was built in the 1950s/60s, and all those houses are still being lived in today. Only something like a severe fire has caused any of them to be torn down/rebuilt. They are all simple stick-built ranch or bilevel homes, very typical residential construction
At least out west, I'd say especially the 50s and 60s houses are built to last.
My mother still lives in the house I was raised in, and it's largely original in fundamental construction -- built in 1914. Small renovations over the years, but when she passes the house will undoubtedly be completely gutted to the studs and redone. Gone will be the lathe & plaster, but on the bright side the electric wiring will be modern as well as the plumbing, HVAC ducting, insulation, etc.
But even so, that house was primarily built from 2x4. Even at two stories with a basement. My own first house, by comparison, was built in 1964 and it's like a tank. Exterior walls were 2x6 by then, though dead-air w/foil was still the predominant insulation method. But the wood ... the wood ... was exquisite. It was not an expensive house by any stretch of the imagination, and yet it was constructed with wood you just flat out can't get today. Hardwood floors not because they were upscale, but because that's what all the houses got. The studs in the walls are actually 2x4 and so dense it's hard to drive nails into them without bending. I did a little renovation and got to compare an original stud to a new one I had bought and it was incredible how different they are. The exterior siding was old growth cedar that you can't get today. In some ways, for wood construction, I'd say that era was the peak.
We may surpass it in some ways now, but only because we've fallen back on technology to do it. Instead of simple wood beams, the second floor above my current house's garage is held up by an enormous glulam beam that spans 40 feet. Wasn't really practical before glulam to do that with wood in residential construction.
I've seen lately that nobody tears down the 60s era ranch houses around here when they want to backfill an area. They move the house onto a new foundation and then renovate it and modernize the exterior looks so it fits in.
I guess it turns into a cost benefit analysis where you have to compare maintenance to demolition and land value. Beyond a certain point that estimate would become less predictable. But the design will have margins of safety that increase predictability. A client buying a bridge or a skyscraper will probably be making a long term investment and want predictability.
Back then many architects/engineers didn't know enough to engineer 'on the edge' so they tended to massive overkill. Meter thick walls, that sort of thing.
But not everybody built like that, there are also many examples of elegance and material economy. Roman stuff spans the gamut from 'wasteful' to 'optimal'.
Castles were usually built to deal with attackers so likely far strongly built than they would have been otherwise.
This is what always really impresses me about old churches, they go straight up to 100+ meters and it's just square cut stones piled on top of each other lined up with plumb bobs and wires, standing true for 100's of years. Imagine the feat of engineering that the foundation comprises for a building like that.
> But not everybody built like that, there are also many examples of elegance and material economy. Roman stuff spans the gamut from 'wasteful' to 'optimal'.
And note the survivorship bias. The stuff that was "not quite enough strength to be sufficient"-- or even "just barely sufficient" was removed by time.
I get how they can keep electricity and telephone service running this gradual move. But how do they keep water and sewers running? Did they use temporary flexible pipes, or maybe a rotational joint at the pivot point?
I forget what the effect is called but when some new technology or industry becomes the dominate method or form of productivity it tends to cause other areas of industry to suffer. Partly due to brain drain from previous industry X to new industry Y. It's also just that people think Y is newer and worth more so more time and energy gets moved from X to Y.
In the 20th century, new building materials was one of the new technologies of the day so it makes sense that a lot of time and energy was spent doing things related to buildings/construction. The end of the 20th century and the 21st are dominated by technology and software being the growing method of productivity. Plus now we have software and math that (probably) shows moving a building 90 degrees is going to cause 10 new problems we didn't even consider in the 20th century.
It's all about opportunity cost. In the 20th century we built a ton of buildings that stored and manipulated giant volumes of paper documents and physical files. Now we have databases and virtual filesystems so we don't need giant clerk offices or document storage buildings. Giant data-center buildings might be the most apt comparison on some level.
It's related to Jevon's "Paradox", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox, which actually isn't a "paradox" at all, but merely an entirely foreseeable consequence of supply/demand.
It's also related to "The pinnacle of {technology} happened right as it was superseded by {other technology}". (Well, duh. People stopped trying to improve {technology}, so no improvements happened.)
“In economics, the Dutch disease is the apparent causal relationship between the increase in the economic development of a specific sector (for example natural resources) and a decline in other sectors (like the manufacturing sector or agriculture).”
Not entirely related, but I’m sort of sad that these giant storage buildings don’t need to exist any more. There’s something about having everything on paper, and getting a printed memo on your desk that can’t be replaced by email.
At time of writing this reply I don’t see anyone challenging this premise, so fine I’ll go for it.
Tons of stuff gets done all the time. All around us. A lot of it is unremarkable because it’s so commonplace. Where I live, most of Seattle’s most vulnerable buildings have been retrofitted for earthquakes with nearly no fanfare. It’s an enormous task, but it happened gradually and in compliance with regulations. It doesn’t fit the narrative of getting stuff done I’m some big show of accomplishment, but it certainly fits the narrative of the original tweet.
I was thinking of it in contrast with all the subway projects that don't happen and cost ten times as much now, and things like that - think Collison's lists.
The huge and hugely expensive East Side Access project in NYC is almost finished. Test trains are running and the Governor of New York just made a visit. That involved putting an 8 track, two level railroad station underneath Grand Central Station, 140 feet below ground.
San Francisco's subway from SOMA to Union Square to Chinatown opens in 2022.
The amount of stuff people used to just get done in the 20th century constantly boggles my mind.
Yep. The downtowns of entire cities were elevated dozens of feet. Rivers were reversed. Tunnels were blasted through mountains because it was the most direct route, initial cost be damned.
In the 20th century, renumbering the addresses of an entire city was so inconsequential that in some places it happened multiple times. Today, that could never happen. People just don't have the will to do anything big anymore, unless there's a buck in it.
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir mens’ blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency." — Daniel Burnham (1846-1912)
Put another way, "it's amazing what people can do when you get out of their way."
I feel as if I'm always swimming up a river to get things done, "well so-and-so wouldn't approve", "what about XXXX", "YYYY wont be ready until March, etc. etc."
People used to grow up needing to milk the cows every day. There wasn't time to waste, get going and get it done. Regulations were more minimal and everything was contractual.
Today, you need permits to change a kitchen sink, you'll get a ticket for not wearing a seat belt, etc. etc.
In my opinion it feels like regulation has gone from serving a purpose (we will review a to protect b) to the default standard (we will deeply review a-z because it is ‘best practice’).
It's the startup vs Enterprise dilemma. Startups have no red tape, so anyone can get anything done immediately. Enterprises are the opposite. It's always been fascinating to me that billion-dollar-revenue companies will spend zero dollars on anything they don't have to, whereas a startup will blow through 50 million in a few months on an experiment.
What amazes me more is that antique stuff is often so much better than the stuff we make today, not only build quality but also design. And it is not survivor bias, because often I cannot even find equivalent new stuff with equal quality.
It's not very surprising, it's by design. They're intentionally not pursuing maximum quality and longevity. In most cases they're pursuing an optimization for lower to moderate cost, margin, volume of sales, manufacturing optimization, supply chain matters (including shipping).
You'll make more money selling 10 humidifiers to a typical consumer over a 20 year span at $40-$60 each, than what you could ever max them out on for one humidifier that will last that full 20 years. If you're the business in question, it's illogical to pursue any other path unless you're making a conscious choice to give up profit to specifically build something of vastly superior quality.
It's obviously not because we can't do it. The great majority of consumers won't pay for it and or can't afford it.
It's cheap-rotational-product-as-a-service. Most consumers don't have the purchasing power to buy a $500 humidifier (and or don't want to save up to do so), and they want to allocate their money elsewhere at a given time, so the $39.95 plastic cheap humidifier that'll last 2-3 years wins every time (that way they can buy 10-12 things that last a few years for $40 instead of one per year for a decade).
> If you're the business in question, it's illogical to pursue any other path unless you're making a conscious choice to give up profit to specifically build something of vastly superior quality.
The logic is that customers will prefer your product and you'll take market share from competitors.
But that logic only works if you're small. If you have 2% of the market and making a better product would allow you to take 5% of the market, you do it. If you have 30% of the market and making a better product would allow you to take 33% of the market, at the cost of having a longer interval between repeat business, eh.
So the real problem is that we have too much consolidation and vertical integration. It's too hard to start a new company that goes from zero to 5% of the market in the first year by making a better product. So that's not what happens anymore.
And it's in the interest of the consolidated incumbents to sell you a new device every three years, not to sell you a 20% more expensive device that lasts for decades.
Although I wonder if an upstart couldn't still disrupt this in some markets. The Korean automakers took a big chunk of the market from out of nowhere by offering triple the usual powertrain warranties. What happens if you design a washing machine to last for decades and sell it with a 30 year warranty?
The main problem is missing from your model here--
It's impossible for a consumer to asses the "quality" of an item at the time of purchase. We infer quality from reputation, price, and warranty, but there's no direct measure of it available. There's barely even a definition of quality. Even if we ignore the metaphysical aspects of quality, we are left with messy problem.
Price correlates to quality only in as much as the least expensive thing is most likely to be the worse thing, but imagine if we used price as our only measure of quality? The strategy people would arrive at is to charge the most for the least-- which is pretty much where we are now already.
This incentivizes products that work great for a little bit-- which is again exactly where we are now.
My point is only that we've arrived at a crappy capitalism stalemate. I'd love to make high quality products for high quality people, but, that market isn't out there due to... human nature.
There's also a large element of survivorship bias. Everything that's left is the stuff that was built well enough to last, and we don't see all the other things that are long gone.
I think to some extend it is. Only the good stuff is worth preserving, so that’s the only thing that remains.
On the other hand, since it’s now so cheap to produce stuff, there’s no real reason to make it last longer any more.
I also feel like the marginal cost of labor is much lower now with everything being machined. If labor costs $1000 it’s easy to justify $200 in materials. If labor is $10, not so much.
On the other hand, those 20th century projects casually accepted quite a lot of deaths and permanent crippling injuries as just the cost of doing business.
I don't think they were "casually" accepted, as many workplace safety rules and agencies were developed in the 20th century. There may have been a certain feeling that some level of injuries were inevitable in large industrial/construction settings, but there definitely were efforts to reduce them.
Yeah, for example in 1975 the whole historical church of Most in Czechoslovakia was moved by almost a full kilometer via rail and hydraulics, to enable lignite coal mining beneath its former location: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/moved-church-of-most-kos...
Well, we cared, but we also understood that death is part of life, and some things are worth the risk. At least worth it to those doing the dangerous jobs. Don't think for a moment these guys didn't know how dangerous their jobs were.
That's right. We are not talking about forced labor. Choosing to risk your life to better the lives of your family members and society is part of being part of a community.
Buildings are moved routinely now. Mammoet just moved Pier 70 in San Francisco.[1]
They moved their own US HQ building in Texas, although that was more showing off.[2]
Since the invention of self propelled modular transporters, you can move pretty much anything you can jack up.
I think the lack of "getting stuff done" is due to the innovator's dilemma on a societal scale. The marginal gain of any additional project is just too small for society, as a whole, to care about.
Today, we have so much experience with building things, as if every invoice is ready to be sent to order every piece of a building, that we don’t have experience with repairing.
Moreover, insurances tell us that a desk or a telecom switch devaluates 25% per year, so we value the existing furnished building to basically scrap value after 5 years. But insurances evaluate at the resale price. But an equipment in-place and working has at least 90% of its purchase value for 3-10 years, if not 125% of its purchase value, since it would cost a lot of maintenance to scrap and re-plug a new one.
If insurances/accounting rules admitted that equipments are worth 90% of their purchase price for 3 years, we would put more value into repairing things. Our replacement culture is rooted in the way we perform accounting.
I definitely waste a ton of time on the internet. Not Facebook, but online nonetheless. It's very easy to justify, as reading about interesting things is not exactly wasted time, but hours can go by without a lot of awareness of their passing.
I've given serious thought to not having internet at home, because I grew up and spent nearly half my adult life without it, and it sure sure seems that I got more done in those days.
People used to waste an enormous amount of time a century ago doing things we no longer have to do, that today are either automated or sourced out to other labor. It'd be interesting to attempt to compare and contrast in a realistic manner, then vs now on time wasting and time trade-offs (was that Facebook time, a century ago, spent doing something that has been heavily automated away today?).
It's far more than that. It's all the movies, TV, video games, professional sports, porn, "music" and other garbage called "culture" … not even to mention the run-on effects from all that wasted time that has made people weak in mind and body, which has then also compounded through intersex conflicts and inefficiencies and incompatibilities.
I don't think people quite understand all the fifth oder effects and dependencies that are at best ignored, at worst totally unknown.
A similar thing happened in my back garden last summer. Not as impressive, but still a feat of engineering for me and a few mates. Similar tech too! We had a couple 2-ton car jacks and a handful of 3 inch fence posts. Lift, lower, push. Lift, lower, push. It took most of a weekend but the result was a 3x4 metre shed being relocated from the south-west to the north-east corner of the garden.
Electrics were never disconnected, but shut off at the box. And it's not plumbed in. But it was still quite an effort.
I would have a loved to have done a time-lapse of the project, but sadly didn't think of it until after the move.
Nice one. Determination and a lever is pretty much all that you need to do a lot of major construction. I lifted up the top floor of this building to be able to slide a new support beam underneath, just a 30 ton jack and a lot of patience. It fits like it has always been there :)
Some of the most amazing feats of the 20th century were inflicted by Bell. It was an innovative organization (body of organizations) whose inventions impact our everyday life today.
I'm amazed that buildings tolerate this kind of stress, or maybe I underestimate how accurately they can apply equal pressure to rotate the building safely.
Assuming it has a properly-designed & constructed foundation (which, if the building tolerates just being there at all, especially for decades, it probably does; but this is something that would be checked anyway), it's just a matter of adequately supporting that and taking everything slow. After all, the foundation supports the entire building, so moving the foundation will move the building. The stresses involved here (this Twitter thread says it was moved 15 inches per hour) are practically nil; it also says the people inside didn't even notice it happening.
They wanted to straighten the subway ("El") track to make the trains faster. The building is historic and can't be demolished, so they moved it out of the way.
I like how the company is so dedicated to this singular task that their tagline is “House & Building Movers” [1]. It must be a low-volume high-contract-value business.
Doesn't buildings in America have underground bases to ensure their stability? Because that's the case in my country even though seismic activity is very rare.
(We're talking about renforced concrete bases around 2 meters deep for a single story home. Obviously, the higher the building, the deeper the base.)
If so, how was this building moved? If not, how did it manage to stay up?
Of course building have foundations. I imagine they built a new foundation at the new location, then lifted the building off the old foundation and slowly moved it to the new one. This is actually a fairly common thing to happen to houses; less so for large buildings, but certainly not rare. I know several people who had their old houses moved onto a new foundation with a basement within the last 15 years. Also, in the 1960s, my grandparents moved an entire garage several miles onto their farm property.
In 2018, the historic Kodak Building 9 in Toronto was moved 200 feet out of the way so a subway station could be built beneath it, then moved back into place on a new foundation above the station. See here for details of how it was done and a timelapse video: http://www.thecrosstown.ca/node/2018
This building would have been brick or stone. Hence the lower bricks would be cemented at best to the foundation. The floor structure, timber or steel could be jacked up, as would any walls to move it.
In the west a few decades prior, buildings would be constructed on gravel, field/paving stones or even the bare ground that would last a couple of decades due to the low moisture, but I don't think they would've done that there or that late.
Also, it's just a tweet of an animated gif. I wish HN had a way to block Twitter so this kind of content-free stuff could be ignored more easily. Also on the front page now, a tweet about "programming is just for loops and if statements, 244 comments.
The context is that John, the father posting that tweet, is a well known hacker and lead programmer on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom & Quake. He is still lauded today for his legendary optimizations to 3D graphics & network programming techniques.
That is not really the focus of the context and it's barely necessary to explain who Carmack is around here geez. He's right that post is hardly notable despite being a Carmack tweet, ppl are silly
