Concrete: A Ticking Time Bomb. Can We Fix It?
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- Опубліковано 26 кві 2024
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Concrete - it seems like almost everything is built with it. But especially reinforced concrete has one dark secret, which we're taking a look at in this video, alongside multiple other problems. Is there a way to use concrete in better ways? Share this video with someone who cares for the planet! 🌍
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Can't we make rebar out of plastic? Especially recycled plastic. It would solve two problems. It would not be as strong, but if made into tensioned nets it would have the same effect. I think it should be tested.
Using cross-laminated timber is a terrible suggestion and should've included (synthetic) basalt as reinforcement material replacing steel.
It's amazing to me how mid-20th Century humanity collectively made all the wrong decisions possible. We traded sustainability, beauty, and urbanism that was once working wonders for everyone for greed, ugliness, and segregation. Even when the economic bubble is bursting and the planet is being rapidly destroyed for short-term profit, we still continue to destroy ourselves in name of greed and hatred for our fellow humans. It's sickening.
Happily there is an alternative - but it will be a battle to build better. We can only spread information, vote with our wallets, our feet and of course vote politically. But there is a lot we can do individually to spread the message!
They were busy making easily scalable designs, with low demand on skills. Democractic governments rarely support any long term expensive solutions fearing backlash from industry (less profit) and people (expensive goods). We are also resposible for it. for example, Building norms are designed for 50 years as most people do not want to live in older houses, prefering new houses meant to accomodate latest tech.
that`s post modernism for yay
Segregation? What? I think you've got it backwards.
@@the_aesthetic_city "vote with our wallets" -
you will buy what they will tell you (deliver to "market").
The real face of anti-Traditional architrcture: ugly, souless, short living, unefficient and enemy of the enviroment. Thank you for you videos, great as always
Not sure if you noticed, but the proposed solutions were not entirely traditional either. Plenty of traditional architecture burned down, fell over, or otherwise was destroyed under it's own incompetency in far shorter than 50 years.
@@gearandalthefirst7027 There's no match between traditional and modern. Where traditional was meant to endure it lasted centuries, where it wasn't meant to endure it was at least funcional and ecofriendly (like a wooden cabin house). The solution "not entirely traditional" still had to take the already existant knowledge as reference, while Modernism trashed it like it was just centuries of superstitions. Modernism was greatly moved by the hate for the old, rather than the improvement of things, thats the problem
We used to build buildings that could last 1000 years but many of them were ripped down after only being used for 40 or 50 years. An example of that would be Penn Station in New York. It was designed to last 1000 years but only stood for 53 years and was ripped down in 1963. Thousands of similar long lasting buildings met a similar fate. Modernism arose from the idea form followed function. It is wasteful to put a ton of resources into a building that will only be used for 50 years. If a building is only going to be used for 50 years then why design it to last a thousand?
Most buildings are built to whatever standard the owner can afford, the traditional buildings that last a thousand years are monuments that people have invested in to maintain. No ancient structures would exist if not for engineers and preservationists.
The fact that modern building codes disallow the use of unreinforced concrete is really something
Many codes are designed in favor of the construction industry
I never understood why foundations, especially low rise home foundations, have to sue reinforced concrete. I always thought that was weird.
One of the problems is that all the regulations that govern the construction industry are passed into law by politicians who know nothing about construction. So they get experts to draft all the legislation for them. To gain expertise, such people need to have worked in the industry. Thusly we get biased rules which assume that the methods in use are the only ones possible. It is also useful for the industry to avoid change because that has a huge cost, not only in innovating designs but in retraining workers and changing supply chains.
This is actually not completely true, within eurocode 2 which is used in Europe to design concrete structures there is a chapter about unreinforced concrete. However there are quite strict limitations to these as unreinforced concrete fails in a brittle fashion, giving occupants no time to get out of a building when it starts falling apart.
@@2mains234 the real problem is not the type of regulation, but rather the OBSESSION that everything MUST have rules governing it enforced by the government. this is the real evil.
Great video. As a German, a specific project in my country comes to mind that fits this just perfectly:
The city of Stuttgart decided to put their big train station below ground, and so they are currently building a new underground train hall with huge, wide reinforced concrete structures. Just constructing this is taking 15 years, and guess what? The planned lifespan of this structure is... 80 years. What happens then? Nobody knows. Problems for future generations.
Incredible right? How public funds are squandered on buildings that might need to be torn down after one generation
Many a trillion dollars has been spent in recent decades on High Speed rail tracks that are built atop viaducts constructed of reinforced, epoxy bonded, post tensioned, peer cast, unique concrete segments, that are hopefully good for 40-60 years. That unlike 19th century viaducts can't be repaired with a few bricks and sacks of cement, over a few weekends, in half a century. The stations are but the tip of an iceberg.
I am studying civil engineering right now, and it is crazy how much of the lectures revolve around the use of reinforced concrete. I believe one of the main reasons for this is the fact that most people that want to construct buildings are wealthy people, and exactly those people do not think in a sustainable way, since this will not net them the most money. And i worry that since this is the case we will not really see huge changes in the near future. Tho brickwork is gaining a lot more popularity again especially for private contractors, and building with it makes it "only" 6-7% more expensive.
Yes there are many ways to design with other materials- they cost more, just like preventing rusting of the rebar, but we need to make a choice if we really want to be sustainable. Otherwise, we are just greenwashing or virtue signaling
@@the_aesthetic_city This is very true, i really hope for more movement in that direction. And in this regard i deeply appreciate what you are doing.
Have you discovered "passivhaus" standards yet? You should take a look at designing buildings that need almost zero heating or cooling.
@@disposabull yes ! though not fully into detail yet, but it is being talked about since they do try to be sustainable in many ways.
If reinforced concrete is used for the floors and the roof is properly maintained... Why would it last only 50 years or even just 100 years?
I don't like concrete as a finished surface of buildings either. But the dufference is very important and not adressed.
For architects and builders, start with: "Building with Lime: A practical introduction" or "Hot Mixed Lime and Traditional Mortars".
Until we start running out of lime like we are doing to the beaches?
@@MisterHeroman 1st of all: Lime-based concrete, hydraulic or non-hydraulic, is not a substitute for common concrete (PCC) used in construction today, which utilizes Portland cement as a binder. Lime constitutes 60-67% of raw materials consumed in Portland cement production. PCC is the second most consumed substance (right after water) in the world right now, as we speak.
2nd: Quartz sand is mostly used for decorative lime plaster, which is the smallest part of lime-based construction materials and should be preferably coarse - so neither river, nor beach sand are optimal.
3rd: Reinforced PCC should be, hopefully, replaced mostly by engineered wood in high-rise and infrastructure projects.
4th: You should do basic research on cob, adobe, lime stabilized earth etc. - you'll love it❤
The more I learn about building codes, zoning, and planning in the 20th and 21st Centuries, the less I respect the academic and professional discipline of "Professional Urban Planning". Urban planners have given us everything from urban sprawl to hideous and unsustainable buildings -- and then they have blamed their failures on the petroleum industry or builders or whomever. On the East Coast of the United States, storm water runoff and resultant flooding is a huge problem in the oldest cities. Yet those same cities and adjacent suburbs continue to allow -- and even require -- massive amounts of impermeable paving and building that merely increases the runoff exponentially. I am exasperated with planning/zoning departments and their degreed/certified "urban planners". They are the problem, not the solution.
Humanity would be better off without formal urban planning and architecture. The (human) cost of the occasional shoddy building is far lower than the cost of systemic failure.
The profession developed mostly in response to those same problems. In the absence of planners, people would be paving even more in the suburbs because it's where the demand is. The biggest failing of planners IMO is catering to commuters with their road decisions. It was a rearguard action that was never going to pay off.
@@josephfisher426 Response to those problems??? They gave the U.S. its worst problems. Urban planners devised the modern concept of dividing society into "residential, commercial, industrial". They bequeathed us a loathing of mixed use, and many (perhaps, MOST) municipalities in the United States STILL abhor mixed use in their zoning and planning. In suburbs from Washington, D.C. to Orange County, California, people have to get into their automobiles and drive miles to buy a litre of milk or a loaf of bread, or to buy a scone and a cup of coffee; that drive might be five minutes or it might be 45 minutes. It is no wonder that traffic is constantly terrible in Costa Mesa, Marietta, and Fairfax County. The demise of the neighborhood store or cafe was not merely a pity, it was an environmental catastrophe -- and still is. Only now are a few planning and zoning departments beginning to acknowledge it. But, in the mean time, planners and local governments have trained the populace to believe that the presence of any commercial entity in a residential zone is the end of property values there. Local residents will come shrieking with a whole host of "problems" (almost all of them perfectly solvable) at the first breath of anything commercial in their neighborhoods. It will be decades before any sort of mixed use is advocated as an antidote to the choking traffic of America's suburbs. American's have been socialised to believe in the segregation of "residential, commercial, industrial" -- a 1950's concept that was never even good in theory, and was a disaster in practice. Thank you, municipal planners. You sold us on the idea of suburbs, so now what?
@@billyungen Mixed-use zoning has been a fad in planning circles since the mid 80s, which was itself only about a decade after there was any real planning. Before that most development restriction outside of cities, which did necessary things like banning the keeping of pigs, came from covenants. Covenants aren't really enforceable now, but when land was recently enough subdivided that original purchasers were still a large proportion of the owners, they were assumed to be enforceable.
That mixed-use zoning that was a fad has mostly not worked. It was inspired by older urban areas and it would be nice if it worked. But it's less efficient for business, in an environment with cheap energy costs, to operate in multiple locations as opposed to centralized ones that people drive to. Business is what ultimately chose the current arrangement.
@@josephfisher426 Mixed use "zoning" may be recent. "Zoning" is the operative word. But mixed use is thousands of years old. It has been around for thousands of years because it has great utility. Businesses and citizens today do what government planners allow them to do where government planners allow them to do it. They do not "choose" the current arrangement. Your post is poppycock. If businesses or citizens could chose where they do things, then we really WOULD NOT NEED planners.
Modern architecture has been one of the greatest devil's bargains in history. Thanks for helping us to think about this. And you retain, not so much a sense of optimism but, resolve, that we must deal with this. I gave a lecture on texture that you might find interesting. Thanks. Let's find the ways out of this.
Please don't cry this could be worst
"and so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually" 🎸🎶
It’s remarkable that buildings are typically planned with a lifespan of just 50 years. I hold the view that this approach is deliberately encouraged and endorsed by the influential figures of our world. Instead of seeking approval, we should forge ahead toward more sustainable practices without waiting for anyone’s sanction.
We have become a "throwaway society". Our municipal dumps are bursting full. Home appliances are not repaired - they're replaced. Automotive repairs are often replacement of entire modules. An expensive computer is discarded when one tiny soldered element fails. And so many buildings are torn down because they are "obsolete".
I can't believe it isn't common sense anymore to build buildings that won't degrade in a century. It's ridiculous, because in many European cities, the same people who build with this mindset are surrounded by buildings one and a half, two, sometimes even THREE centuries old. Thanks for the video
Absolutely! We need to start thinking far more long term
please take note that reinforced concrete hasn't been in the industry for that long. The estimate 50 year life span has considered multiple safety factors. Technically, they can even live more than a century. Those non reinforced concrete you have mentioned will easily collapse after an earthquake and kill people instantly. Not to mention the limitations these kind of structure have (you'd need bigger walls, bigger columns, that reduces your indoor space, goodluck finding a big lot for that)
We have cathedrals, old scyscrapers, that still stand after 5 centuries
@@user-yd4tm3gl8s and how many of these cathedrals have also collapsed if they are not maintained or further reinforced?
There's a lot of construction industries here in France which know how to built without concrete, since we still have building like that almost everywhere...
Building methods aren't lost and the problem is not that they don't know but they don't want to change
people aren't ready too to pay for a good and long time construction since it's much more expensive ..
In France and Italy, many traditional forms of craftsmanship are still preserved but in America; these types of old crafts have been lost to history.
Um, don't leave large spaces in between your sentences - it's annoying.
Great video. I already dislike the look of concrete buildings, but I had no idea they were so impractical as well.
Love the visual presentation of your videos as well, and I'm glad to see you're comitting to your unique illustrated visual style. They're not just fun and stylised, but their simplicity also helps make the more complex explanations (such as how the rebars can get rusty) easier to comprehend.
Thank you! Will double down on our unique look :)
rebar in concrete used in buildings isn't really susceptible to corrosion anymore than steel beams are. rebar corrosion is only really a issue for concrete exposed to weather.
Another greatly underestimated material is just metal itself. There are plenty of metal alloys that are corrosion resistant so they last a very long time, and can be very beautiful as well, just look at historic cast iron facades. You'd keep the advantage of affordability too, since you can just press and stamp a large variety of beautiful shapes into metal plates, so there is no need for expensive artisans. Not to mention you don't need much of it since it's so strong, so less material has to be used and mined, and it's 100% recyclable as well so once it's produced it stays in circulation, plus you can process it with renewable energy. With proper interior insulation you don't have to worry about heat and sound either.
I agree so much business interests lobby for policies to make cement and steel bars to be a standard
Another great episode.
Also Roman concrete was a bit different and it has self repairing properties. Practical engineering channel has a great video about it 🙌🙌🙌
I work for a company that produces rebar out of duroplastics. These glass fibre rods are used in Bridges instead of steel rebar. It is resistant to corrosion, so the bridges won't need to be rebuilt every few years
Architect here. About carbon capture technology(CCT) - the NORM here in Norway, after grilling the concrete industry-representatives(Betonmast): they capture the CO2 with a filter at the factory, and put the pressurized co2 in tanks. These tanks are then shipped by truck to the coast, where they they are loaded onto ships, which are then.... dug into the seabed. Literally putting their problems in the silt.
So much energy and fuel being spent on transportation, pressurizing and even the capture, this makes absolutely no sense
@@mattllaves They've just figured out how to play the Co2 regulations so it looks good on the spreadsheet. There's alot of awareness and regulations being discussed to avoid greenwashing like that fortunately. Notably, there's an anti-greenwashing pledge that most architecture and engineering companies are part of, where they use other measures in addition to Co2 to measure sustainability. In 2021 we(the government) also implemented a 50-year rule for all new buildings, meaning they must last 50 years without serious maintenance.
Most architects and engineers worth their salt are also aware that designing buildings that can be adapted to future changes in use and needs, be easily maintained, not to mention simply being beautiful will make any building last much longer.
This is the most stupid activity I have ever had even if it's about carbon credits and climate change bs, CO2 is less than 0.04% in the atmosphere
I wonder if they really do that, or they fake it?
Also look into reinforcing concrete with graphene. The results are quite dramatic - stronger concrete that can reduce the amount needed by 2/3c IIRC.
I love this channel
Very well said! There is nothing worse than soul crushing concrete and your solutions sound pretty viable. Also, in Italy, even most of the "newer" buildings today are still built with arches, you can find them in the neighbourhoods built in the 1950s to 1980s in cities like Venice, Milan and so on.
Now I wonder if the glass industry is causing similar problems for the environment, especially coupled with concrete...
We live in consumeristic societies, nothing is built for the long term, not computers, clothes, not even buildings. Sad.
planned obsolescence
Imagine the buildings in Babylonian civilizations...
How long should a computer last? Would you be happy with a computer with the capabilities that were available in most computers 15 or 20 years ago? How about your phone? Same question. The products around us are as durable as we demand, given all the other factors that go into a purchasing decision.
Everything is made for money, not to be used.
@@Monaleenian You would only be dissatisfied, because you have experienced the newer machines. In reality, how much better off are we, really? A 480p video on DVD without all the compression looks better than a 1080p streamed video, because the compression that is used to save bandwidth. Games, especially "AAA" ones, spend all the money on polygons and textures and not on actually being polished and fun. How much more productive are they?
I don't build a new computer every 5 years because I want new stuff, I do it because the requirements for everything have bloated. For phones, it is even worse; it only lasts as long as the battery, which is generally no longer replaceable. The apps don't need better resources, and if I want a good camera, I'm going to get something waterproof and protected, not use my phone.
Partial solution for reinforced concrete: use synthetic basalt instead of steel or iron with or without coating(s).
The building material of the future will be melted rock - by _sintering_ stone into a basalt like agglomerate we can create almost indestructible bricks in any shape imaginable. By assembling these bricks on site acording to computer aided design, you can erect extremely longlasting and absolutely beautiful structures by fitting these tgogether as Lego blocks - which allows deassembly and recycling blocks in the future. Variants of this asembly of hyperdurable rock components are 3D printing sintering desert sand thrugh a freznel lens - as wonderfully evidenced my Marcus Kayser.
Does this technology already exist?
I believe this is the plan with constructing habitats on the Moon, and eventually Mars. By cooking the regolith we will be able to fly there with less materials, making it more cost efficient, among other benefits.
Sounds like incredible amounts of energy needed to do this.
but is it relatively cheap and easily scalable? cuz if not, it's unlikely to catch on large-scale
Why waste the energy when earth already made rocks and it is comparatively much less energy to just mortar them together. This seems foolish.
Urg the trend that is bugging me right now is in my home city we have a bunch of really nice red brick-clad buildings, and for whatever reason everyone feels the need to paint all the wood, brick, insides, furniture everything blank white. I'm so sick of white, it's the concrete color of the 21st century. White is nice, too much of it though is just painful. No color, we can't have color anymore, everything must be white. Then in front of these houses, they take the lawns and make them artificial turf because covering our organic lawns... in plastic is a great way to save the planet, don't have real plants just imitate them with plastic.
Oooof a lot of people in my neighborhood are doing that to their brick houses. Which is so weird to me because the brick never looked old.
@@JakeHGuy Same... I know right, what's wrong with brick?
Yeah what a gross trend. It's as though people want everything to be a homogenic giant mental institution.
Hope this channel gets the attention it deserves!
I will watch every single one of your videos as soon as it comes out. They are all so good! Thanks for what you do 🥰
I love your work ❤️ your videos are always thought provoking
This was really informative and interesting.
Thank you!
Your videos are amazing! I'm learning more from you than I learnt from most of the professors at university. Thank you a lot
Very interesting topic and informative video. One of your best thus far.
Hello Aesthetic City, what are your thoughts on the return of murals to public spaces (particularly indoor public spaces) in newer classically-designed architecture? Murals, bringing a painted form of life, emotion, and beauty to public and common spaces, were quite common in older, classically and traditionally-designed buildings, but don’t seem to be too common in newer classical/traditional buildings nowadays.
Entirely depends what the mural is. If it's some Cleon Peterson piece I'm gonna have to pass on that
A mural to the classical standard is one thing. Unfortunately, the murals I have seen have been childish, dehumanizing monstrosities.
More industry needs more people. Both needs more buildings. People need livable spaces. They need it as cheap as possible. These are the basic problems, modernists tried to solve. Arches and vaults need hight, stone and brick walls are thick. They mean less useable space in the building. Slabs are more cost effective made of steel, later of reinforced concrete, also walls. Ornament costs a lot, but is not "useful". (Beautiful, but who cares?) Modernists tried to make philosophy for the new material: "The beauty is the aestethic of structure". In some cases it is, but generally the investor is not interested, or there is no time to refine the plan, or the architect is not gifted or trained enough to make beautyful plans. Some architests are "artists" who make statues for themselfes...
So that's what led to the overuse of reinforced concrete. Meanwhile the knowledge of making ornaments or vaults has been almost lost during 20th century. To build any form made of concrete is easy and builders have its knowledge. Making vaults need more time, makes more cost. The main drive force here is to build quick and cheap.
you are making an honest argument, but wasting your time here - the audience is a bunch of traditionalist snobs, who only care for their narrow privileged "visions".
The end of WW2 brought about all this “quick and cheap” short sighted ideas of reinforced concrete.
So much needed to be rebuilt as fast as possible for little cost, so most countries went the short sighted route that is now having disastrous consequences on us.
@@alexsmith-ob3luwhat else could they do? Let people sleep on the streets? Specially with baby boom. You pretend like they had options specially countries hardest hit by the war.
Very insightful, my friend. I have been a follower of this channel for a long time. So I would like to humbly invite you to explore Eastern architecture. Could be traditional Slavic, Saracenic, Indo, Japanese or even Chinese. It would go on to inspire people from far beyond to join this idea.
It seems that the quality of the videos have improved so I must congratulate Aestetic City for this. Keep up the good work!
I have been anti-rebar from the beginning, so nice to hear someone else talk about this.
Does the limestone not get eroded? I studied a limestone landscape and the limestone is susceptible to be eroded by acid rain. Acid rain dissolves limestone because the limestone reacts with the rain to create calcite which is soluble. I only know about Karst landscapes though, is something done with buildings to make them less susceptible to this?
Please search Red Fort of New Delhi and Agra Fort in India. They are standing for 400 years or so.
Excellent report, thank you!
I am glad that increasingly more US construction is conducted with OSB. This material is a wood material that is arranged into square or rectangular panels and structurally strong, regardless of the direction of the grain of wood that is used to manufacture it. so long as it is kept away from water, it is a very robust material that survives well in terms of earthquakes. This material is also relatively easy to treat to improve fire resistance.
What a great video, in the architecture course there is not much mention of the disadvantages of reinforced concrete or other solutions like the ones in the video.
There are some products for reinforcement that can be used in the short term during the transition such as epoxy coated rebar or fiberglass rebar, but you are right going back to the old materials would be very beneficial except for very tall buildings where it would not be as practical. Good video.
Fiberglass rebar or basalt fiber rebar is the answer to issues with steel reinforcement. It has many properties that are actually superior to steel and it will effectively last forever. Roman concrete had ash and clumps of unmixed lime that kept the concrete itself from eventually cracking and breaking down. Concrete is best used for foundations and slab floors where, if properly insulated, drained, and not on poor soil, it experiences only compression forces and is uniformly supported by the earth.
Great video! Very interesting subject that we learn about in architecture school but that civil engineers don't care about.
I'm a dual-trained architect and engineer, and this question of a return to geometry in the natural order has been on my mind...
The question is how to introduce these more reasonable construction methods into a capitalist system that relies solely on short-term profit?
We still have a lot of work to do in this direction...
Earthquake resistance is a consideration. Unreinforced masonry structures are very vulnerable.
So use nature's ultimate, infinitely renewable engineering material: wood. There are plenty of 500 year old wooden structures still standing because repairs are easy and it's really damn strong. We don't need 50-storey high-rise apartments if office work isn't concentrating all the jobs in 50-storey office buildings
thank you for this video !
Another great video with easily digestible information that makes it easy to share with those not involved in the architectural rebellion.
A rectangular concrete block of offices or apartments on a grey day can really affect one's mood.
What a profound video!
I wrote a paper on this topic earlier this year, good to see this is getting attention!
I'd be interested in reading it...
Excellent and frightening. Thank you
Great video!!! Very well researched from my perspective as a civil engineer.
Thank you!! That is great to hear
Very eye opening video!
I worked for a company that built kilns and furnaces using angle iron frames to support high temperature concrete structures. For the disk shaped lids of crucible furnaces which were less than 4 inches thick, we used stainless steel fiber mixed into the castings concrete.
The cured pieces were extremely tough and they could withstand hundreds of strikes from a sledge hammer. I had to break a lid out of its frame once because of a dimensional mistake and the effort needed was amazingly intence.
use basalt rebar instead of iron ferro no rust cracking
It's notable that there are non-corroding rebar options. Fibreglass rebar is already on the market, and other options probably exist.
Epoxy coated rebar and stainless steel rebar is already common
interested in some of the ash self healing concrete as well.
curious what lifespan pf fiberglass is~ how rigid is it?
@@Khanfuzed1 For many applications fiber reinforced concrete is similar to steel reinforced concrete. However, many of the fiber approaches give me strong asbestos vibes.
Yes, true - but the cost is often prohibitive. Still, it is one of the solutions. Maybe that will be the way of the future
@@Mooooov0815 To be fair, if even asbestos was embedded deeply in concrete (and never exposed), it would be fine. It's when it powderizes and gets into the air that the mesothelioma can-can starts.
Stunning video, congrats for its quality and all the information that encompasses! To your list of problems I would also add concerns to human health: concrete has been linked to respiratory and musculoskeletal problems in construction workers, that are exposed long-term to its toxic dust in poorly ventilated construction sites. And it contributes to heat island effect in cities, which also comes with another array of public health risks. I wonder as well how we can economically reward a not-so-disposable way to build and motivate the sector to change its current approach!
The reason the pantheon still exists is that every generation since decided that this one building was worth preserving. The plain concrete developed large cracks had to be found and repaired to prevent collapse. It should be obvious that every building cannot receive such treatment.
Another great video - you're really good at this! I'm rather partial to mud buildings (adobe & rammed earth) and alternatives like hempcrete. It must be said, however, that concrete does have some unique strengths, in proper applications designed to last.
It can also be beautiful, when used in creative ways. The addition of aggregates such as crushed brick or glass can provide visual and textural interest, as can the use of board-forming. Grouting recesses and voids in a subtly contasting color can make a nice effect. And there are lovely Japanese paving techniques using natural pigments in the mix and a scattering of small stones (and perhaps rock salt), embedded in the surface and exposed by washing during the cure.
As with nearly any material, concrete's aesthetic potentials are only reached with sensitivity and some skilled labor. When used to its best advantage, it can even grow stronger and more beautiful with time.
Thank you, and I fully agree - it is a very versatile material, and it can be beautiful, but the industrial application in the form of reinforced concrete is the major problem here. Hempcrete might be a future video topic!
@@the_aesthetic_city Yes, of course you're right. And yes to a hempcrete video!
Hempcrete, dustcrete (chunky sawdust), aircrete or foamcrete... still use Portland cement, but I would love to see your thoughts on them.
Very interesting! I'm studying civil engineering and I'm very curious to see how this method might change the way we build
This channel is part of the new wave of bettering the world !!!
Awesome video!
Geweldige video, zoals altijd!
Amazing video!
My issue with concrete is that the building is homogenous and thus construction has to be continuous. If only it was more modular, then you can just replace the elements individually. Thankfully, there is precast concrete where you can just remove only the damaged portion instead of destroying the entire structure. Of course, depending on the structure, mileage can vary.
Long term we should be looking at materials such as basalt, no CO2 reaction to worry about! This would require new building regs so not a short term solution. For now I like the idea just using stone and craftsmanship!
Left out the major drawback in using compression only construction; being limited to low rise buildings, especially in earthquake areas
Something i do not understand is why we do not use more recycled polymers, considering that most of the plastic is not recycled because of purity problems making it unusable for food packaging , but that post polymers have quite a decent weight to tensile strengh ratio, even recycled stuff, and on top of that would be made of garbage (so, the process of harvesting it would have a double use: cleaning environment and scavenging raw material sources ). I m especially thinking about polyethylene and polypropylene , like, imagine using some recycled HDPE and PP pieces in the same say wood was used traditionally,
We could also potebtially find an use for the desert sand that is too smooth for concrete by sintering it into solid glass-like bricks (heat treated glass can have a better impact resistance than unreinforced concrete) or by fully melting and processing it into fiberglass (fiberglass , even in the E form has above 3 gpa of UTS, so, it absolutely beat reinforced concrete s tensile strength in cartoonish proportions )
Especially when we consider glass s very high chemical resilience , abrasion resistance and recyclability (and we can either let it be transparent or make it opaque by adding things inside)
Like, imagine using the desert sand to make fiberglass, and then process recycled plastics into a matrix for such fibers and creating a low cost version of fiberglass composite for buildings (and the for part that need the focus on compressive strengh using heat treated glass bricks ) we could have something much stronger that still allow the same ease of design as concrete (probably more actually ) while having much superior durability
This must be your best video to date! I really like how instead of using the subjective 'traditional looks better' argument, you used facts to prove important points about the effectiveness and sustainability of classic form and materials in architecture. This video also leaves room for more contemporary interpretations of traditional solutions, which i think will be the ultimate solution. We should aim to create new beautiful styles without acopying past styles, like gothic architecture or Amsterdam School accomplished when they were first invented.
I'm a simple man: I see a new video of The Aesthetic City, I like it and then I watch it.
Same!
I wish the did more videos, it's a good influence on the world and needs more views.
Noting that pink rebar (made of fiberglass) is stronger, lighter, cheaper, won’t corrode and it’s a fun color. Sodium bicarbonate can be added to dry mix to reduce the c02 emissions of concrete as it cures, and in the cement manufacturing process, the heat used to make the portlandite can be reclaimed to generate electricity. Same with the emissions. It just requires government legislation to do so.
Hi @The Aesthetic City ,Great video as always..can you please recommend books on how to build with traditional architecture,like hands on how to guide ?i have been reading books on Classical archirecture ,about the 5 orders ,mostly design but i find i lack on civil engineering part of it,like you said building with arches and Domes,any recommendation would be much appreciated..thanks again and keep up the good work, your Channel is worth so much.
A vid where we say "concrete" has this long term problem, then explain the problem is the steel...
While the video did focus on the detrimental effects of rebar corrosion on concrete it also briefly mentioned some of the degradation processes that are inherent to Portland cement's hydration bonds and porous nature. Much of the Portland cement empire/industry exists as desperate(ly profitable) efforts to overcome its fundamental flaws with admixtures (e.g. water reducing plasticizers) and supplemental materials (e.g. alumina-silicates to take transform excess alkali from being detrimental to advantageous). Make no mistake, the problems (and thus short-term profitability and long-term planned obsolescence) of Portland cement result from its calcium based chemistry. It will never be a sustainable building material and every effort should have been made to develop far superior alternatives like alkali-activated alumina-silicates, introduced by the Romans and rediscovered back in the 1950s by the Russians and used for years for things like bomb-resistant bunkers by the US military. Unfortunately, attempting to maximize private profit/power guarantees that solutions to problems which minimize complete life-cycle costs will be systematically and resoundingly opposed, obfuscated and otherwise buried until the real costs of uncontrolled capitalism become catastrophic (e.g. the currently changing climate).
Thank you so much for the great video! It's crazy that modern architecture is so short-sighted, focusing on replacing previous buildings for the sake of shareholder's profit, which will again only last a few decades, while not making more housing that will last hundreds of years, and alleviate the increasingly large housing crisis.
I'm old, and I can remember highway bridges being built years ago, and many of them have had to be rebuilt recently! Some were not well maintained, and road salt speeded up the deterioration, but the cause was the corrosion of the steel reinforcing. Fifty years is far too short a lifespan for something so expensive as a highway bridge. If humans vanished from the earth, in a hundred years or so the evidence of our existence would not be most of our present-day architectural wonders. What would still be here are the stone structures built hundreds of years ago.
I hope there will be a video about those strange alienating glass boxes in every city.
The work of Christopher Alexander is remarkable in this sense. It brings again the human architecture language at hand for anybody. Great videO THANK YOU ❤
Please do a video on shiny glass buildings. I'm convinced Foster & Partners are architectural terrorists.
Glass is definitely a good topic, and the so-called ‘transparency’ of these buildings
They made multiple designs for the WTC and literally every single one looks hideous.
@@the_aesthetic_cityAnd how these buildings get both cold in winter and hot in summer and thus are very energy-intensive. They didn't care about that in the 50s and 60s but somehow architects keep building them to this day.
Glass itself has a very long life, but we install it into metal frames in our buildings, and those frames will corrode.
Great video. The idea of working with nature instead of merely exploiting it, has bearing on all the arts, where modernism in any form has worked against nature: against human nature.
Fantastic video! Besides all the ecological and structural problems of the concrete the buildings are built of today it is indeed a very unappealing looking material. Especially when it comes to brutalist or in some ways also contemporary architecture. Anyway, continue your great work!
Great video as always! I do have a question, does those type of construction can withstand earthquakes?
By way of observation amongst the people in my life, both sides of the spectrum, I find most post-modernist artsy-fartsy types are fairly left-leaning and with this video, you are convincing them their less-than-lovely, preferred styles are actually unsustainable. For some people who love their brutalism or the 'cult of the ego' style buildings, this argument to choose alternatives to concrete may cause cognitive dissonance in many, leading to some who might... just might actually have to accept that their beloved 'beauty is in the eye of beholder' monstrosity is hurting the environment and cheap materials that form our cityscapes lead to eventual 'dis'function.
Me, personally I love this argument and whole heartedly would love to see a renewal in beauty in architecture. A revival of beauty is necessary for the sake of humanity's soul. As such, I am convinced even more and have learned a great deal. Dank u wel. As for the above-mentioned types, the questions remains: will facts win over entrenched feelings? These days, I can hope but I never hold my breath.
Welcome to cognitive bias. It's harder to convince someone they are fooled than to fool them...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 It's good to have a name for this form of bias. I will remember it now. Many thanks!
This is the best channel on You Tube.
Could you make a video about sustainable solutions such as hempcrete or cob? The Nito Project has some great videos.
Very necessary video
They are using Zinc anodes after doing Spalling work to slow the process of rebar degradation, im guessing they could implement a whole system attached to the rebar through out the building process, or as another person mentioned earlier, graphene🤔Btw great video!
Great video as always. The main issue is not concrete by itself, but rather the short-term minds ruling the world.
13:58 Excellent pun.
13:54 The competency crisis is a real problem.
9:40 (Potsdam) It's nice to see that some of the old buildings are being reconstructed. But ther core is still made out of concrete so...
Well, living in reinforced concrete structures is not so common in Germany and probably not so common in much of Europe. Individual houses are built from brick (Poroton thermal clay blocks for example) and much of apartment housing for rent up to 4 floors uses such porous bricks as well or lime-sand-brick (Kalksandstein) for the structure and decorative clay bricks for the facade. Outside of earthquake zones, reinforced concrete is rarely used for low-set residential structures. Only high rise apartments and public/commercial buildings use reinforced concrete a lot. Modern basements and floor slabs are usually made from reinforced concrete though. My grandfather's house, with wooden floors, lasted from the 1930's to the 1980's with minimal renovations. Since then many things have been refreshed and new materials have been introduced, but the structure is basically the same. It will certainly last over a hundred years, but probably needs to be thoroughly rehabilitated every 40 to 50 years.
Whether those highly insulated modern residential structures last more than 50 to 75 years is doubtful as well though, due to the complexity of modern building systems which often include foil layers for air proofing and water proofing and polystyrene on the outside of the facade. The wall structure could possibly last more than 100 years, if the modern thin mortar-glue for the insulating Poroton blocks lasts that long., but heating systems, plumbing, electrical systems, roof and wall insulations all expire much faster than reinforced concrete.
Oh, you germans call those white porous bricks "Whyte porous bricks" too? 😂
So, making concrete is like crushing dry pasta into tiny grains adding egg and water and making "fresh" pasta.? Also the song. everything is awesome from the lego movie popped into my brain when you said buildings last for 50 to 100 years and then they get pulled down and a new build gets done. Could coating a fresh steel rebar in a plastic coating help, because a lot of those bars are already rusty before they go into a build .
So... Exactly what we had always thought.
In this case, I agree with the conclusion, but I would point out that concrete's speed & at least short term cheapness has helped to lift millions upon millions of people out of poverty by providing better & more affordable housing. The challenge now is to transition from focusing on purely economic needs to sustainability & localized beauty
Is modern concrete worse than the ancient-er ones? Or is it the magnitude at which it is used?
Main difference I can think of is the steel used in modern concrete, which definitely will rust over a certain period.
Ancient buildings like the pantheon didn't used it, as far as I know. Well honestly I guessed but I never heard of any giant roof renovation of the pantheon.
Funny to ask before the video is online 🤣
But yeah I am also keen to see more of this beautiful made content
Steel reinforced concrete faces rust issues when the steel becomes exposed. This puts a life expectancy on all reinforced concrete. Unreinforced concrete can, in theory, last forever.
The Roman concrete also used volcanic ash for better composition.
@@bart_u They also had to heat their volcanic ash concrete mix to make it work properly, which would be kind of expensive for us.
@@JohnFromAccounting then why modern builders used the steel at all if its worse ?
What about doing something to improve the steel beams used in reinforced concrete to make them anti-rust or free from rusting? Then there would'nt be expanding rusting steel beams that becomes more prone to breaking that exert forces from within to weaken the reinforced concrete.
The more you know, the sadder you become...
I would love for you to cover new approaches to urbanism like Dror Benshetrit's Bioplanning and other ecological or biomimetic systems
I know this sounds counter intuitive but bamboo after it is treated has a higher strength than steel. With some re-engineering bamboo can be used as reinforcement in concrete. If we really want to see change the consumer is the one who needs educating on practical alternatives. Instead of seeking new petrochemical fibres we should be reviews alternative ways of using natural renewable materials. Hemp fibre we know has a lot of the qualities needed and far stronger with less stretching than nylons and other petrochemical materials.
I mean if Henry Ford could build a near indestructible car from hemp plastic why can't the construction industry use it to produce building materials.
Low-rise sprawl doesn't work either though. Can we realistically build the modern super-talls with traditional methods and materials?
Important video. Thank you. As a side note: After WWII many houses were rebuilt with stone collected from destroyed houses. Recycling at its best. Today, in a war zone like Syria for example, nothing of the damaged modernist concrete buildings can be reused. Its all gravel for roads.
Reusable interlocking concrete bricks with pre-made holes inside where rebar can be threaded through and later replaced without needing to replace the concrete with loud dusty slow jackhammers. For the reusable bricks finer basalt rebar can make them more durable and long lasting. Geopolymer may be an option too perhaps. Also replace mortar with silicone seals.
Yeah and automate the bick-laying with robots beside the brick-casting.
We don't need monolithic 3D printable buildings that are just as much a mess in terdown later as are conventional ones.
Just so you know, for future videos, we pronounce the T in "béton bruT" in French ;)
French is hard 😭😅
@@the_aesthetic_city 😂