I've long pondered the notion of making tiny homes out of cardboard -- it seems to be an abundant raw resource. The thought gets more fanciful with the notion of doing this for the homeless population (but among other issues requires appropriate locations to put them).
Moisture control is a huge part of any housing envelope's job. Vapor barriers and thermal breaks (because any temperature change is also a relative humidity change) can make or break a home design, and plenty of attractive concepts fall flat when the seasons change and suddenly there's a thermal gradient leading to condensation in the wall that provides an ideal growth medium for microbes. Moist paper = food.
Fire resistance is another biggie, and cardboard isn't good at that either. By the time you've treated it with fire-retardants, you've drenched the whole area in PFAs and could've just used sheetrock or something that's inherently inert.
This experiment has been done in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in the 90s. It gained a tonne of publicity but it did not end up getting widely adopted. Most homeless people (understandably) feared getting stigmatized if they were spotted sleeping in one. https://museumrotterdam.nl/collectie/item/71471-1-3
The early days of Big Cardboard, when it was new and patented and being churned out of factories in downtown Brooklyn, saw a lot of early success in trains, where sturdy cardboard interior panels could replace wood, for a fraction of the weight. I’m not sure permanent home installs are better off using it instead of, say, plywood, unless you’re planning to move this home around.
Moisture and insulation are key issues when building any shelter meant to last. Keep that in mind when you're inspired by projects like Cardborigami[^1] or The Hexayurt[^2]. If you're looking to build your own, check out the Miura-ori-inspired zippered tubes[^3].
The houses in USA are already made almost from the cardboard. You can not call a bunch of "two by four" wooden planks nailed together a modern home.
If we do really care about people not being homeless as we claim we do, I suggest as a first step we cancel all the construction regulations. Temporarily. For the next 20 years. Then, extend the cancellation indefinitely.
2x6 framing is much more common, to allow for thicker (and thus more effective) insulation.
TBH, it is incredibly amusing that you diss the (well regulated) wood framing and then propose eliminating all construction regulation.
The cost of building homes and other buildings isn't significantly impacted by regulation at this point; most structural elements are standardized such that it would cost more to use non-conventional materials.
Some significant costs are simply fixed. Grading land, digging basements, foundation, well and septic in rural areas- these things could only be done cheaper in the short term. Taking shortcuts in almost all cases would wind up with a building needing significantly costly repairs much earlier and represent a terrible ROI.
I was trying to argue that building from wood framing is a terrible idea to start with. Wood easily degenerates with time, and without proper maintenance, won't survive even 200 years. Besides, even a car can get through the wall if it runs into the building.
The city I grew up in (Kiev) builds only from reinforced concrete, bricks and stone. Somehow, the 2-bedroom apartment can cost 50-100K and such building can still be profitable.
Another data point: the commercial building are build with the concrete.
Therefore, I think that the materials price is not a significant cost in the house; neither is the labor. Current average US home price is $400K; or 5-10 average yearly salary in the area. Other countries build houses as cheap as 30-40K from high-quality materials. This brings me to the conclusion, that the difference must be the regulations, either zoning or construction.
BTW, in many countries, if a person can't afford to buy a house, they buy a land and build themselves. My current understanding that in US you need licenses to perform almost any construction work.
I went through the process of planning building a home. The total cost would have been in the 250k range.
The only time that a decision in the planning was made due to regulation was to defer putting living space above the garage. The division between garage and living space has higher requirements for flame retardants in the event that a car were to catch fire, so we put it off to keep costs down.
Because we were building in a rural area, we had the option to stick with a gravel driveway, which I suppose zoning in most cities would prohibit.
Otherwise, costs were entirely dominated by materials, labor, and the general contractor getting his cut. There is only so much you can do to eliminate costs of, say, a roof when you still have to have one.
> BTW, in many countries, if a person can't afford to buy a house, they buy a land and build themselves. My current understanding that in US you need licenses to perform almost any construction work.
This is only true for plumbing and electrical work, and even that varies by state. Typically, the only real requirement is that the work can pass an inspection.
I have done a lot of work on the house I currently live in, up to and including building a masonry heater.
This is very encouraging to hear, thank you for sharing this!
I am considering building my house (being my own general contractor and doing as much work myself as possible), but I was discouraged by the extreme number of regulations that seem to forbid anything, with just obtaining permits taking years and costing ~25K. Perhaps I was looking at the wrong state.
The 250K range that you cite is about 5 years of my current income. I honestly think I can build the house myself faster than saving those money and paying a professional.
Mind you, that number predates the crazy surge in lumber prices the past few years. From what I hear, lumber started coming back down, but I don't know how much.
State construction code is generally pretty easy to meet- it is a dense, but not unintelligible read.
Where you will likely have issues will be zoning restrictions in the US, especially in larger cities and suburbs- as you mentioned, getting permits can be spendy.
On the other hand, there are added costs to living in the country as well. Septic systems can end up being expensive if the topography and soil conditions aren't favorable. Likewise, drilling a well for water can also run $10-20k, depending on how far you are above the water table.
You might not have access to natural gas, which means longer term spending more money on propane for heat and cooking (unless you live in the south).
Internet and cell options will be one, maybe two choices, and woe be to you of your only option is satellite internet (except maybe starlink I suppose).
The last thing you want to do is rush into it. Research, research, research. Ask questions, and consider paying a local contractor for consultation before you start.
A properly built wood framed house can last 500 years. The key is moisture control.
US home prices are high due to the property value, not the value of the structure. Wood framing only contributes to 10-15% of the cost of a home.
You don't necessarily need a license to build, you just need a permit. If you're going to live in the house you're building, you can do the electrical and plumbing yourself (which typically needs a licensed worker).
This is only partly true. Home values have skyrocketed due to near zero interest rates- people can buy more home when paying less in interest, so more people can buy.
Where I live, this has resulted in long wait times for contractors, shortages in materials (lumber more so than most) to become significantly more expensive, and- as you mentioned- land priced jumping up quite a bit.
Also, even if you intend on living in the house, states vary. Between MN and WI, one allows plumbing, the other allows electrical, but neither allows you to do both (I forget which is which).
The notion that markets price accurately seems poorly supported on evidence.
In the case of housing:
- A chief cost of labour is itself housing, largely in the form of rents (in the economic sense), most especially of land and fiancing (interest), though also through the burdon of zoning and construction codes which further limit supply and flexibility. I'm not a fan of eliminating all regulation by any means, but there's a distinct difference between effective and ineffective or burdensome regulation. Note that the usual deregulation argument of "just let the market sort it out" is what I'm attacking principally in this comment.
- Natural resource pricing in particular is exceptionally inaccurate. The entire concept of "nonrenewable resources" is equivalent to "the market price supports use at rates greater than those of formation". This applies across numerous raw resources, from timber to topsoil, but most especially to fossil fuels which are consumed at a rate 5 million times that of their formation. That's equivalent to saying that the incorporated time cost is too low by a factor of millions.
- Negative externalities such as pollution, and climate change is a form of pollution, are also under-priced. This is usually seen in terms of direct energy use of housing and commercial space, but it's also present in indirect energy usage, most especially transportation. Denser and more energy-efficient designs would greatly reduce total energy use without reducing quality of life (a/k/a "economic utility").
Traditionally, construction relied heavily on locally-sourced materials. The catacombs of Paris and Rome (amongst other cities) were created in the process of quarrying stone for use in construction of the buildings above. Stone, adobe, half-timbered construction, and similar designs all incorporate locally-accessible and abundant materials, or where nonabundant materials (especially timber) are used, rely on cheaper infill materials outside structural members.
Yes, modern construction affords greater hazard protections (major cities don't regularly burn down or collapse entirely in earthquakes or hurricanes), but often through methods that while economically feasible given the market distortions I'm describing here, are not especially ecologically viable.
Another element of traditional construction that's somewhat poorly appreciated is that buildings were often little more than structural shells. Beginning around 1875, structures themselves began to be networked, not only with streets as they'd long been, but with utilities: water, gas, sewerage, electricity, telephone, cable, and more recently Internet service. Of these, water is probably one of the most destructive long-term, as introducing indoor plumbing creates humidity and moisture issues which can degrade the most robust of structures rapidly if poorly controlled. Fire is more immediately destructive, yes, but water acts over time.
The question is one of balancing one-time construction with ongoing maintenance and repair costs. Modern housing can last a century or more, which is a pretty good return. There are cultures which practice more frequent rebuilding (notably Japan). What happens long term, and whether or not humanity proceeds on a high-tech or lower-technology path isn't clear. Whichever course lies ahead, structure and landscape are likely to see major changes.
Despite I am extremely fiscally conservative, I don't think that "all" the regulations are bad. Neither I think that the market left to itself is always efficient.
The point I am trying to make through the thread, is there is a homeless catastrophy. When I am showing my family or friends in Ukraine some photos taken in Seattle, LA or san francisco, they don't believe me this is US.
In a time of an acute crisis, as now with housing, the radical measures must be taken. The problem must be attached from as many directions as possible. The simplest step is to eliminate the regulations. Sure some of the regulations are useful, sure some housing may end up of low quality, use too much resources, and even harm environment. However, in the situation when 100K people or more have no housing, the priority must be to supply enough houses over everything else.
I would agree that many regulations should be liberalised. Taking and relaxing those, especially those that directly affect density, should be a top priority. (California is trying, with ... limited success.)
I think what you'll find though is that even that step is ferociously resisted. A key reason for this is actually market-based, though it's not the transactional market but the asset market: scarcity increases value.
And this works for numerous established players within the system: individual homeowners, yes, but far more so, institutional property-holders and the financial institutions with asset portfolios based on real estate holdings.
Land-value tax advocates will argue that you can solve this problem by taxing land. The obvious problem is obvious: the same interests violently resist any asset tax increases as well. In some jurisdictions, most famously California, property taxes are constitutionally limited (by 1977's Proposition 13).
I've been thinking of possible end-runs around this, and have been thinking of the possibilities of related taxes or regulations which might have similar effects.
Vacant-property / second-property taxes (or fees, to get around the tax limitation) are one possibility. Direct taxation, or changes in asset valuation toward reserve holdings for banks and financial institutions, might be another. Requiring mortgages to be held over time, or limiting resale/bundling could have a strong impact, perhaps. All of this would reduce returns or increase holding costs of real-estate-based assets, should act as a land tax, and would tend to increase the pressures to make more intensive utilisation of land for housing, which is of course what will solve the problem.
I strongly recommend reading Shane Phillips, The Affordable City. He's been thinking about this for a while and studying the problem far more closely than I. The book is a set of suggestions / actions for improving the housing situation.
I fully agree, the housing is scarce seemingly because many want it to be scarce.
I do think it is a political issue. Thus my support for full regulation removal: if ones press for it, the actual consensus may be closer to liberalization.
Thanks also for sending the links. I have not read those, and so I don't feel I can keep a productive discussion before I read the books.
It's absolutely a political issue, and a long standing one.
If it makes you feel better, I've skimmed Phillips's book briefly but not read it in depth. It's an instruction manual.
What's required here really is some sort of political engineering.
Another insightful source, and one I've read (and re-typed), is Bernhard J. Stern's "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations". It's from 1937, but neatly captures numerous instances of, and the dynamics driving, such resistance.
I can send a PDF or ePub if you'd prefer, username <at> Protonmail. Content is not copyrighted to the best of my knowledge (US government publication, no copyright notice).
I think the core physical concerns could be addressed (in a different dialog).
Disclaimer: I've been homeless (never on the streets) and my mother died on the streets of SF.
The bigger concern is where do you park these people? The first qualifier that comes into play is: is the homeless person temporarily distressed or are they "broken" for life. In the disclaimer I gave I was of the former category and my mother was among the latter.
So this solution is meant for the latter group -- the ones who are never going to "contribute to society" again. This qualifier isn't meant to punish or demean, but to recognize that it's not necessarily cruel to move these people to remote locations (where land is cheap). But to do so humanely requires that the housing be better than tarp on a cyclone fence and affordable.
I still think cardboard could be repurposed in a safe and economical manner to aid in providing this shelter. Just like nobody would build a house how of wood without providing environmental protection this would do so as well.
Creating such homesteads would be far more cost efficient than the current efforts to sweep homelessness under the carpet.
The more intriguing question is: if one could create "free" communities such as these how would abuse of same be minimized? That is, ensuring that only the truly needy be admitted. And more interestingly, how could one establish communities like this that "bad people" don't "take over" the complex.
I'm stupidly hopeful enough to believe that these are problems that have satisfactory answers but I don't have them at the moment.
Current regulations effectively forbid to build horrible ugly high-rises that can house 50,000 people in each. Currently, it is only profitable to build luxury houses that nobody can afford.
However, the horrible ugly high-rise has the only one advantage: it is cheap, and everyone can afford it. Even a homeless guy that manage to found a crappy -paying job through his heroic effort.
I only see one way to end homelessness: make housing 20x cheaper than it is now. And that would not be possible without cancelling all housing regulations.
> As we all know, N_homeless = N_people - N_homes.
This is not even close to true. It’s regularly recognized that for many people, homelessness is rooted in disabilities, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, or other problems that hurt their ability to keep and maintain a home even if they had one.
It’s not at all a pure supply issue, although supply plays a big role in certain geographic areas. It’s a complex problem.
Keep in mind that even if you own a home, maintenance, utilities, and taxes are expensive.
I have to insist the formula is still correct in principle. Yes, there are many causes for homelessness. However, shall you magically fix all the problems you named, some people will have to remain on the streets if N_people > N_homes.
Once N_people < N_homes, only then it is possible to fix the rest of the problems efficiently.
Regarding substance abuse for example: Shall I happen to lose my home, I would have to use the named substances to soothe a terrible shame and misery associated with my new status. I could only think of fighting my harmful addictions if I can see the way out. Currently though, with number of houses almost constant, if you manage to pull a homeless person out of the streets, there will be another person priced out of their home.
