Concrete: A Ticking Time Bomb. Can We Fix It? 

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.

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.

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").

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❤

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.

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.

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.

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.

Please don't cry this could be worst

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?

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".

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.

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?

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.

Thank you! Will double down on our unique look :)

I agree so much business interests lobby for policies to make cement and steel bars to be a standard

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thank you!

Same!

I wish the did more videos, it's a good influence on the world and needs more views.

This channel just shits on everything that is not "classical"... Of course they have no idea what they are talking about.

I'd be interested in reading it...

Thank you!! That is great to hear

Please search Red Fort of New Delhi and Agra Fort in India. They are standing for 400 years or so.

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.

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!

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).

We will need to if we want to keep growing as a society

So we have devolved? Because for many centuries we absolutely built in such a manner.

Thanks to Marxist proponents

French is hard 😭😅

@@the_aesthetic_city 😂