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.

@@Metal0sopher Making anything out of reinforced concrete is an "art form" in my opinion. It requires, first up, a lot of consultation with the client about his budget, and a designer, architect/ engineer, and a builder with experience, and knowledge of how much the finished project will cost. then, all can consider the "alternative materials" and alternative shape of the structure. If the client is concerned about whether "Recycled materials" are being used, I tell them that a lot of rebar is made from re cycled rail way materials like axels and trunnions. and also that to my knowledge, all steel is made from about 50% recycled steel. Steel and concrete are good bedfellows, because they have the same coefficient of expansion and contraction.

it's not a planet

I don't like the 'sustainable' movement since at its core, its full of people who want to justify wiping out large segments of the population. Its essentially a bourgeois movement that seeks to destroy anyone who's not part of the middle and upper-middle class bourgeoisie. This kind of ideology got out of hand in the past but, unlike back then, our modern technology would make the oppression far more effective.

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").

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.

USA urban renewal of 69s did a lot of damage to cities especially on East coast many iconic buildings entire neighborhoods were razed. Salem MA downtown was devastated by soulless concrete replacements.

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.

Is this in any way similar to the fiberglass rebar you can buy at a home improvement center?

@buddyrevell511 it is quite similar, yes. But the resin and the winding of the rebar might be a little different. Mostly because every company uses a little bit of a different approach to make their product unique. The company I work for specifically designed the product to the specifications and audits of bridges and other large infrastructure

@@mattesr.8680 I tried googling but couldn't find companies that make it; I only found scientific articles and such. Can you name companies?

Sounds like a very smart product! My bodycorp is managing spalling on a 1971-built poured reinforced with post-stress compression via internal cables. In about 2% by area, some 15cm in from the surface of exposed ledges, our rebar rusted. We are in Wellington NZ - windy and salty. It's usual maintenance around these parts; you'd need to build to ocean-going specs for slower degradation. Better concrete now than 50 yrs ago.

That sounds great, but I question it because of expansion. The reason why concrete and rebar work so well together (other than the flaws clearly laid out in this video) is that they expand and shrink at the exact same rate. How does your company deal with that? I'm genuinely curious

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.

@@the_aesthetic_city You failed to cover the ways that re bar can be protected to give a 200 year lifespan. Epoxy Coated re bar will likely last 100 years. Hot Dipped Galvanized re bar will last 200 years... So if premium concrete is used, with galvanized re bar, a 200 year lifespan is practical. Brick buildings don't last that long, unless they are designed to keep the brick about freezing [no insulation] and the building's mortar is repaired every decade. This is why the smaller buildings in the UK have lasted centuries, because essentially every wall has been rebuilt every century or so...

@@davidhollenshead4892indeed. Galvanized rebar and a good water proof concrete together with a adequate sealing of the building… and it will last 200+ years.

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❤

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.

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?

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.

Please don't cry this could be worst

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.

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.

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.

Lawns leaves in mass are able to produce oxygen which is very important in cities. Help absorb water and reduce erosion and flooding. They also have a cooling effect. The leaves breathe in CO2 and exhale O2. The carbon is in the roots. Mixed with trees plants and shrubs is very effective mitigation for the above reasons. They also help with noise pollution to a degree. Why you would want use plastic lawn is beyond me. Due to the processes and life span of concrete the cost isn’t really sustainable or effective. Resources are finite. While it may cost more for other construction in long run for the life of the building is cheaper and more likely to retain real estate values. These buildings even as shells from lack on maintenance especially on wooden and glass fixtures still go for millions in city areas to be rebuilt and redesigned into more modern architectural designs using different mediums. Personally I find it offensive to disrespect the architecture from the period the building was constructed in. There is a beauty in the old architectural designs that modernism and brutalism totally disregards.

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".

Another building material that is thrown away are tiles! Buy an old apartment and the buyer will surely tear the ‘old tile’ down and install ‘ modern’ design tiles…..however good condition the old tiles maybe…. ,

Right on, rock on LaMach ! 👍👍🎼🎼

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

Earthquakes can happen anywhere. And even low-rise, I wouldn't want to be in an unreinforced masonry building when an earthquake hits!

You can still use steel outside of the concrete or coat it.

@@0MoTheG If the steel isn't embedded in the masonry it's not going to work the same way. I think we need to completely re-engineer how we do concrete. Purely compressive design with no reinforcing isn't the way, and mild steel reinforcing that rusts within a century isn't the way either. People are using basalt fibre with good effect where it's properly engineered, but it you get it wrong you have a concrete structure that fails without warning - one of the advantages of steel reinforcing is that the concrete can fail and you'll see it crack and sag but the steel holds it together long enough to evacuate the building. Getting that feature with non-rustable internal reinforcing is easier said than done, but that's what we need to do.

@@tealkerberus748 Yes it does not, but steel can take both loads. To make a floor you can use steel beams and lay fiber enforced slabs ontop.

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

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?

Here's something that very few folks are talking about,; All plants and trees need Sea oh two to live. And very few folks know about what a miniscule percentage of our atmosphere is c 0 2. Trees and plants absolutely devour untolds of see oh too. And we spend a fortune dissolving it, (under pressure), into our drinks , no one likes flat beer or soft drinks. Would any University educated folks like to help me write and publish a book called "A hundred and one uses for si oh two".

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

@@uisgeuisce Re. the two previous comments; Non tradesmen are welcome to talk all they like about how producing cement produces more sea oh too than aviation. I don't believe THAT for a moment. Repair folks call the problem of rebar rusting "Concrete Cancer". If rebar is covered with enough concrete, our atmosphere cant harm it, also there is just so many way to extend the life of structures made of rc Concrete, i'd take a month to explain it. I thing you two guys sound like you have some "real world experience", in the building and construction industry. Time is valuable, so I'm gunna leave the discussion to the university educated folks to have a text book talkfest.

@@benjigray8690 no idea why you are replying to me and what's your point. I'm an architect and this channel is not sincere in his analysis to the point of making shit up. Don't have time either to lecture people on the internet.

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

I'd be interested in reading it...

Same!

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

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!

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

Oh, you germans call those white porous bricks "Whyte porous bricks" too? 😂

Thank you!

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.

Thank you!! That is great to hear