![DarkRange55](/data/avatars/l/80/80064.jpg?1706489912)
DarkRange55
Enlightened
- Oct 15, 2023
- 1,699
I've posted some threads on this type of stuff and some people seemed genuinely interested. I have a history in civil construction in Asia and China. I've been a commercial building engineer in the US. And I worked on a problem for the train system in Japan. I have a lot of friends in real estate development.
These are just some ideas about the future
I like the idea of 3D printing houses – it gives the best of both customization and mass production. Materials like concrete and plaster are fairly easy to 3D print with, but it will require some pretty fancy robotics to be able to do something similar with wood (although something like hardwood floors is quite automatable). Wood will be continued to be used because it is carbon storage, concrete will continue to be used (although it may be a low CO2 concrete) because it is cheap and strong and can be poured into molds, and glass will continue to be used because it works so well. There will be some trend to replacing steel with concrete and with wood. However, I expect bigger changes in heating systems – heat pumps will compete into the ground and to cool the house in the summer and then re-extract the same heat in the winter for very efficient heating and cooling. But the biggest changes will come in our gadgets – the race is between virtual-reality glasses and larger "wallpaper."
For mechanical becoming digital - analog (a lot of commercial kitchen equipment for example) and some mechanical systems have largely become digital now as everything is now controlled by microprocessors (computer chips). But pumps, valves and fans? The remote networking is all digital but its still mechanically opening and closing physical valves. Mechanically moving air. Some fans don't have belts and are direct drive VFD's (variable frequency drives). Maybe in the future they will get better control over magnetism and move air or whatever that way.
(BAS) Building Automated Systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated. You don't need fiber going to every room in a building. It's more about having enough circuits and ports and up to date hardware rather than stuff buried in the walls. Things are all going wireless. One building I was at, they had put fiber in the building in 1992 and when I got there, it was already outdated.
For those interested, you should have seen the ancient elevator at one project
oh, my god…
These are just some ideas about the future
![Woman shrugging :woman_shrugging: 🤷♀️](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f937-2640.png)
I like the idea of 3D printing houses – it gives the best of both customization and mass production. Materials like concrete and plaster are fairly easy to 3D print with, but it will require some pretty fancy robotics to be able to do something similar with wood (although something like hardwood floors is quite automatable). Wood will be continued to be used because it is carbon storage, concrete will continue to be used (although it may be a low CO2 concrete) because it is cheap and strong and can be poured into molds, and glass will continue to be used because it works so well. There will be some trend to replacing steel with concrete and with wood. However, I expect bigger changes in heating systems – heat pumps will compete into the ground and to cool the house in the summer and then re-extract the same heat in the winter for very efficient heating and cooling. But the biggest changes will come in our gadgets – the race is between virtual-reality glasses and larger "wallpaper."
For mechanical becoming digital - analog (a lot of commercial kitchen equipment for example) and some mechanical systems have largely become digital now as everything is now controlled by microprocessors (computer chips). But pumps, valves and fans? The remote networking is all digital but its still mechanically opening and closing physical valves. Mechanically moving air. Some fans don't have belts and are direct drive VFD's (variable frequency drives). Maybe in the future they will get better control over magnetism and move air or whatever that way.
(BAS) Building Automated Systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated. You don't need fiber going to every room in a building. It's more about having enough circuits and ports and up to date hardware rather than stuff buried in the walls. Things are all going wireless. One building I was at, they had put fiber in the building in 1992 and when I got there, it was already outdated.
For those interested, you should have seen the ancient elevator at one project
![Woman facepalming :woman_facepalming: 🤦♀️](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f926-2640.png)