Dream Homes from the Past Century | Hacker News Reader

Dream Homes from the Past Century

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Recently my idea of a dream house would something in the traditional Japanese style with wood, tatami, shoji, and a beautiful garden. I remember being really blown away by the Nomura house [1] in Kanazawa many years ago.

Of course I would probably want to update it with better insulation, air conditioning, and more glass/screens to let me enjoy the views of the garden while keeping the bugs out.

The best part is you don’t even need to break the bank to get something like that. An old abandoned Japanese folk house can be purchased for next to nothing and completely renovated for less than the cost of a 1 bedroom condo in the Bay Area. [2]

[1] https://www.kanazawastation.com/nomura-samurai-house-garden/

[2] https://www.rakusumu.com/sale/detail/00166-200049

If you're into that, you might dig this guys YouTube channel [0]. He bought an abandoned traditional house in Japan and is documenting the process of fixing it up.

0: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBQ3TEq5SrUuTJuMl1S_4ig

Yup I have seen that. Just seeing how intricate the roof is on his house has really given me a new appreciation for that style of building.

A lot of those homes are difficult to retrofit with decent heating and insulation. I had a friend thattried this with an old Beijing hutong whose bones simply weren’t designed for central heating. You can put in something, but it will be expensive and/or ineffective.

炬燵 are a thing

For those too lazy to copy/paste into an online translator: it's "kotatsu" [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu

True. It's long been my opinion that it's more efficient to heat a person (or a couple of persons) than to heat an entire home, most of which is empty at any given time. A kotatsu fits that bill rather nicely.

Kotatsus are limited: they are ok if you are idle, but they don’t warm your hands if you want to get work done on a laptop. I can never get anything done MIL’s apartment in southern China in the winter (southern China gets no central heating, and it still gets cold).

Put a lump of butter in your tea. Sure it's gross but you'll be warm. ;-)

Doesn’t stop your hands from freezing.

It suspect it would (unless you have circulation issues in your hands or something.) Your body burns the extra fat and whatnot to keep your core temp up. At least that's the theory I was told. I was camping in the mountains and too cold at night when a friend told me about this. We used hot chocolate, a cup after dinner with a tablespoon of butter in it. Sure enough, I was roasty toasty all night.

I'm not sure it would stop your hands from freezing but it might be worth a try.

So, I have been looking at high velocity air conditioning, but also the newer minisplit form factors, where you can have a lower wall mount, but more flat, or a hidden ducted unit, or even a ceiling mount unit.

I was surprised at the number of options.

> thattried this with an old Beijing hutong

And those hutongs are coming at few megabucks apiece now...

For anyone with a serious interest in traditional Japanese houses, the best book in English is by Heinrich (Heino) Engel "The Japanese house: a tradition for contemporary architecture". It goes through everything from climate to philosophy to woodworking.

A few of its chapters were later republished in a smaller version you can borrow free from zlib here: https://b-ok.global/book/2696550/f47105

[edit] Someone else online who has found the same love for this book as I have: https://mypeculiarnature.blogspot.com/2015/08/japanese-woodw...

Which chapters are missing from the downloadable version?

But it's in the middle of bumbfuck-nowhere, population steadily declining for 40 years. Even if you want to work remotely there's no guarantee the infrastructure will keep up with proper electricity, medical facilities, internet, mail and all the 1st world conveniences.

What's in the middle of "bumbfuck-nowhere" as you so eloquently put it? Kanazawa--which was the subject of the comment that you appear to be replying to--has a population of about half a million people. I've never personally been there but that doesn't seem to be a very accurate description.

They were referring to the real estate listing (the second URL I linked), which is located in Itoigawa. Admittedly Itoigawa is very rural (population 40,000 and on the decline) and wouldn't be my first choice of location. But on the other hand, it is a stop on the Hokuriku Shinkansen line which means you are within a couple hours at most of Tokyo, Takasaki, Nagano, Toyama, and Kanazawa. It also has good skiing an hour to the South in Hakuba (where they held the 1998 winter olympics) and hiking in the nearby mountains. For anyone interested in a self-sufficient lifestyle, you could also buy some inexpensive farmland and grow a lot of your own produce. It may not be for everyone, but I can think of worse places in the world to live.

Part of me loves architecture and seeing these amazing homes. Sadly, a bigger part of me cannot afford a 1 bedroom condo.

In my old age, my lower middle class 'lot in life' prevents me from really enjoying luxurious things.

Brits in the Austen period distinguished between attributes, acquisitions, and accomplishments. The first are things one is born with and keep until death, such as eye colour. The second are things one has bought and may sell. The last are things one has done, or has learned how to do. You may not be able to acquire instances of 'architecture porn', but you can enjoy them (and may even be able to rent them), and very little keeps you from accomplishing things.

this is so true

A lot of these are too form over function for my tastes. They are very interesting to look at for the most part, but I'm not sure I'd like to live in a glass cube with everything on show, or in a brutalist mountain of concrete. The one I would pick, however, is the "teletubby house" at the bottom of the article. It looks small, but strikes a good balance between art and practicality, to my mind.

My biggest worry is, when i finaly have the money and the ground to build my dream, that i'm not allowed to due to building restrictions :(...

Germany is densily populated and you can get a house + ground with 2-5 acres for 200-500.000k but they are all in the so called 'outter area' and apparently we don't want that. You have strict building restrictions. you can't just tear it down and rebiuld it (what you often need to to be able to build their at all. Your dream house will not be the original 0815 building)

Anyway, while i have a ton of ideas, my main motivation is to create spaces and design a house around it.

That spot where you gonna watch movies, the wind and rain protected outdoor place to watch the rain, the office which allows me to look out, feel the wind and having enough shade that my screen is usefull, the gaming room, they day bedroom, bright, with a great view and the tea room. Something like when Dr. Strange was finding that teacher there was a very beautiful japanese style empty square room with openings to every side and curtains.

Aaaand a Workshop, hobby room with big window to the north, solar power, additional water reserve and a storehouse for gworing your own food.

All of that should be in a layout with optimizes sun exposure. And it has either stacks of wood outside the window with slits high enough that you can look out but the sun doesn't annoy you or other high quality automatic blindes.

Modern, pratical, sustainable (also cheap to maintain).

Basically to build my dream house, i just need luck, time and money. Luck for the location and building regulations, Time to think that through and money.

I think i watched too much BBCs Grand Designs

google is telling me an acre is a bit more than 4000 square meter...You need 8000-20,000 square meter plot for your house & yard or am I reading something wrongly?

The house my father was born in (& my grandmother still lived in till shortly before she died) was on a ~2500 square meter plot that seemed huge to me, so much that when my father & uncle sold the property 4 more houses were built on the same plot.

From what you wrote above your house would comfortably fit in a 1000 square meter plot with enough room for a yard around it.

Very large yards make for good neighbors.

And lets you do things without bothering them either.

At least in the US, many towns have minimum lot sizes. My (admittedly somewhat rural) town has a minimum of two acres and that's not at all uncommon.

That sounds pretty huge, even to me. The typical American suburban neighborhood is lots of 1/4-1/3 acre or so.

This is an ex-urban town. We have apple orchards and the like. Not typical suburbia but this is about an hour outside of Boston. And I'm sure there are grandfathered plots that are smaller. On the other hand, I lived in a more conventionally suburban town for a number of years and a somewhat tonier adjacent suburban town had similar lot minimums as I recall.

Yeah the house but my park would not fit on 1000 square meter :)

Germany is not densily populated. Neighbor speaking up here.

Depends on how you look at it. According to Wikipedia, Germany ranks 41st in a list countries by population density, with 233/km2. But not many other countries its size (or bigger) have more. Japan, India & Vietnam seem to be the only ones.

The Netherlands is densely rural. Actual high density would easily be 5x as much.

Kevin McCloud completely changed my relationship with architecture, no such thing as too much Grand Designs!

First I was surprised to see how modern were these houses from the ”past century”. Then I realized that the past century is no longer the 19th century, as it was while I was growing up and got used to the term.

Same here. I was actually hoping to see lots of outdated dreams, like "look what they thought would be cool, but turned out to be completely impractical".

Also, all such posts miss location. What good is a cool house, if the next supermarket is 50 miles away?

> What good is a cool house, if the next supermarket is 50 miles away?

For some of us, this is the main feature :) But yeah, it would be more useful to describe the surroundings.

50 miles is not really all that far, especially if there are closer markets that aren't full-blown supermarkets. Under the right circumstances--and assuming Internet etc.--I would certainly consider living 50 miles from a supermarket.

I agree, and I live something like 40 miles from a walmart.

We do have a local grocery closer, it's about a 30 minute drive.

We strive to produce a lot of our own food, and that which we do not produce, we buy in bulk. We make a trip to the grocery every couple of weeks, primarily for things that perish quickly--produce in the winter (when we are not producing it in our garden), milk, etc.

Internet isn't great, but it can stream a few TVs worth of netflix, so it's not terrible either.

With 40 acres, mostly of hardwood forest I can romp around in--I love it there, truly.

Well personally, I don't want to depend on a car. So 50 miles would be very far.

I lived for 10 years in a very transparent house. Loved it for two years. The lack of privacy and the need of shade from sunlight=heat inside made me finall move to a more closed construction.

haha, that transparent bedroom.

I hate to say it, but the Desert House looks like the restroom building at the local park here.

I like the other houses :-)

Beware anytime an architect says "subvert" with a gleam in their eyes...

Is it just me or does anybody else think that the Desert House, United States looks a lot like a rest stop bathroom?

My thoughts exactly.

Definitely an odd exterior aesthetic but it's a lot more rational on the inside: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/jim-jennings-sli...

Interesting interior design too with the open area and the gap window at ceiling level going around the whole home. I guess there’s not much of a view and likely a lot of solar heat, so the configuration makes sense.

I dislike how much glass is used in many of these houses. I imagine they let a LOT of ambient noise and heat inside.

Usually those aren't built next to highways, train tracks, industrial zones, airports etc.

Do you have a problem with wind, water, and birds?

You might be surprised at how capable the right glass can be. I have never felt cosier than when I stayed at a bed and breakfast with what must have been glazed/airgapped floor to ceiling windows for one wall. It overlooked a raging ocean as it was storming, with alpacas on the porch, and you couldn't hear any of it.

I can't speak for radiant heat though, as I was there in winter. You might be right there.

That sounds amazing. Do you have a link, by any chance?

Seafarers Getaway, along the Great Ocean Road, Victoria Australia: https://seafarers.com.au/

I went in winter. It's surrounded by the Otway Rainforest, a very unique ecosystem with some pretty awesome hikes and waterfalls! I live in Aus, so I just drove there, but there is a bus line that takes you from Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road you could use if you're coming from overseas.

Thanks! Australia is far for me, but I’ll file it away. :-)

You can build windows that have sound attenuation greater than common wall construction.

My office at home has a series of 62"x80" windows effectively forming the walls on two sides of four sides, and smaller windows covering on one side. I had the windows built as 3/16"-PVB_laminate-1/4"-1/2"_gap-1/4". The lamination and the different thicknesses detune the panes, and the large mass provides a lot of attenuation.

You can hardly hear someone standing outside yelling. People often comment how quiet it is after they step inside and close the door.

[It also helps that I don't have any computers in the room-- just display/keyboard and long fiber displayport cables to a rack in another room.]

These windows aren't particularly exotic... basically just the minimum you might to do design for a lot of attenuation.

Here is a comparison chart (from a quick google): http://girardglass.com/uploads/stc_rating_chart.pdf

Similarly for thermal insulating properties. Modern coatings can reject an enormous amount of heat-- enough that in some designs its preferable to us less effective coatings because the windows face the morning sun and the heat gain is beneficial.

> You can hardly hear someone standing outside yelling.

I’ve got to ask - was this a test or are people regularly yelling outside your office?

home office, kids. I'm guessing.

It was an unexpected complication after replacing the windows: I didn't realize my partner was summoning me by yelling from outside until it stopped working. :)

Can you explain what "3/16"-PVB_laminate-1/4"-1/2"_gap-1/4" means? Is that four layers of glass?

Not the go but will try.

IIReadC this is a window made up of two 3/16" PVB laminate coatings over 1/4" glass, with a 1/2" gap between them.

Not confident over there coatings part frankly but it's the best I got.

3/16" glass then a layer of PVB laminate then a layer of 1/4" class then a 1/2" sealed space of air then 1/4" glass.

So two glass panes, which are different thicknesses, one which is comprised of a laminate sandwich.

I've lived in houses that had too little glass, and one with too much. The one with too much glass rendered half the house uninhabitable certain times of the day in the summer. If you're going to have glass like that, you'll need some sort of external shutter for it.

Ample eves and solar coatings can make a phenomenal difference.

It's easy to fix that by triple+ glazing windows and adding filters to the windows.

Source: work in a glass skyscraper

I've spent time in houses on the Maine coast that have a lot of glass on the side of the house facing the ocean. Even without any AC, they were perfectly comfortable for the vast majority of the year. And the only real noise you hear is lobster boats.

If you have a view, it really makes sense to design a house in a way that maximizes the view. I'm not sure I'd go as far as some of these designs but the glass ones look pretty nice to me. (Some of the others not so much.)

I'd love a service that surfaced "architecturally desirable" homes for sale in your area, at various price points.

This is a hard criteria to define. But I know it when I see it. Some combination of materials, craftsmanship, age, and design. Not necessarily location or price.

It's very hard to filter for using Redfin or Zillow. I wish there was an MLS site that showed you 50+ listing thumbnails on a single page and allowed you to click through on any that caught your eye.

100% agree. I usually search Zillow with “modern” or “contemporary” or “architect”, which usually means 5-10% will actually be interesting houses. It seems the vast majority of even extremely expensive homes are completely devoid of any sense of design beyond “however the other McMansions look”.

Perhaps this has something to do with location, as well.

The town my business is located in (American South) has a great, long history. Many, many homes are now over 100 years old. A lot of them are very large, and have exquisite crafstmanship oozing everywhere--for me, that's primarily woodwork. Exposed beams, winding staircases, etc.

Anyway there's a couple hundred of those here, I think.

There are also a ton of more modern (1970s-era) homes that were definitely swanky at the time, but now are really lackluster. They just look dated, while the 100-year-old homes look magnificent.

Are these dream homes or architecturally interesting homes? I would certainly not want to live in one of those homes.

Definitely “dream” in the not-your-home-in-reality sense. My assumption is that the people who can afford to build houses like this do so as second (or third, etc) homes, and live in something much more practical as their “daily driver”.

I am looking at building a cabin up north like this, but it will just be a summer retreat, not somewhere to live year round.

If I am on a small budget, would build something like this:

https://www.calearth.org/tour

https://www.calearth.org/alumni-projects2

If the budget is unlimited, would probably buy a castle in south of France or something...

Reminds me of this good blog post on how social behaviors drive architecture of our homes: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2019/04/archite...

Also check out https://www.dwell.com/ – sort of like a Dribbble for homes

There's something really inspiring about nice architecture and interior designs

A few of the homes have many glass walls where do you plug in things? Seems very impractical.

Power outlets built into the floor, most likely.

Chilean house is literally just some glass and wood. Scary to think how people sleep in that.

I imagine being on a lot large enough or remote enough that you have no visible neighbors probably helps.

Yeah, as long as you have isolation there's no reason to keep people from being able to see in the house.

That said, that design doesn't seem super practical and the photographs probably wouldn't look nearly as nice once all the electrical cords and general clutter is out. And I imagine it doesn't offer a lot of separation for visiting family, etc.

The Graham House looks like it has lots of glass while still having some separation between parts of the house.

It's 2020, and most Chinese still don't believe that most of Americans are living in wooden houses.

Really nice to know that I'd have to work till I'm 60 to afford a house like that without taking on serious debt. What a time to be alive. I'm so grateful.

The horror of having to settle for having all your needs met and living without insane luxury. Poor you.

These houses would have been unaffordable to almost everyone at any time I'm history and two hundred years ago no amount of wealth could have bought you them at all. So what again is special about being alive now?

What is special about now is that you can have a simple house now, and have it be the envy of a kings’ from 200 years ago.

The sheer comfort of living in a modern house is insane, regardless of the size.

Add a decent modern mattress and a 60" TV connected to Netflix and bring the billionaire envy 150 years forward?

Not the mattress. High quality handmade horsehair mattresses are what the absolute richest of the rich have slept on for hundreds of years and continue to do today in 2020. There's a reason they go for $100k, I've tried them.

This "argument" of "things were worse then, now things are better" keeps coming back as if we're already living in a utopia. It's like saying "back then there was shit sandwich, but without bread and now we at least have bread". Wow, what an improvement. I'm too lazy to look up the name of the fallacy.

But to answer your question about what's special about living now? In absolute terms: Nothing.

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