I'm sorry, is this asphalt over baked paving stones? And if so, why?

Or is this a pothole filled up with stone? And if so, why?

He's being a massive brick about it tho

Ba Dum Tsss

Don't tell him that.

Stone. It's natural, subject only to the slow erosion of time.

Honestly, whatever makes the most sense with the materials in the local area. And then I don't mean what you can get from the local hardware store, but literally, what the earth in the area provides. If you have lots of clay, then brick would be best. If you have lots of big stones, then stone construction it'll be. If you're deep in the woods, then a wooden building would serve you just right. Maybe a combination of materials and techniques if you have options in the area.

Bonus points if you can build in a way that passively optimises for managing things like moisture and temperature.

Cob and rammed earth are hard to beat if you’ve got the right environment for them

Adobe is the best of you live in the right environment for it

Hemp

I understand the distaste for the aesthetics. But it's a pretty inarguably better material from a structural, cost, sound blocking, etc. standpoint.

Don't get me wrong, I love red brick, and personally want a red brick house, but I also recognize the sheer practicality of concrete blocks and would probably pick that with a brick veneer if I actually had to pay for it to be built new.

I hate bricks.

I went to the London suburbs and still think it was the ugliest building style ever. Bricks everywhere, bricks on walls separating houses, brick train stations, brick city buildings, brick houses... Bricks bridge ?

I just can't stand those brick based cities. I think it's just as bad or worse as going full on concrete.

• It is lighter and cheaper, as you can use thinner materials. This is because pointy is a stronger shape than flat.
• It gives more interior space.

If you're using lighter cheaper materials you'll need all the added interior space for roof trusses, none of it will be livable space.

• It allows more sunlight to reach the street.

No, for the same amount of occupiable space the shorter flat roof blocks less light than a standard 10:12 or 12:12 roof

• It has a smaller area-to-volume-ratio through which heat can escape.

The greater surface area of a pitched roof means this is absolutely not true. The hypotenuse is always longer than either leg.

• Solar panels get a higher efficiency.

This one actually depends on latitude, equatorialy it's better flat. And don't forget that the minimum summer angle is limited by the pitched roof.

• If a city has the same height restrictions for flat roofed buildings as for pointy roofed buildings, and the architect is too lazy to go to the city council to explain to them that that doesn't make sense, the architect can design a building with more volume by making the roof flat.

No it makes perfect sense. It goes back to your comment on letting sunlight through to the street. The maximum height is the maximum height so everyone gets the same amount of light.

In other words: the only reason any architect would design a building with a flat roof is because they are either lazy or they have no idea what they are doing. this guy thinks their habitat is the only kind over the whole planet and can't imagine people living in areas where snow load wouldn't need to be considered.

The A-frame is peak house design in cold environments and I refuse to hear otherwise.

Flat roofs are good for putting large unsightly equipment on, particularly AC units

Have you ever tried to explain anything to the city council? They're extra neurotypical popular people and will not be honest with you. You'll say "I want nicer roofs because reasons" and they will completely make up reasons for not liking the better roofs. Maybe they're being bribed by a subset of landlords, or they're just racist, or they're holding out for something unspoken in exchange that you should know about already.

People in political office are not refusing to change because they haven't heard enough good arguments. People who don't get the change they want are not just lazy.

Most modern flat roofs (at least in my neck of the woods) aren't actually flat. They're at an incredibly shallow pitch. In residential applications (after underlayment) we use high density foam slats that get put together in a grid formation, each piece gets slightly narrower on one end until they can properly fit under a piece of bird stop around the fascia. Before the bird stop goes on, the foam is sealed with a waterproof self adhering material that comes in huge rolls. When properly installed, they can last 15-30 years. Just as long, if not longer, than any shingle roof. There's also high density polyurethane foam flat roofs that can be sealed and are able to last up to 50 years. Many commercial operations use these methods as well as hot tar mopping, which can basically last forever. The one drawback to flat roofs is load bearing difficulties in places that snow. I don't know much about that but seeing as flat roofs are everywhere in the north too, it must not be too difficult to work around.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good tile roof too, but there's plenty of beautiful structures with flat roofs out there. And tile has considerable draw backs as well. Tile is incredibly heavy, they're very fragile, they're ludicrously expensive, and they're expensive to maintain.

On the rain, no roofer is working in the rain, and tile roofs are vulnerable to rain during construction too. When it's down to the plywood, you're as likely to have rain troubles as any other roof. You can lay shingles and foam for flat roofs when you're dried in too, but no one will if it's more than a drizzle. Tile becomes an active danger in the rain because most tiles get really slippery in the rain

Replacing broken tiles is a bitch and a half, you have to carefully dance between tile joints and one slip of your foot (which is likely during repairs because tiles are slick and can become moldy/slimy when not maintained properly) you're likely to break another tile, leading to more work and more chances of another broken tile. Even the process of removing a broken tile can break the tiles surrounding it

Tile in general is really finicky, high maintenance, and requires unique tools, methods, and skilled laborers that are capable of doing the work. That is by no means a bad thing but it's really easy to get a flat roof that does the job perfectly fine. Tile, not so much

I like flat roofs because I want to be able to use a roof for a deck. Though, full disclosure, I don't know how bad the leaking is and I don't live in an area with snow.

*Self repairing concrete, agree. Tho the cheap stuff we use today is ass

The irony is brick was thought of as cheap when buildings moved to it, from traditional stone blocks. The term "oh, that's so Redbrick", was a slam against something that had become cheap or slummy

modern concrete fuckin blows massive asses

Some people have some real bad ideas about insulation. No, the air gap in your brick building isn't good. Air gaps are cheap and easy, not good. They do belong in certain strategic locations, but they can't compete with the R-value of filling the space with blown fiberglass. Not even close.

Windows, too. The best, most energy efficient window on the market is at least 3 times worse than a few inches of blown fiberglass. Industry marketing has confused customers on that one.

thought the point is that the kid is right and concrete does suck

You didnt have that one kid in any of your classes? A kid I went to school with had similarly deep feelings about evergreens over deciduous trees, and got in a fight with a Canadian kid after he started talking smack about maple syrup and maples in general. I dont think the Canadian wanted to fight, but he had on a Canadian flag shirt so the maple leaf was front and center, making him a target for the arborist. But it was literally trees all the time. Evergreens can photosynthesize year round so they are always giving us oxygen. Evergreen lumber is better for construction. Evergreen seeds are adapted to sprout after fires when there is more likely to be room for them to grow. Nonstop. Middle school is a weird time for a lot of folks and people on the spectrum are not exceptions.

Feels like the wrong community here for this screenshot

I love brutalist architecture.

Can you share a little about the philosophy behind brutalism?