3 D Housing? Anyone seen these?

[GeorgeParker]

I think this is a handsome modern house, the exterior I mean. I’m talking about the one in the video. I’m not sure what I think about cement interior walls but I sorta like that texture.

Cement walls have a high thermal mass. IOW they store a lot of heat. So a cement house would maintain a much steadier temperature inside during hot days and cold nights. That's good. In fact I've very much noticed this effect when living in old houses with plaster-and-lath walls vs drywall.

But it would be better if outside walls of these cement houses had a layer of insulation on the outside or in the middle. I am also very concerned about there not being any metal or nylon reinforcement in these walls, especially if they build them in earthquake country. And now almost everywhere is subject to occasional small earthquakes.

[razz]

I toured a house made of concrete. The owner had to struggle to find a builder which eventually meant an institution contractor, had to work with the local planning who wanted only stick houses but the house got built. The owner was involved as a professor of some discipline who could demonstrate and had the $$$ to pay that it could be done. While he had done extensive research and calculation, he freely admitted he failed with one important feature. There was no sound absorption in concrete as there is in a stick house. Every sound echoed so when he invited the group who had created the house for a celebration, they could not hear one another due to the noise. He then added room dividers to absorb sound.
So my question would be - will the rooms echo loudly?

[GeorgeParker]

So my question would be - will the rooms echo loudly?

Probably.

Putting the walls at a very slight angle to each other would reduce that and so would having a rough surface on the walls. And covering most of the surfaces with tapestries, carpets, or any sound-absorbing material would help a lot. But if you've ever been inside an empty concrete block garage or a concrete-walled tunnel, knowing a concrete house will echo like crazy ought to be a no-brainer.

[ToomuchStuff]

Depends on the design. Look at how open so many concrete structures are. One could frame out, the outside of the house, using metal trusses (effectively no termite issues), then come back in with metal studs and put the walls where they want, after the outside is up.