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Living spaces in Honorverse

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Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by George J. Smith   » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:02 am

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Is this the start of the big towers that seem to be all over the Honorverse?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-3cca82 ... fda5015115

There are a lot of things in this guys way of thinking that coincide with the rational behind the towers in the Honorverse.
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Re: Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by JeffEngel   » Thu Jun 11, 2015 5:04 pm

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George J. Smith wrote:Is this the start of the big towers that seem to be all over the Honorverse?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt ... fda5015115

There are a lot of things in this guys way of thinking that coincide with the rational behind the towers in the Honorverse.

I think it's emphasizing a different sort of construction virtue. Honorverse towers are notable for being huge, wide, tall, permanent, and self-contained for the needs of ordinary life. The skyscrapers touted here emphasize speed of construction. I don't get the impression they're exceptional along one of the other dimensions where Honorverse towers really shine.
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Re: Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by Carl   » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:37 pm

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He's allready talking about building the worlds largest skyscraper with the technology. That is more in line with honorverse. That said i don't think the point was to make a comparison with any aspect of the two concepts so much as the rationale behind the two concepts.
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Re: Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by George J. Smith   » Fri Jun 12, 2015 4:40 am

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I was thinking more in terms of the people living and working in the same building, which is one of the ideas put forward. The up-sizing of buildings will come as/if the concept is proven, plus as buildings get bigger there will need to be some thought given to local generation of power, a building with enough of a footprint is going to have a lot of PV cells to generate power, if enough thought is given to using low power systems, (i.e. low voltage and low wattage), then the building could be almost self sustaining.
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A man should live forever, or die in the attempt
Spider Robinson Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977) A voice is heard in Ramah
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Re: Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by Annachie   » Fri Jun 12, 2015 6:24 am

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An Arcology?

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Re: Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by Michael Riddell   » Wed Jun 17, 2015 8:56 am

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Several of us had a (brief) discussion about architecture last year:

http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5575&p=139074#p139074

The "Bruce Plan" proposal to gut and rebuild the centre of Glasgow in the late 1940's has always been what I envisioned a Sci-Fi city to look like, albeit heavily scaled up; huge arcologies with wide avenues between them.

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Re: Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by BobfromSydney   » Sat Jun 20, 2015 1:27 am

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It makes a lot of sense "Transport is a symptom of being in the wrong place" seems to be the idea here.

Why should a family's home, workplace, school and places of recreation be miles apart requiring 2-3 hours in traffic each day?

If you think about cities, towns and villages just one or two hundred years ago almost everything would have been within walking distance.

The concept of suburbia is an invention of the 20th century.

I suppose some discussion is going to revolve around the idea of 'standard of living'. But I think there is a degree of subjectivity there. Why is living in a house in the suburbs with a garden and significant maintenance requirements 'superior' than living in a comfortable apartment close to the city centre? So long as people do have access to open green spaces nearby and can enjoy reasonable privacy in their homes I don't see anything wrong with high rise living. How much of the 'dream' of owning a suburban home is just a product of a combination of advertising and underdevelopment of some urban centres?
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Re: Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by Relax   » Sat Jun 20, 2015 2:15 am

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Carl wrote:He's allready talking about building the worlds largest skyscraper with the technology. That is more in line with honorverse. That said i don't think the point was to make a comparison with any aspect of the two concepts so much as the rationale behind the two concepts.


They are able to do so, due to advances in bulk steel production quality. Their quick skyscrapper build times require much larger amounts of steel using far larger more rigid steel channels etc. This then allows them to build much larger buildings as well as the strength required for modular construction and ability to support cranes is also needed for a much taller structure. The real question is: If building the modules on the ground using more expensive building materials is cheaper than moving less expensive building materials but using more manhours.

Personally, I believe that using the more expensive materials is cheaper. Also creates less construction traffic mess for the surrounding city. Gets the mess over and done with over a short period of time instead of a MUCH longer protracted period of time. It streamlines the inspection process. Creates BETTER, more THOROUGH inspection as well. Construction is standardized, creating very large economics of scale production under heated optimum environment instead of high up having to tie everything in/down. I have wondered for a VERY long time why sky scrappers have not been standardized. A LONG time ago even ship builders understood this.
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Re: Living spaces in Honorverse
Post by JeffEngel   » Sat Jun 20, 2015 7:59 am

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BobfromSydney wrote:It makes a lot of sense "Transport is a symptom of being in the wrong place" seems to be the idea here.

Why should a family's home, workplace, school and places of recreation be miles apart requiring 2-3 hours in traffic each day?

If you think about cities, towns and villages just one or two hundred years ago almost everything would have been within walking distance.

The concept of suburbia is an invention of the 20th century.

I suppose some discussion is going to revolve around the idea of 'standard of living'. But I think there is a degree of subjectivity there. Why is living in a house in the suburbs with a garden and significant maintenance requirements 'superior' than living in a comfortable apartment close to the city centre? So long as people do have access to open green spaces nearby and can enjoy reasonable privacy in their homes I don't see anything wrong with high rise living. How much of the 'dream' of owning a suburban home is just a product of a combination of advertising and underdevelopment of some urban centres?

There are social, economic, political and identity elements to it too. The suburban commuter has a sense of independence - his home, his yard, his car - and gets to act as though the road and city infrastructure just appear as manna from heaven. Meanwhile, that development of the city center calls for public, community investment - or at least, investment by a group of apartment renters or condominium owners, and there's not the sense of ownership to a rented apartment or even an owned condo that resembles one.

So the Dream gets packaged as ownership as opposed to being a part of a community, everything for ownership gets privileged and everything for membership downplayed - the communal stuff gets neglected and more easily devalued, and the Dream becomes about flight from that, in a feedback loop.

Interestingly, you get the same dynamic, or something like it at least - including the two models of good living - recreated in the Honorverse. Progress in Haven is measured in the revival, maintenance, and improvement of residential towers, where people have a sense of community and their needs are satisfied together, while on Manticore or Sphinx, living well is typified by the single family, remote White Haven estate or ancestral Harrington home - either made practical by high speed air commuting, or sometimes by virtual or at-home workplaces. Only in the Honorverse, it's plausible that the technological and economic development makes either model a humane and practical possibility. Moving forward, I can easily see, in the Talbott Cluster, Montana moving along into a "Manticoran", suburban/dispersed utopian direction, and Kornati taking to Nouveau Parisian urban spaces.
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Honorverse Easy Personnal Transport ...
Post by HB of CJ   » Wed Jun 24, 2015 2:19 am

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I can imagine mass public transit in the Honorverse in the huge mega cites and even inside the mega buildings is very fast and efficient. It might also be cheap and safe. Close to work would be good.

On the outer planets with little population and lots and lots of space like Montana, the ownership and use of a very fast air car or aircraft would be necessary. Maybe even sub orbital.

I wonder if in about 2200 years or so private ownership of what today could be described as a very fast aircraft or low orbiiting spacecraft will be realistic? How expensive would it be?

"Jennifer ... I have to mossie over to the capital for a bit. Political business. How soon can you be ready for a high speed sub orbital run to the big city?" Jennifer answers to her boss ...

"I am 100 percent ready and thank you for the upgrade package. Very nice. We can leave anytime you want to boss. Transit time about 40 minutes." Jennifer is the privately owned star ship.

HB of CJ (old coot)
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