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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
These two books are the perfect starting place to help you get to grips with one of the most vitally important aspects of our society - our homes and living environment.

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      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJul 24th 2016 edited
     
    http://openbuildinginstitute.org

    Is this what people here have been saying should be, off and on?
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJul 24th 2016
     
    My very first post on here was about open source building.
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeJul 27th 2016
     
    Don't want to be down on this but I think this is open-source-wash.

    For starters, you can't make something that is inherently, physically closed, "open source". I know they are talking about design more than end product, but this is a misunderstanding of what open source is.

    Building designs are not analogous to code. Building designs are just that: designs - what might be. More analogous to a requirements specification in 1980s style software development.

    Open source accepts the premise that code *becomes* the specification once written, because it is known that maintaining specs, design and documentation as well as code is asking for trouble.

    What this looks like at the moment is a set of re-usable templates. This isn't the same thing.

    What open source building means to me:

    - Every building detail *as it is now* to be available - windows, walls, floors, whatever
    - An ability to comment and contribute back on an existing house
    - "Hackable" houses - houses made with acceptance that we want to change them, and allowing maximum transparency of what we have and how to do it
    - And no doubt other stuff

    And if you think all of that is unachievable, it probably is.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJul 27th 2016
     
    I also have reservations about this particular offering - it's a closed system - but is it really not hackable? And does it not aim to fulfil your other 2 criteria? Isn't a building detail a 'design'? Isn't a computer program a 'design' - someone's sure designed it. Like this building design, an open-source programme is visible and permitted to then be modified by anyone, hence 'open' - isn't that part of what 'open source' means? Maybe the meaning of 'open source' is evolving, as is 'hacking'.
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeJul 27th 2016
     
    Sure, you have many designs, but the point is that there's a close, theoretically equals, relationship between the final design and what you experience.

    That isn't the case for building design. Physical elements degrade in a different way to software.

    I want buildings to be open - not building design.

    I'm being overly curmudgeonly - I'd love to see more sharing and publication of building details (as an example).
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJul 27th 2016
     
    I'm confused - can you start from scratch and describe what 'open-source' means to you (accepting it doesn't just apply to code/programs), and what 'open-source' building might mean? I'm using 'open-source' and 'hack' a lot these days, so checking I'm not mis-using.
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeJul 27th 2016
     
    I am probably guilty of thinking about it in a programming sense.

    My view of open source is total transparency and editability at all levels, with resulting shared ownership of and contribution to said items.

    This appears to be mainly an open and shared set of common elements that can be used in building design, but that's a very very small part of what open source means.

    I didn't see any way I could fork what they've done, improve it and submit it back. The library is very thin right now. The current contribution process is... complicated http://openbuildinginstitute.org/contribute/

    It's a bit like saying you have a sustainable house because you've installed a water butt. I'm being unfair and I hope this develops.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJul 27th 2016
     
    If I designed a house, specified all the materials, had all the structural calculations done, complied with all the 'Parts' and it was legal, then I published that design and all the relevant paperwork, that one design could be open source.
    If then someone came along and modified a bit of it, had all the relevant legal stuff done, then that could be published as an open design.
    And so forth and so forth.

    I find it a shame that this does not happen with housing, not as if we only build one house every now and again, we build millions of them globally.
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeJul 28th 2016
     
    Interesting ramifications around security...
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJul 28th 2016
     
    Posted By: fostertomMaybe the meaning of 'open source' is evolving, as is 'hacking'.
    As is design and engineered.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJul 28th 2016
     
    Posted By: SteamyTeaAs is design and engineered.
    In what way? I'da thought those words were quite stable.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJul 28th 2016 edited
     
    If I cut up a bit of slate into a shape, stick it in a picture frame, sell it, have I designed some art? And is that the same as designing a safety critical component for a vehicles that is manufactured to exacting standards. Badly copy one and it may be a personal financial loss to one person, badly copy the other and the consequences may be a lot greater.

    Now for engineered. Similar to above, but is an engineered bit of oak flooring really engineered? Can it be likened to bit of plastic flooring. One grows on a tree, gets sawn up, left to dry and then planed flat with basic machinery and basic labour. The other has the force of the petro-chemical industry (geologists, engineers, chemists, technologists, qualified and tested delivery drivers) behind it to make the raw material, that then goes into a sophisticated extrusion machine, designed by an engineer and set up by a skilled operator.

    Is the software I wrote, using a template from someone else, to monitor my have energy usage, designed or copied, or is it just cobbled together to do a job? Could I call myself a 'software designer', or a hardware designer as I wired in the components myself?

    I think the issue is about intellectual property and if that can/should be shared, rather than design/engineered.
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeJul 28th 2016 edited
     
    "hacking" always meant what it has returned to mean now: opening a system up to understand its workings, and to make changes: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html

    It was the press that changed the meaning to something relating to [conceptual] unauthorised access to systems.

    See also: trolling.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJul 28th 2016 edited
     
    Posted By: gravelldIt was the press that changed the meaning to something relating to [conceptual] unauthorised access to systems.
    Oh yes, the press, the politicians, 'the system' is greatly threatened by the decentralising anarchistic spirit and effect of hacking, so has done its best to demonise the word and the practice, painting hacking as senselessly vandalistic at best, criminal or traitorious at worst.

    I see hacking as use of intelligence and new (e.g. new-generation) vision to elegantly create what's wanted or needed from what exists - rather than wasting energy on getting angry, demanding that 'the system' provide what's wanted or needed etc. Typically 'the system' doesn't understand, or even notice, what's just happened, and eventually resorts to hiring the very same hackers to plug the leak.
    http://www.fastcompany.com/3062210/the-future-of-work/the-most-critical-skills-gap-cybersecurity
    The worst thing that can happen to 'the system' is to find itself bypassed and regarded as boring, old fashioned, irrelevant.

    I'm glad to hear that
    Posted By: gravelld"hacking" always meant what it has returned to mean now
    May be right - despite the bad press, initiatives like http://aechackathon.com/london-2 thrive.
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeJul 28th 2016 edited
     
    I see it as more laziness and the chase for a "narrative" [groan] to sell advertising space around their "content" [double groan] than a conspiracy.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJul 28th 2016 edited
     
    Not a conspiracy - more a collective trance extending all the way from the alleged top 'puppet-masters', through their prime minister
    /president 'pawns', the intelligensia and Economists, to the masses.

    We are all playing out a universally-agreed story, which is fast running out of steam and could evaporate overnight, under numerous decentralising, distributive influences including Hacking, particularly strong in the 2 coming generations.
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