zlacker

>>hrl+(OP)
I'm not sure this article does a good job of highlighting "the problem with reinforced concrete" than it does "the better attributes of material x with y over concrete". Reinforced concrete seems to do exactly what it's intended to do for the designed life of that intent, with some very well known trade-offs coupled with some brilliant strengths.

Sure, compared to other materials it might not be as: long-lasting, cheap, sustainable, but as in all things it seems one can only pick two.

>>ajcp+kb
> Reinforced concrete seems to do exactly what it's intended to do for the designed life of that intent

Until there's apparently "no money" to replace the structure after its design life time. Thinking in decades of life span for many of these structures is very short sighted. I think the article mostly gets that across i.e. re-enforced concrete is hard to recycle and their life span is often within that of a human life. We should be able to do better and create large scale structures that can not only serve a purpose over several life times, but can be added to or enhanced rather than demolished.

The only reason we keep building these time limited structures is because building codes still allow this, which leads to easy short term profits, and it's "someone else's problem in 50-60 years time". There's no incentives.

>>teh_kl+cg
I think many commentators, including yourself, have an erroneous assumption about structural design which is roughly summarized as: the inputs are known with certainty. This is really not the case especially when considering natural hazards like wind and earthquake. What happens to your 500 year lifespan design when we discover new information about earthquakes at the site. This is happening regularly with every building code update. Our design loads change To reflect the latest research on things like seismicity. When you factor in this consideration, it may actually make a lot of sense to only design for shorter lifespans.