If We Built It Today (2019–…): Season 2, Episode 8 - Engineering the Home - full transcript
NARRATOR: From rock and cave dwellings,
to 1-story structures
made of stone and wood,
to sprawling modern estates,
humans have been building
houses for thousands of years.
Humans need shelter.
It's the place we feel most secure in.
NARRATOR: Today, home is more than a place.
It's a cultural concept, an ideal.
Yet, the meaning of the
home and how we experience it
has evolved.
The biggest resource that
most people have is their house,
and it becomes their equity.
NARRATOR: We tend to
believe our homes will last forever.
But how long can these structures
stand before their
foundations start to crack?
The day you finish a wooden building
is the day it starts to rot.
If you build it badly, eventually,
you're gonna be overtaken
by the maintenance costs.
We need to build a house
more like we build a car.
NARRATOR: What have we
learned since our earliest ancestors
started constructing houses?
We're going to see if we
can build a home that will last
for over 1,000 years
using the latest materials,
state-of-the-art technology, cutting-edge
construction techniques,
and an unlimited budget.
We need to think today about how we will be
using this building tomorrow.
NARRATOR: Imagine the world's
greatest wonders reimagined.
We're wondering, how long would it take?
How much would it cost?
How many workers would we need?
Could we even do it "If We Built It Today?"
[music playing]
From the earliest construction, humans
have come a long way when
it comes to designing homes.
Take a look at these
adobe homes in New Mexico.
Made out of mud, straw, and wood,
adobe is one of the earliest building
materials known to mankind.
Now, take a look at these modern homes.
These huge, sprawling, tech-savvy mansions
look a lot different than the ones
our ancestors built millions of years ago.
So how did we get here?
In the prehistoric era,
the why was pretty simple.
Our earliest ancestors didn't have
the luxury of an
electronic security system.
We don't have exoskeletons.
We don't have very sharp teeth or...
Or great claws.
We needed to have
ways to protect ourselves.
NARRATOR: For protection,
people made their homes
in trees away from predators.
Soon, our ancestors left the
treetops and moved indoors.
Caves offered protection from the elements,
but with no method for
controlling the temperature,
dwellers were forced to
go through periods of time
with extreme heat and cold.
By the time people began
farming over 30,000 years ago,
they stopped living in caves and started
living in one-room huts made
of logs held together with mud.
By the Middle Ages, domestic architecture
was evolving rapidly.
Families began living
together in a communal living
space known as the hall.
The medieval hall basically was
used for all functions of daily
life, for cooking, for washing,
for sleeping.
And in the middle was
simply an open pit fire.
NARRATOR: Because the
hall was a very public place,
it could get noisy and crowded.
For most of history, human
beings have had very little
privacy, even in their homes.
NARRATOR: And soon, a second,
smaller room, called the solar,
was added.
The solar was what... What we would think
of today as the master bedroom.
NARRATOR: By the Middle
Ages, building techniques
were progressing yet again.
By the late 17th century, chimney's became
common in every household.
Early chimneys were built with
load-bearing exposed timbers,
and the space between was
filled with plaster, brick, or stone.
Later, chimneys were constructed by placing
the bricks around tile liners.
To control downdrafts, venting
caps with a variety of designs
were placed on top of the chimney.
With the accessibility to
heat, the days of living in a one
or two-room home were over.
KEVIN BAKER: So you had the living room.
You had the parlor.
You had dining rooms.
You had the morning room,
maybe because the light
was best there in the morning.
NARRATOR: As the
architecture of the home changed,
heating technologies shifted too.
Soon, coal became
mainstream, heating everything
from individual rooms to water.
Once lumber mills started manufacturing
dimensional lumber, the days
of post and beam construction
went out the window.
Between 1870 and 1920,
11 million people moved
from rural to urban areas.
And no city drew in more
people than New York.
By the turn of the 20th century,
New York City's population
exploded, and soon, the city's architecture
took a dramatic turn.
You have the safety elevator.
You have steel frame construction.
And you have electricity.
Put it all together, and you
can build high into the sky.
And you could just stack apartments
one on top of the other.
NARRATOR: While a handful of millionaires
were building palatial
mansions along 5th Avenue,
a staggering 2/3 of the population
were crowded into narrow,
low-rise apartment buildings
on the Lower East Side.
Tenement building is
technically any apartment
building, but they became synonymous
with sort of urban squalor.
These tenement apartments
here in this building
were about 300, 350 square feet.
What's more, these apartments
were jammed with families.
You were crowded in with many people
who were strangers to you.
You had borders.
You were living cheek
by jowl with other families
in these tenements.
Disease was rampant.
NARRATOR: Cramped, poorly
lit, and under ventilated tenements
were a hotbed of disease.
They also lacked a vital
system that we couldn't live
without today, indoor plumbing.
So here, you have your basic bathroom
for much of the 19th century
for millions of New Yorkers.
It's an outhouse, just the same as you
would see in any country village,
only used by many more people.
NARRATOR: Even outside of
the city, over a third of houses
didn't have flush toilets.
By the 1950s, nearly every home was
built with complete plumbing facilities.
Today, the home looks a lot different.
KEVIN BAKER: The average
bathroom in the Western world
where you could have heat
and hot water is something
beyond the greatest luxury.
NARRATOR: And they've
taken on a whole new meaning.
It's our literal pride of place.
It's our status symbol.
It's the place we feel most secure in.
NARRATOR: It's also the single
biggest investment most of us
will ever make.
But the truth is, some homes just
aren't built to last forever.
Part of the problem
with home construction is
that we we build so many inexpensive
and poorly-built buildings.
We design them in such
a way that they get torn
down because they're obsolete.
NARRATOR: So now, we're curious.
With current technology,
could we build a house
that could last 500 years?
500 years?
This house will be here for 2,000 years,
and there's nothing to stop it.
NARRATOR: Dave Sellers
is an architect working
on an experimental design that would allow
a home to last for centuries with little
to no exterior maintenance.
DAVE SELLERS: I think there's obligation
on the part of the people
making these things
they're going to last that long, make
sure that they're affordable.
NARRATOR: Dave's got the know-how
we need to bring our future
proof dream home to life.
The biggest resource that
most people have is their house.
It becomes their equity.
And over time, they
improve it, they ad stuff,
they make it beautiful.
NARRATOR: Home, as
they say, is where the heart is,
so it only makes sense to
build one that'll actually last.
So we need to think
today about how we will be
using this building tomorrow.
NARRATOR: But trying to
solve tomorrow's problems
isn't as easy as you think.
LARRY PACE: I'm not sure
that a building that's built today
is something that's necessarily going
to meet the needs of the
public 150 years from now.
NARRATOR: Well, maybe we can help.
Our goal is to build a home
that'll last for 1,000 years.
Our futuristic home will fuse
smart design and new technology
at every step of the process.
But first things first, we gotta figure
out where we're gonna build it.
What kind of home are we building?
What materials are we building it out of?
How long is it gonna take?
How many people?
And how much will this whole thing
cost if we build it today?
[music playing]
We're imagining a way to
build a future-proof house, one
that will stand for the next 1,000 years.
But before we get started
on this master plan, first,
we need to figure out exactly
what we're building and why.
Today, homes have taken
on a completely new meaning,
transforming from a basic necessity
into a physical
representation of who we are.
GRANT WANZEL: There's
a philosophical answer
about belonging somewhere
and being attached to something
and identifying with it,
and by identifying with it,
learning something about your own identity.
That's a kind of engagement with...
With a dwelling place.
That's a remarkable thing.
MERRITT IERLEY: So all
these things wrapped up into one
place that we call home.
NARRATOR: There's nothing more important
than a good, safe, secure home.
Not to mention, the longer any home stands,
the better it'll be for the planet.
So for every 100 years
or 500 years that we keep
that building, that's 100
years or 500 years of buildings
that we don't have to
construct, and that, perhaps,
is one of the most sustainable ways
to think about the carbon footprint
of 1,000 year old house.
NARRATOR: On top of all that, the world
just needs more homes.
The population's growing
too fast for the building industry
to keep up.
California is a worrisome wake-up call.
RICK HOLLIDAY: The governor,
in a recent State of the State
message said that we need to build
three million housing units
in the next five years to...
To just catch up.
NARRATOR: For California
to meet that demand,
they'll need to start churning
out six times as many homes
per year as they do today.
Clearly, a single
1,000-year home won't make
a dent in those numbers.
We're gonna need to build a lot of them.
But first, we need to
figure out how we're gonna
pay for this new investment.
Mortgage was an invention in France
about 400 to 500 years ago.
The word "mortgage" actually
derives from a French word
meaning debt pledge.
NARRATOR: The mortgage
was a major financial innovation
of its day.
It allowed the average home
buyer to borrow money and pay
it back slowly over time.
But even into the early
1900s, homeownership
was still somewhat rare.
The typical American,
when they got a mortgage,
before the Great Depression would
have to find a 50% down payment
in order to get that mortgage.
NARRATOR: 50% down payments
kept most people out of the game,
so eventually, the government stepped in.
Subsidy programs
substantially lowered the amount
of cash needed up front.
They also offered much longer
mortgages, which gave buyers
more time to pay them back.
Suddenly, the home construction
industry across the country
exploded.
It allowed developers to
build lots of houses knowing
with certainty that there
would be money there
for people to buy them.
And so these programs were
critical to the development
of suburban America.
NARRATOR: Suburbs
completely changed the way we live.
Between 1950 and 1970,
the suburban population
doubled and accounted for over
80% of the country's new homes.
But for Dave Sellers, the American dream
looks more like a nightmare.
When you fly over the various cities,
you see a big field full of exactly
the same cookie cutter
house, these cheap, fast, quick
buildings.
NARRATOR: There's no
question that when people began
moving to the suburbs,
their quality of life
dramatically improved.
But, like Dave said, quality lasts
a lot longer than quantity.
So here's our plan.
We're out to build the ultimate
in ultra durable homes, one
that will last for 1,000 years or more.
It'll need to be strong, it
needs to be affordable,
and it needs to be mass produced.
That mission will guide every big decision
we make along the way.
Like where are we gonna build it?
After all, no one knows
what their neighborhood
will look like in 1,000 years.
There's a variety of different
things you need to consider.
Are there risks of flooding?
Are there risks of landslide?
NARRATOR: Then, what
material will we build with?
Not all materials are created equal.
The day you finish a wooden building
is the day it starts to rot.
NARRATOR: And for a home
to be high quality and low price,
efficiency will need
to be through the roof.
So current construction
techniques simply won't do.
RICK HOLLIDAY: All the cost
and ways to bring in the material
to the single site, and if there's
any break in that chain,
everything slowed down.
It's a very, very antiquated process.
NARRATOR: Not to mention
building for the future means
building for change.
So we need to think
today about how we will be
using this building tomorrow.
How the building may be modified,
readjusted, expanded, and contracted.
NARRATOR: Then comes the questions.
How many workers will we need?
How long will construction take?
And how much is our 1,000
year old home going to cost?
It has to be available for everybody.
NARRATOR: No doubt,
we've got a ton of work ahead.
But before we can break
ground, we need to figure
out where we're going to build.
Location is critically important
because it connects us
with where we go to work,
where we go to school.
It connects us with
resources, where we shop.
So location, location, location.
NARRATOR: Jessie Keenan is
an expert in a new phenomenon
known as climate migration.
And if we want our house to
be around thousands of years,
Jesse says an ocean view is definitely out.
JESSE KEENAN: So for places
like Miami and South Florida
there's already people on the move,
but some people are
leaving the region altogether.
It's the increased costs,
increased insurance costs.
But overall, what we see is actually
that housing is declining
in value in high-risk areas
and it's driving a broader
phenomenon that's
actually pushing people out.
NARRATOR: From rising seas
to wildfires, floods, and drought,
changing weather
patterns affect where people
can live all over the planet.
But according to Jesse,
the perfect escape is
a little place called Duluth.
No city is immune, but Duluth,
Minnesota is one of those.
NARRATOR: Duluth is over
620 miles from the nearest ocean.
There are no fault lines for
earthquakes and volcanoes,
and it's about as far north as you
can get in the continental US.
JESSE KEENAN: One of
the advantages they have is
they're going to have a more moderate
temperature in the future.
Yes, it's cold there now,
but as the planet heats,
it's going to look more like a temperature
that you might have in a
place like Ohio or Indiana,
and that may impact jobs,
it may impact agriculture.
And it has, most importantly, access
to one of the largest bodies
of fresh water on the planet.
NARRATOR: Another
plus, Duluth is a planned city.
It was designed for a
population much larger
than the one that lives there today.
JESSE KEENAN: There's
interesting urban design,
there's parks, there's landscape,
and there's unbelievable
historic architecture.
Places in Duluth that I've
seen, brownstone town homes
will cost 6 to 7 to 10 times the
price in a place like Brooklyn,
New York as they would in
Duluth for the exact same type
of building.
There's high-quality education.
There's a local University,
even a medical school.
And all of these things
add up to really add
a lot of value to living
in a place like Duluth.
NARRATOR: OK, Jesse,
we are definitely sold.
Duluth, Minnesota sounds
like the perfect location
for our new home that'll
stand for the next 1,000 years.
But to rival the durability
of these ancient dwellings,
we need a material that can
stand up to whatever punishment
the next millennium has to
offer "If We Built It Today."
[music playing]
We're on a mission to rebuild
the most ancient structure
on Earth, the home.
But the only similarity between
these and our brand-new model
will be how long it can last.
Our goal, the next 1,000 years or more.
But we'll never reach that if we don't pick
the right building material.
MERRITT IERLEY: The early settler
didn't have much choice.
He had to take whatever was available,
and wood was the most commonly available.
NARRATOR: Today, wood
is still the building material
of choice, but to weather the
storms of the next 1,000 years,
is there a more robust alternative?
In 1957, the Monsanto House of the Future
was specifically designed to showcase
the wonders of modern
plastics as a building material.
It's waterproof and pliant,
but it lacks the strength of wood
and it deforms under
stress, so plastic is a pass.
And according to our
experts, conventional materials
are making a comeback.
Our views of what a house should
have remained surprisingly consistent
over the last few hundred years.
The house is the most conservative
elements of society.
You can look at the real estate pages
and you'll see house after house that
looks very, very traditional,
and very few that look modern.
NARRATOR: So if plastic
is out, then how about stone?
It's definitely classic and durable.
But according to Dave Sellers, there's
a manmade alternative that
checks both of those boxes.
That material is concrete.
DAVE SELLERS: Anybody can get a phone
and call the Ready-Mix guys,
I want concrete tomorrow.
You can get it.
You could dump it anywhere you want to.
You control it by these
forms, and in a matter of hours,
it sets up.
There's a chemical reaction
that changes into a rock.
The housing world really
does concrete foundations.
That's your basement, and
they build a wooden building
on top of that.
The day you finish a wooden building
is the day it starts to rot.
NARRATOR: Concrete can easily outlast wood,
but what is concrete itself made of?
The basic ingredients are sand and gravel,
water, air, and a fine lime
powder called Portland cement.
It's an enormously strong material.
We rate what we've been using
4,000 pounds per square inch.
It can hold up a freight train.
And so why not take it out of the basement
and do your whole house with it?
NARRATOR: That is exactly what Dave did.
Located in Vermont, this is
Dave's all concrete 1,000 year
prototype home.
We made the whole outside inert.
Nothing is gonna rot.
NARRATOR: And concrete
is super versatile too.
You can shape it pretty
much any way you want.
You can see on the side of the building,
we recessed the windows
way back in the concrete,
and then, we have these,
what are called swoopies.
Really simple to make concrete
elements that could provide
a shade over the windows.
Then we wanted to warp
the surface for a little balcony.
NARRATOR: As for inside the house,
more sweet concrete in the
heavy duty posts and beams,
and even the sleek bathroom fixtures.
The countertop is 2 inches thick.
It has a hole in it for the sink.
This whole thing is so smooth, it's
like velvet, which you can finish off
with a little bit of a grinder.
This only is probably
$200 worth of concrete,
and, you know, half a day to make it.
NARRATOR: In the
high-pressure construction world,
concrete can handle the stress.
And Dave's got another prototype
concrete home that proves
concrete is fireproof too.
I rented the house one... Two winters ago.
So they lit a fire in the fireplace.
Sparks and so on caught the rug on fire,
caught the bookcase on fire,
caught the furniture on fire,
and then consumed the entire flammable part
of the inside of the house.
The next day, the fire's out.
So I called my structural engineer.
Said, you know what?
This is 99.9% perfect.
NARRATOR: Concrete
is universally available,
cheap, versatile, and tough.
And soon, it could be ecofriendly too.
Some people might criticize the concrete
because it takes a lot of energy
to make the Portland cement.
We're evolving a way to make
the energy-intensive part of making
the cement down to zero.
NARRATOR: The results are pretty concrete.
This is the material of choice
for our 1,000 year home.
But if our concrete home
paves the way for the future,
we need to find a way to make lots of them.
So we need an even faster
and cheaper way "If We
Built It Today."
We're designing a brand-new house that will
stand for the next 1,000 years.
We'll break ground in Duluth, Minnesota,
and it'll be made with super
durable concrete, our expert's
material of choice.
DAVE SELLERS: The future
of affordable housing, to me,
is concrete.
It's easy.
It's fast.
And you get tremendous flexibility.
NARRATOR: But our goal isn't to create
just one showstopping house.
My opinion, we've gone backwards,
because we've tried to give...
Make... make homes bigger.
KEVIN BAKER: McMansion is
sort of a classic example of a space
for the sake of space.
NARRATOR: If we're gonna
make a dent in the housing shortage,
we gotta raise the bar high
and flip the industry on its head.
Worldwide, as the
population continues to grow,
the demand for more homes is growing too.
So we'll need to build
them faster, cheaper,
and better than ever before.
Luckily, we've got a lead on
a technology that will give us
an edge, 3D concrete printing.
This specially formulated
concrete holds its shape
without any need of a form.
Once complete, this
will be the largest printed
apartment building in Europe.
This concrete house printer leaves space
for plumbing, electrical,
windows, and doors as it goes,
and it only takes two people to run.
That's efficiency.
5,000 miles away,
another firm is taking home
building to the next level.
Rick Holliday and Larry
Pace are seasoned vets
in the construction game, and they came up
with a groundbreaking idea that has
revolutionized the industry.
It's called off-site construction.
We need to build a house
more like we build a car.
It gives you greater quality,
it gives you greater quantity,
it gives you a higher
predictability for production.
RICK HOLLIDAY: The more that we can
do in a factory in a coordinated
and climate-controlled setting,
the more you can save in time and money.
NARRATOR: In San
Francisco, the hard construction
cost for a single housing
unit is a whopping $1 million.
But factory OS can build
the same for a third of that,
under $300,000, in part, by cutting
the construction time in half.
We have 1,000 units done and we're
on track now to probably
double our productivity
in the next year.
NARRATOR: And the
benefits of off-site construction
go beyond price and speed.
Just think about you being a
construction worker and working
on a 10-story building with the
wind and the different elements
and everything else going on.
We give greater comfort for our workers.
That makes it more conducive
to higher quality control.
We're able to have more eyes on the work
to guarantee that we actually
create a superior product.
NARRATOR: That sounds
like a blueprint for success to us.
Not to mention, there's
way less wasted material.
We believe, at this point, we're
70% less than site building.
NARRATOR: Concrete is the
concrete winner in our choice
of materials, and off-site building
is the way to crank out thousands
of 1,000 year old homes.
But there may be a small
crack in our perfect plan.
LARRY PACE: Concrete's
a very strong material,
but concrete doesn't necessarily give.
Usually, you'll find that
it would frame structure,
or even a steel structure
will have greater movement
and greater ability to survive
in a earthquake situation
than a concrete structure will.
NARRATOR: So concrete's not perfect.
Luckily, we decided to
build in a low-risk area
where earthquakes are rare.
Our choice of Duluth,
Minnesota is still looking solid.
But before we cement our plan,
we need to peer into the future
and imagine a home that still makes
sense for the next generation.
If our home is going to last 1,000 years,
it'll need to adapt to survive.
What was once a kitchen
may now be a living room.
What was once a living room may
now be a bedroom or a bathroom.
NARRATOR: And the key to adapting
is, as the old saying goes, keep it simple.
If you look at a typical ranch
house or wooden structure,
it's not adaptable.
Once you start to tear down
the whole wall to change it,
you've lost the structure in the place.
You can't do that.
Otherwise, it'll collapse.
JESSE KEENAN: Another thing
to think about is having room.
And sometimes, that's room
for new wiring, new piping.
LARRY PACE: You know,
plumbing used to be lead pipes,
then it became copper pipes.
Now, it's plastic pipes.
The technology is gonna change.
NARRATOR: Dave thought about adaptation
long before he poured the concrete
for his blast-proof home.
DAVE SELLERS: We have walls in this house,
you can take that wall
out with about 20 bolts.
Unbolt that and change
it to another location.
NARRATOR: As for the wiring, Dave
kept that accessible by
running it through the floor
and hiding it beneath
thin strips of aluminum.
LARRY PACE: I think
there's an obligation on the part
of the people making these things
that they're gonna last that long, make
sure that they're flexible.
NARRATOR: But there are still a few things
we've gotta figure out.
Duluth sits on the edge of
the largest body of fresh water
in the world, so flooding could present
a major design challenge.
How do we ensure our future-proof home
isn't a complete washout
"If We Built It Today?"
[music playing]
We're imagining a modern
home designed to last
for the next 1,000 years.
We'll build it in Duluth, Minnesota.
It'll be made of 3D printed concrete,
and factory built for
top-tier quality control.
But it takes more than durability
to withstand the tests of time.
And for ideas on adapting,
we're consulting with
our flood-proofing experts.
Ed Suttie is the director of a company
that has developed a
few flood-proofing ideas
we're gonna borrow.
The door here is a passive flood door,
so the seal around it is always
working when that door is shut.
In this building, within the walls,
that are cavity drains that
are replicated in cavity drains
under the floor.
Electric sockets are high.
All electric wiring is coming
down from the ceilings.
We've got ceramic floor tile,
obviously, the ceramic enables
very rapid removal of water.
And finally, if we walk
through into the kitchen, so first,
fundamental is have all the appliances
above our flood risk level, so
refrigerators, cookers, and so
on.
And then the units themselves, they're
not made out of chipboard.
They can be made out of
solid wood or aluminum or steel.
So, again, a resilient material that
can be recovered once the floodwater
has been removed from the property.
NARRATOR: Now, even with
floods of biblical proportions,
we're good to go.
But how does the whole factory
build plan fit in with the idea
of adaptable design?
ED SUTTIE: So off-site construction really
lends itself well to
this adaptability agenda
because you can design
lead before production
in the factory for how
your components are gonna
fit together, how they
might, therefore, be designed
for this assembly to come apart
again, whether you were going
to extend that building or completely
dismantle it and reuse
those components elsewhere.
NARRATOR: The plan for our 1,000 year home
has finally come together.
3D printed concrete,
factory prefabrication,
future-proof, and flood-proof.
But there's one final challenge.
Time.
And as every homeowner
knows, time is money.
So how many workers will we need to hire
and how long is this build gonna to take?
The average new home today
is about 2,400 square feet.
For traditional, on-site construction,
that takes 30 workers a
jaw-dropping four months
to build.
It's a process that is very inefficient.
NARRATOR: The off-site factory folks
say they could build it
with half the workforce
and in half the time.
But how much is our 1,000
year home going to cost?
And more importantly, will the average home
buyer be able to afford
it "If We Built It Today?"
So you wanna build a home that'll
stand for the next 1,000 years?
What would it take?
We're breaking new ground in Duluth,
Minnesota, one of the
most climate adaptable
cities in the country.
And our home's all
concrete, 3D-printed walls
will be solid as a rock.
It'll be built off-site in a
state-of-the-art facility,
which will maximize
turnaround time, affordability,
and quality control, and it'll have
an adaptable design that's easy to modify
for centuries to come.
So let's do it.
First, we'll need to get our
offsite factory up and running.
Shipping construction materials all
the way from San Francisco to
Duluth just doesn't make sense.
RICK HOLLIDAY: There's people that
are looking to take our approach
to factory building in Chicago,
in New York, in Boston, and
I believe in the next five or 10
years, there'll probably be a factory
very near Duluth, Minnesota.
NARRATOR: At our factory,
we'll replace wood framing with 3D
concrete-printed floors,
ceilings, and walls,
and for convenience, our
homes will be fully finished,
so all you'll have to do is move in.
And at the end, you're putting
in the toilet paper holders,
and the appliances are in the unit
and strapped before
they're put on the truck
to be taken to the site.
NARRATOR: Our goal is to house more people
cheaper and for generations.
So for our base model,
we'll need to go small.
DAVE SELLERS: Let's
take what we learned here
and make it affordable.
So we have a 600 square foot house.
We're pioneering this thing
such that a person earning
$25 or $30 an hour can buy it.
It's not a rental.
You can own it, which means it's going
to have to cost between $125
and $175 a square foot to make it.
And that's possible.
NARRATOR: That's just $100,000.
Even if we add in the price
of land, which we figure
would cost around $25,000 in Duluth,
we're still more than $200,000 cheaper
than the average new home build in the US.
We can build it today, a home
that lasts 1,000 years, that
adapts for the future, that
withstands the forces of mother
nature, and, most importantly, a
house that everyone can afford.
With the idea of a highly durable home that
has a useful life of hundreds of years,
you could make the argument
that lenders are willing to make
mortgages 100 years, 200
years, or even 1,000 years,
because those homes
will be secure investments.
NARRATOR: It's already
possible to get a 100-year mortgage
in Japan, and a 1,000-year
mortgage for our new home
at current interest rates would only set
you back about $215 a month.
But the ultimate test for
a home, or any building,
to stand for 1,000 years
isn't financing, mother nature,
or even a blazing inferno.
It's whether or not it can become something
that people truly love.
And according to Dave Sellers, we can
actually design for that too.
DAVE SELLERS: People really wanna
live in something beautiful.
And if we bring craftsmanship
back and someone goes to work
and they're really proud
of what they've done,
and you can see it in the result,
that's, to me, where a civil society
should be going in the future.
So it all is linked together.
Not only are you
eliminating the throw away,
but you're creating a
benefit for the artistic act
of making it, and then the joy of living
in it for hundreds of years.
That is an amazing concept.
When that is employed in a
building, people care about it.
They'll... they'll lie down
in front of the bulldozers.
Don't tear that down.
It's too beautiful.
That's the best guarantee
to make it long-lasting.
NARRATOR: The people
living in our 1,000 year homes
will have one foot in
the present and one foot
in the past, just like
residents of the pueblos.
These mud straw houses
are now among the most
precious buildings on
the planet, and to this day,
ordinary folks live in them 1,000
years since they were first built, strong,
adaptable, and beautiful.
There's nothing stopping
us "If We Built It Today."
to 1-story structures
made of stone and wood,
to sprawling modern estates,
humans have been building
houses for thousands of years.
Humans need shelter.
It's the place we feel most secure in.
NARRATOR: Today, home is more than a place.
It's a cultural concept, an ideal.
Yet, the meaning of the
home and how we experience it
has evolved.
The biggest resource that
most people have is their house,
and it becomes their equity.
NARRATOR: We tend to
believe our homes will last forever.
But how long can these structures
stand before their
foundations start to crack?
The day you finish a wooden building
is the day it starts to rot.
If you build it badly, eventually,
you're gonna be overtaken
by the maintenance costs.
We need to build a house
more like we build a car.
NARRATOR: What have we
learned since our earliest ancestors
started constructing houses?
We're going to see if we
can build a home that will last
for over 1,000 years
using the latest materials,
state-of-the-art technology, cutting-edge
construction techniques,
and an unlimited budget.
We need to think today about how we will be
using this building tomorrow.
NARRATOR: Imagine the world's
greatest wonders reimagined.
We're wondering, how long would it take?
How much would it cost?
How many workers would we need?
Could we even do it "If We Built It Today?"
[music playing]
From the earliest construction, humans
have come a long way when
it comes to designing homes.
Take a look at these
adobe homes in New Mexico.
Made out of mud, straw, and wood,
adobe is one of the earliest building
materials known to mankind.
Now, take a look at these modern homes.
These huge, sprawling, tech-savvy mansions
look a lot different than the ones
our ancestors built millions of years ago.
So how did we get here?
In the prehistoric era,
the why was pretty simple.
Our earliest ancestors didn't have
the luxury of an
electronic security system.
We don't have exoskeletons.
We don't have very sharp teeth or...
Or great claws.
We needed to have
ways to protect ourselves.
NARRATOR: For protection,
people made their homes
in trees away from predators.
Soon, our ancestors left the
treetops and moved indoors.
Caves offered protection from the elements,
but with no method for
controlling the temperature,
dwellers were forced to
go through periods of time
with extreme heat and cold.
By the time people began
farming over 30,000 years ago,
they stopped living in caves and started
living in one-room huts made
of logs held together with mud.
By the Middle Ages, domestic architecture
was evolving rapidly.
Families began living
together in a communal living
space known as the hall.
The medieval hall basically was
used for all functions of daily
life, for cooking, for washing,
for sleeping.
And in the middle was
simply an open pit fire.
NARRATOR: Because the
hall was a very public place,
it could get noisy and crowded.
For most of history, human
beings have had very little
privacy, even in their homes.
NARRATOR: And soon, a second,
smaller room, called the solar,
was added.
The solar was what... What we would think
of today as the master bedroom.
NARRATOR: By the Middle
Ages, building techniques
were progressing yet again.
By the late 17th century, chimney's became
common in every household.
Early chimneys were built with
load-bearing exposed timbers,
and the space between was
filled with plaster, brick, or stone.
Later, chimneys were constructed by placing
the bricks around tile liners.
To control downdrafts, venting
caps with a variety of designs
were placed on top of the chimney.
With the accessibility to
heat, the days of living in a one
or two-room home were over.
KEVIN BAKER: So you had the living room.
You had the parlor.
You had dining rooms.
You had the morning room,
maybe because the light
was best there in the morning.
NARRATOR: As the
architecture of the home changed,
heating technologies shifted too.
Soon, coal became
mainstream, heating everything
from individual rooms to water.
Once lumber mills started manufacturing
dimensional lumber, the days
of post and beam construction
went out the window.
Between 1870 and 1920,
11 million people moved
from rural to urban areas.
And no city drew in more
people than New York.
By the turn of the 20th century,
New York City's population
exploded, and soon, the city's architecture
took a dramatic turn.
You have the safety elevator.
You have steel frame construction.
And you have electricity.
Put it all together, and you
can build high into the sky.
And you could just stack apartments
one on top of the other.
NARRATOR: While a handful of millionaires
were building palatial
mansions along 5th Avenue,
a staggering 2/3 of the population
were crowded into narrow,
low-rise apartment buildings
on the Lower East Side.
Tenement building is
technically any apartment
building, but they became synonymous
with sort of urban squalor.
These tenement apartments
here in this building
were about 300, 350 square feet.
What's more, these apartments
were jammed with families.
You were crowded in with many people
who were strangers to you.
You had borders.
You were living cheek
by jowl with other families
in these tenements.
Disease was rampant.
NARRATOR: Cramped, poorly
lit, and under ventilated tenements
were a hotbed of disease.
They also lacked a vital
system that we couldn't live
without today, indoor plumbing.
So here, you have your basic bathroom
for much of the 19th century
for millions of New Yorkers.
It's an outhouse, just the same as you
would see in any country village,
only used by many more people.
NARRATOR: Even outside of
the city, over a third of houses
didn't have flush toilets.
By the 1950s, nearly every home was
built with complete plumbing facilities.
Today, the home looks a lot different.
KEVIN BAKER: The average
bathroom in the Western world
where you could have heat
and hot water is something
beyond the greatest luxury.
NARRATOR: And they've
taken on a whole new meaning.
It's our literal pride of place.
It's our status symbol.
It's the place we feel most secure in.
NARRATOR: It's also the single
biggest investment most of us
will ever make.
But the truth is, some homes just
aren't built to last forever.
Part of the problem
with home construction is
that we we build so many inexpensive
and poorly-built buildings.
We design them in such
a way that they get torn
down because they're obsolete.
NARRATOR: So now, we're curious.
With current technology,
could we build a house
that could last 500 years?
500 years?
This house will be here for 2,000 years,
and there's nothing to stop it.
NARRATOR: Dave Sellers
is an architect working
on an experimental design that would allow
a home to last for centuries with little
to no exterior maintenance.
DAVE SELLERS: I think there's obligation
on the part of the people
making these things
they're going to last that long, make
sure that they're affordable.
NARRATOR: Dave's got the know-how
we need to bring our future
proof dream home to life.
The biggest resource that
most people have is their house.
It becomes their equity.
And over time, they
improve it, they ad stuff,
they make it beautiful.
NARRATOR: Home, as
they say, is where the heart is,
so it only makes sense to
build one that'll actually last.
So we need to think
today about how we will be
using this building tomorrow.
NARRATOR: But trying to
solve tomorrow's problems
isn't as easy as you think.
LARRY PACE: I'm not sure
that a building that's built today
is something that's necessarily going
to meet the needs of the
public 150 years from now.
NARRATOR: Well, maybe we can help.
Our goal is to build a home
that'll last for 1,000 years.
Our futuristic home will fuse
smart design and new technology
at every step of the process.
But first things first, we gotta figure
out where we're gonna build it.
What kind of home are we building?
What materials are we building it out of?
How long is it gonna take?
How many people?
And how much will this whole thing
cost if we build it today?
[music playing]
We're imagining a way to
build a future-proof house, one
that will stand for the next 1,000 years.
But before we get started
on this master plan, first,
we need to figure out exactly
what we're building and why.
Today, homes have taken
on a completely new meaning,
transforming from a basic necessity
into a physical
representation of who we are.
GRANT WANZEL: There's
a philosophical answer
about belonging somewhere
and being attached to something
and identifying with it,
and by identifying with it,
learning something about your own identity.
That's a kind of engagement with...
With a dwelling place.
That's a remarkable thing.
MERRITT IERLEY: So all
these things wrapped up into one
place that we call home.
NARRATOR: There's nothing more important
than a good, safe, secure home.
Not to mention, the longer any home stands,
the better it'll be for the planet.
So for every 100 years
or 500 years that we keep
that building, that's 100
years or 500 years of buildings
that we don't have to
construct, and that, perhaps,
is one of the most sustainable ways
to think about the carbon footprint
of 1,000 year old house.
NARRATOR: On top of all that, the world
just needs more homes.
The population's growing
too fast for the building industry
to keep up.
California is a worrisome wake-up call.
RICK HOLLIDAY: The governor,
in a recent State of the State
message said that we need to build
three million housing units
in the next five years to...
To just catch up.
NARRATOR: For California
to meet that demand,
they'll need to start churning
out six times as many homes
per year as they do today.
Clearly, a single
1,000-year home won't make
a dent in those numbers.
We're gonna need to build a lot of them.
But first, we need to
figure out how we're gonna
pay for this new investment.
Mortgage was an invention in France
about 400 to 500 years ago.
The word "mortgage" actually
derives from a French word
meaning debt pledge.
NARRATOR: The mortgage
was a major financial innovation
of its day.
It allowed the average home
buyer to borrow money and pay
it back slowly over time.
But even into the early
1900s, homeownership
was still somewhat rare.
The typical American,
when they got a mortgage,
before the Great Depression would
have to find a 50% down payment
in order to get that mortgage.
NARRATOR: 50% down payments
kept most people out of the game,
so eventually, the government stepped in.
Subsidy programs
substantially lowered the amount
of cash needed up front.
They also offered much longer
mortgages, which gave buyers
more time to pay them back.
Suddenly, the home construction
industry across the country
exploded.
It allowed developers to
build lots of houses knowing
with certainty that there
would be money there
for people to buy them.
And so these programs were
critical to the development
of suburban America.
NARRATOR: Suburbs
completely changed the way we live.
Between 1950 and 1970,
the suburban population
doubled and accounted for over
80% of the country's new homes.
But for Dave Sellers, the American dream
looks more like a nightmare.
When you fly over the various cities,
you see a big field full of exactly
the same cookie cutter
house, these cheap, fast, quick
buildings.
NARRATOR: There's no
question that when people began
moving to the suburbs,
their quality of life
dramatically improved.
But, like Dave said, quality lasts
a lot longer than quantity.
So here's our plan.
We're out to build the ultimate
in ultra durable homes, one
that will last for 1,000 years or more.
It'll need to be strong, it
needs to be affordable,
and it needs to be mass produced.
That mission will guide every big decision
we make along the way.
Like where are we gonna build it?
After all, no one knows
what their neighborhood
will look like in 1,000 years.
There's a variety of different
things you need to consider.
Are there risks of flooding?
Are there risks of landslide?
NARRATOR: Then, what
material will we build with?
Not all materials are created equal.
The day you finish a wooden building
is the day it starts to rot.
NARRATOR: And for a home
to be high quality and low price,
efficiency will need
to be through the roof.
So current construction
techniques simply won't do.
RICK HOLLIDAY: All the cost
and ways to bring in the material
to the single site, and if there's
any break in that chain,
everything slowed down.
It's a very, very antiquated process.
NARRATOR: Not to mention
building for the future means
building for change.
So we need to think
today about how we will be
using this building tomorrow.
How the building may be modified,
readjusted, expanded, and contracted.
NARRATOR: Then comes the questions.
How many workers will we need?
How long will construction take?
And how much is our 1,000
year old home going to cost?
It has to be available for everybody.
NARRATOR: No doubt,
we've got a ton of work ahead.
But before we can break
ground, we need to figure
out where we're going to build.
Location is critically important
because it connects us
with where we go to work,
where we go to school.
It connects us with
resources, where we shop.
So location, location, location.
NARRATOR: Jessie Keenan is
an expert in a new phenomenon
known as climate migration.
And if we want our house to
be around thousands of years,
Jesse says an ocean view is definitely out.
JESSE KEENAN: So for places
like Miami and South Florida
there's already people on the move,
but some people are
leaving the region altogether.
It's the increased costs,
increased insurance costs.
But overall, what we see is actually
that housing is declining
in value in high-risk areas
and it's driving a broader
phenomenon that's
actually pushing people out.
NARRATOR: From rising seas
to wildfires, floods, and drought,
changing weather
patterns affect where people
can live all over the planet.
But according to Jesse,
the perfect escape is
a little place called Duluth.
No city is immune, but Duluth,
Minnesota is one of those.
NARRATOR: Duluth is over
620 miles from the nearest ocean.
There are no fault lines for
earthquakes and volcanoes,
and it's about as far north as you
can get in the continental US.
JESSE KEENAN: One of
the advantages they have is
they're going to have a more moderate
temperature in the future.
Yes, it's cold there now,
but as the planet heats,
it's going to look more like a temperature
that you might have in a
place like Ohio or Indiana,
and that may impact jobs,
it may impact agriculture.
And it has, most importantly, access
to one of the largest bodies
of fresh water on the planet.
NARRATOR: Another
plus, Duluth is a planned city.
It was designed for a
population much larger
than the one that lives there today.
JESSE KEENAN: There's
interesting urban design,
there's parks, there's landscape,
and there's unbelievable
historic architecture.
Places in Duluth that I've
seen, brownstone town homes
will cost 6 to 7 to 10 times the
price in a place like Brooklyn,
New York as they would in
Duluth for the exact same type
of building.
There's high-quality education.
There's a local University,
even a medical school.
And all of these things
add up to really add
a lot of value to living
in a place like Duluth.
NARRATOR: OK, Jesse,
we are definitely sold.
Duluth, Minnesota sounds
like the perfect location
for our new home that'll
stand for the next 1,000 years.
But to rival the durability
of these ancient dwellings,
we need a material that can
stand up to whatever punishment
the next millennium has to
offer "If We Built It Today."
[music playing]
We're on a mission to rebuild
the most ancient structure
on Earth, the home.
But the only similarity between
these and our brand-new model
will be how long it can last.
Our goal, the next 1,000 years or more.
But we'll never reach that if we don't pick
the right building material.
MERRITT IERLEY: The early settler
didn't have much choice.
He had to take whatever was available,
and wood was the most commonly available.
NARRATOR: Today, wood
is still the building material
of choice, but to weather the
storms of the next 1,000 years,
is there a more robust alternative?
In 1957, the Monsanto House of the Future
was specifically designed to showcase
the wonders of modern
plastics as a building material.
It's waterproof and pliant,
but it lacks the strength of wood
and it deforms under
stress, so plastic is a pass.
And according to our
experts, conventional materials
are making a comeback.
Our views of what a house should
have remained surprisingly consistent
over the last few hundred years.
The house is the most conservative
elements of society.
You can look at the real estate pages
and you'll see house after house that
looks very, very traditional,
and very few that look modern.
NARRATOR: So if plastic
is out, then how about stone?
It's definitely classic and durable.
But according to Dave Sellers, there's
a manmade alternative that
checks both of those boxes.
That material is concrete.
DAVE SELLERS: Anybody can get a phone
and call the Ready-Mix guys,
I want concrete tomorrow.
You can get it.
You could dump it anywhere you want to.
You control it by these
forms, and in a matter of hours,
it sets up.
There's a chemical reaction
that changes into a rock.
The housing world really
does concrete foundations.
That's your basement, and
they build a wooden building
on top of that.
The day you finish a wooden building
is the day it starts to rot.
NARRATOR: Concrete can easily outlast wood,
but what is concrete itself made of?
The basic ingredients are sand and gravel,
water, air, and a fine lime
powder called Portland cement.
It's an enormously strong material.
We rate what we've been using
4,000 pounds per square inch.
It can hold up a freight train.
And so why not take it out of the basement
and do your whole house with it?
NARRATOR: That is exactly what Dave did.
Located in Vermont, this is
Dave's all concrete 1,000 year
prototype home.
We made the whole outside inert.
Nothing is gonna rot.
NARRATOR: And concrete
is super versatile too.
You can shape it pretty
much any way you want.
You can see on the side of the building,
we recessed the windows
way back in the concrete,
and then, we have these,
what are called swoopies.
Really simple to make concrete
elements that could provide
a shade over the windows.
Then we wanted to warp
the surface for a little balcony.
NARRATOR: As for inside the house,
more sweet concrete in the
heavy duty posts and beams,
and even the sleek bathroom fixtures.
The countertop is 2 inches thick.
It has a hole in it for the sink.
This whole thing is so smooth, it's
like velvet, which you can finish off
with a little bit of a grinder.
This only is probably
$200 worth of concrete,
and, you know, half a day to make it.
NARRATOR: In the
high-pressure construction world,
concrete can handle the stress.
And Dave's got another prototype
concrete home that proves
concrete is fireproof too.
I rented the house one... Two winters ago.
So they lit a fire in the fireplace.
Sparks and so on caught the rug on fire,
caught the bookcase on fire,
caught the furniture on fire,
and then consumed the entire flammable part
of the inside of the house.
The next day, the fire's out.
So I called my structural engineer.
Said, you know what?
This is 99.9% perfect.
NARRATOR: Concrete
is universally available,
cheap, versatile, and tough.
And soon, it could be ecofriendly too.
Some people might criticize the concrete
because it takes a lot of energy
to make the Portland cement.
We're evolving a way to make
the energy-intensive part of making
the cement down to zero.
NARRATOR: The results are pretty concrete.
This is the material of choice
for our 1,000 year home.
But if our concrete home
paves the way for the future,
we need to find a way to make lots of them.
So we need an even faster
and cheaper way "If We
Built It Today."
We're designing a brand-new house that will
stand for the next 1,000 years.
We'll break ground in Duluth, Minnesota,
and it'll be made with super
durable concrete, our expert's
material of choice.
DAVE SELLERS: The future
of affordable housing, to me,
is concrete.
It's easy.
It's fast.
And you get tremendous flexibility.
NARRATOR: But our goal isn't to create
just one showstopping house.
My opinion, we've gone backwards,
because we've tried to give...
Make... make homes bigger.
KEVIN BAKER: McMansion is
sort of a classic example of a space
for the sake of space.
NARRATOR: If we're gonna
make a dent in the housing shortage,
we gotta raise the bar high
and flip the industry on its head.
Worldwide, as the
population continues to grow,
the demand for more homes is growing too.
So we'll need to build
them faster, cheaper,
and better than ever before.
Luckily, we've got a lead on
a technology that will give us
an edge, 3D concrete printing.
This specially formulated
concrete holds its shape
without any need of a form.
Once complete, this
will be the largest printed
apartment building in Europe.
This concrete house printer leaves space
for plumbing, electrical,
windows, and doors as it goes,
and it only takes two people to run.
That's efficiency.
5,000 miles away,
another firm is taking home
building to the next level.
Rick Holliday and Larry
Pace are seasoned vets
in the construction game, and they came up
with a groundbreaking idea that has
revolutionized the industry.
It's called off-site construction.
We need to build a house
more like we build a car.
It gives you greater quality,
it gives you greater quantity,
it gives you a higher
predictability for production.
RICK HOLLIDAY: The more that we can
do in a factory in a coordinated
and climate-controlled setting,
the more you can save in time and money.
NARRATOR: In San
Francisco, the hard construction
cost for a single housing
unit is a whopping $1 million.
But factory OS can build
the same for a third of that,
under $300,000, in part, by cutting
the construction time in half.
We have 1,000 units done and we're
on track now to probably
double our productivity
in the next year.
NARRATOR: And the
benefits of off-site construction
go beyond price and speed.
Just think about you being a
construction worker and working
on a 10-story building with the
wind and the different elements
and everything else going on.
We give greater comfort for our workers.
That makes it more conducive
to higher quality control.
We're able to have more eyes on the work
to guarantee that we actually
create a superior product.
NARRATOR: That sounds
like a blueprint for success to us.
Not to mention, there's
way less wasted material.
We believe, at this point, we're
70% less than site building.
NARRATOR: Concrete is the
concrete winner in our choice
of materials, and off-site building
is the way to crank out thousands
of 1,000 year old homes.
But there may be a small
crack in our perfect plan.
LARRY PACE: Concrete's
a very strong material,
but concrete doesn't necessarily give.
Usually, you'll find that
it would frame structure,
or even a steel structure
will have greater movement
and greater ability to survive
in a earthquake situation
than a concrete structure will.
NARRATOR: So concrete's not perfect.
Luckily, we decided to
build in a low-risk area
where earthquakes are rare.
Our choice of Duluth,
Minnesota is still looking solid.
But before we cement our plan,
we need to peer into the future
and imagine a home that still makes
sense for the next generation.
If our home is going to last 1,000 years,
it'll need to adapt to survive.
What was once a kitchen
may now be a living room.
What was once a living room may
now be a bedroom or a bathroom.
NARRATOR: And the key to adapting
is, as the old saying goes, keep it simple.
If you look at a typical ranch
house or wooden structure,
it's not adaptable.
Once you start to tear down
the whole wall to change it,
you've lost the structure in the place.
You can't do that.
Otherwise, it'll collapse.
JESSE KEENAN: Another thing
to think about is having room.
And sometimes, that's room
for new wiring, new piping.
LARRY PACE: You know,
plumbing used to be lead pipes,
then it became copper pipes.
Now, it's plastic pipes.
The technology is gonna change.
NARRATOR: Dave thought about adaptation
long before he poured the concrete
for his blast-proof home.
DAVE SELLERS: We have walls in this house,
you can take that wall
out with about 20 bolts.
Unbolt that and change
it to another location.
NARRATOR: As for the wiring, Dave
kept that accessible by
running it through the floor
and hiding it beneath
thin strips of aluminum.
LARRY PACE: I think
there's an obligation on the part
of the people making these things
that they're gonna last that long, make
sure that they're flexible.
NARRATOR: But there are still a few things
we've gotta figure out.
Duluth sits on the edge of
the largest body of fresh water
in the world, so flooding could present
a major design challenge.
How do we ensure our future-proof home
isn't a complete washout
"If We Built It Today?"
[music playing]
We're imagining a modern
home designed to last
for the next 1,000 years.
We'll build it in Duluth, Minnesota.
It'll be made of 3D printed concrete,
and factory built for
top-tier quality control.
But it takes more than durability
to withstand the tests of time.
And for ideas on adapting,
we're consulting with
our flood-proofing experts.
Ed Suttie is the director of a company
that has developed a
few flood-proofing ideas
we're gonna borrow.
The door here is a passive flood door,
so the seal around it is always
working when that door is shut.
In this building, within the walls,
that are cavity drains that
are replicated in cavity drains
under the floor.
Electric sockets are high.
All electric wiring is coming
down from the ceilings.
We've got ceramic floor tile,
obviously, the ceramic enables
very rapid removal of water.
And finally, if we walk
through into the kitchen, so first,
fundamental is have all the appliances
above our flood risk level, so
refrigerators, cookers, and so
on.
And then the units themselves, they're
not made out of chipboard.
They can be made out of
solid wood or aluminum or steel.
So, again, a resilient material that
can be recovered once the floodwater
has been removed from the property.
NARRATOR: Now, even with
floods of biblical proportions,
we're good to go.
But how does the whole factory
build plan fit in with the idea
of adaptable design?
ED SUTTIE: So off-site construction really
lends itself well to
this adaptability agenda
because you can design
lead before production
in the factory for how
your components are gonna
fit together, how they
might, therefore, be designed
for this assembly to come apart
again, whether you were going
to extend that building or completely
dismantle it and reuse
those components elsewhere.
NARRATOR: The plan for our 1,000 year home
has finally come together.
3D printed concrete,
factory prefabrication,
future-proof, and flood-proof.
But there's one final challenge.
Time.
And as every homeowner
knows, time is money.
So how many workers will we need to hire
and how long is this build gonna to take?
The average new home today
is about 2,400 square feet.
For traditional, on-site construction,
that takes 30 workers a
jaw-dropping four months
to build.
It's a process that is very inefficient.
NARRATOR: The off-site factory folks
say they could build it
with half the workforce
and in half the time.
But how much is our 1,000
year home going to cost?
And more importantly, will the average home
buyer be able to afford
it "If We Built It Today?"
So you wanna build a home that'll
stand for the next 1,000 years?
What would it take?
We're breaking new ground in Duluth,
Minnesota, one of the
most climate adaptable
cities in the country.
And our home's all
concrete, 3D-printed walls
will be solid as a rock.
It'll be built off-site in a
state-of-the-art facility,
which will maximize
turnaround time, affordability,
and quality control, and it'll have
an adaptable design that's easy to modify
for centuries to come.
So let's do it.
First, we'll need to get our
offsite factory up and running.
Shipping construction materials all
the way from San Francisco to
Duluth just doesn't make sense.
RICK HOLLIDAY: There's people that
are looking to take our approach
to factory building in Chicago,
in New York, in Boston, and
I believe in the next five or 10
years, there'll probably be a factory
very near Duluth, Minnesota.
NARRATOR: At our factory,
we'll replace wood framing with 3D
concrete-printed floors,
ceilings, and walls,
and for convenience, our
homes will be fully finished,
so all you'll have to do is move in.
And at the end, you're putting
in the toilet paper holders,
and the appliances are in the unit
and strapped before
they're put on the truck
to be taken to the site.
NARRATOR: Our goal is to house more people
cheaper and for generations.
So for our base model,
we'll need to go small.
DAVE SELLERS: Let's
take what we learned here
and make it affordable.
So we have a 600 square foot house.
We're pioneering this thing
such that a person earning
$25 or $30 an hour can buy it.
It's not a rental.
You can own it, which means it's going
to have to cost between $125
and $175 a square foot to make it.
And that's possible.
NARRATOR: That's just $100,000.
Even if we add in the price
of land, which we figure
would cost around $25,000 in Duluth,
we're still more than $200,000 cheaper
than the average new home build in the US.
We can build it today, a home
that lasts 1,000 years, that
adapts for the future, that
withstands the forces of mother
nature, and, most importantly, a
house that everyone can afford.
With the idea of a highly durable home that
has a useful life of hundreds of years,
you could make the argument
that lenders are willing to make
mortgages 100 years, 200
years, or even 1,000 years,
because those homes
will be secure investments.
NARRATOR: It's already
possible to get a 100-year mortgage
in Japan, and a 1,000-year
mortgage for our new home
at current interest rates would only set
you back about $215 a month.
But the ultimate test for
a home, or any building,
to stand for 1,000 years
isn't financing, mother nature,
or even a blazing inferno.
It's whether or not it can become something
that people truly love.
And according to Dave Sellers, we can
actually design for that too.
DAVE SELLERS: People really wanna
live in something beautiful.
And if we bring craftsmanship
back and someone goes to work
and they're really proud
of what they've done,
and you can see it in the result,
that's, to me, where a civil society
should be going in the future.
So it all is linked together.
Not only are you
eliminating the throw away,
but you're creating a
benefit for the artistic act
of making it, and then the joy of living
in it for hundreds of years.
That is an amazing concept.
When that is employed in a
building, people care about it.
They'll... they'll lie down
in front of the bulldozers.
Don't tear that down.
It's too beautiful.
That's the best guarantee
to make it long-lasting.
NARRATOR: The people
living in our 1,000 year homes
will have one foot in
the present and one foot
in the past, just like
residents of the pueblos.
These mud straw houses
are now among the most
precious buildings on
the planet, and to this day,
ordinary folks live in them 1,000
years since they were first built, strong,
adaptable, and beautiful.
There's nothing stopping
us "If We Built It Today."