Japanese Dome House
Some requirements for long lasting house building in the climate I&#x27;m living in:<p>Houses should be raised from the ground and the underside ventilated, to prevent mold and indoor air quality problems.<p>Roofs should be strong so they can handle snow, and tilted so water and snow falls off. All seams on the roof should be made so that water doesn&#x27;t go in there and freeze. Concave structures on the roof should be avoided, as they collect water that freezes.<p>There should be eaves and rain chutes on the roof so that water from the roof doesn&#x27;t touch the walls. Water should be diverted away from the base of the building, so the house should preferably be on a hill, or should have drainage built around it. Overall the building walls and base should stay mostly dry.<p>Most materials of the house should be moisture permeating so that when water gets in, it can dry out. The outermost layer of the roof and the foundation are an exception.<p>Anything that touches the ground should be stone like granite, or some other material that can be in contact with wet ground for centuries with no changes.<p>Now, the house could be any shape you wish for, as long as it fills these requirements. I see a lot of the new ideas fail a number of these requirements - they seem to be fanciful dreams not taking the reality of local conditions into account.<p>So, to turn it around, what if one started an innovative house design from these requirements? A house wouldn&#x27;t necessarily need to look like old-fashioned houses that have been built for centuries here. It could be weird looking and could still not be a moldy and leaky health and financial problem, with either constant repairs or just bulldozing after a few decades.