Must not know about asphalt yet...
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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I'm sorry, is this asphalt over baked paving stones? And if so, why?
Or is this a pothole filled up with stone? And if so, why?
It is indeed paved over. I'm sure there are reasons, but probably not good ones given potholes like this. Aside from initial cost, for large vehicles+higher speeds. IMO seems a bit like gluing carpet over wooden floorboards (which is another anger-inducing thing, especially if you've lived in a house with a carpeted bathroom).
Not Just Bikes has a video on brick roads in the Netherlands (the bricks being called Klinkers, video called Natural Handcrafted Artisanal ... Streets?!), how they allow easier maintenance/re-use, brick designs instead of painting the surface after, worn klinkers used in historic areas etc.
Oh yeah, klinkers (if they're baked clay) or the much less inspired sounding betonstraatstenen (concrete street stones) definitely have their benefits, but that video really skips over what a literally backbreaking job it is to pave a street like that, or how slippery these stones get when wet (less so for concrete or textured baked clay).
It's mandatory to do anything over 2 hours of bricklaying by machine now, but that requires packaged stone. And packaging stone is even worse than relaying it from a pile, so you end up loading it into a truck, shipping it off for packaging and then moving it back.
You can design around that, most of the time, but we haven't been doing that, so lots of handwork remains, which is not great for your health.
Of course, running asphalt over a street like this gets you the worst of both worlds, and its begging for potholes since the two materials match up really poorly. You do occasionally see it in the Netherlands on old roads on top of dikes that were "modernized" in the 70s and 80s.
(Edit: it's actually more a synergy of shittyness, because you can't really reuse most of the asphalt, because you don't brickdust in it, and you can't reuse the bricks because there's asphalt on them)
Source: am dutch, took a year of civil engineering, ended up doing lots of safety and regulatory stuff for roadworks.
Since you have expertise in this maybe you can answer this question for me.
Do brick or stone roads last longer than asphalt or concrete roads?
It seems to me like they should, given the higher hardness of the material and the presumably greater resistance to freeze/thaw cycles. I have also seen a few brick roads near me that I can only imagine have gone a very long time with no maintaince (as I think the government here would rather cover it in asphalt than try to work with the bricks). The ground underneath the bricks has shifted over time forming depressions in the path that car tires take, but it is still fine to drive over at low speeds, as the slopes are smooth unlike the holes that form in asphalt.
I've tried googling this before but haven't been able to find a straightforward answer as to how long a road like that can go between rounds of maintenance.
Do brick or stone roads last longer than asphalt or concrete roads?
That's a solid "it depends". And in this case, it depends on the definition of "lasting" and the definition of "road".
Klinkers are near immortal, but they're laid on what we call a "street layer" of 3cm of compacted, specifically graded sand, on top of some 25cm of less expensive sand. That sand can shift, compress and ruin the stability of the bricks. That usually happens due to heavyweight transport, or external factors (settlement of the soil underneath, tree roots, etc). If you run just passenger cars in a suburban area on steady ground, it could last 50 years. If you supply your stores on a road like that, it's more like 10 years. But you can remove the brick, regrade/replace the sand and rebuild it from mostly the same bricks. Concrete bricks don't last as long, and they break more when removed/packaged/relaid, I don't really know the numbers.
Asphalt is different. Assuming we're talking about a road that could also be made in bricks, asphalt has a surface layer of some 3-5cm, then between 10 and 20 cm of underlayers in layers of around 5 or 6cm. Then some 20-30cm of gravel, and up to half a meter of sand. That top layer lasts something like 10 to 15 years, and it suffers most from frost/thaw, UV light, etc. You don't have to replace al of it at once though, you can patch it.
The underlayers generally fail due to traffic weight, but that can be 2, 3 or maybe even 4 cycles of surface layer replacement later. Generally, for busier (non high-way) roads, they replace the surface layer twice and the third time they do parts of the underlayers, or all of it, depending on damage. Asphalt can be 80 or 90% recycled though, but it takes quite a bit of heat (something like 3 to 6 cubic meters of gas for each ton of asphalt).
So, all in all, not all brick roads are equal, not all asphalt is equal. And "how it lasts" is a complex question too. It's also a tough comparison, because we generally don't build roads for the same purposes. If it's very busy, we usually don't use bricks.
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It's a lovely street made of brick pavers that has been paved over with asphalt because it provides a smoother ride for vehicles and pleasant aesthetics are for losers.
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Don't know why, but I totally get this. Like, 100%, I just have it as a general feeling of disgust that I can ignore.
Edit: specifically cement blocks like the one pictured. That exact shape and texture of cement is the worst for me.
I understand the distaste for the aesthetics. But it's a pretty inarguably better material from a structural, cost, sound blocking, etc. standpoint.
Don't get me wrong, I love red brick, and personally want a red brick house, but I also recognize the sheer practicality of concrete blocks and would probably pick that with a brick veneer if I actually had to pay for it to be built new.
That's literally how many German private houses are built: Autoclaved aerated concrete with a brick cladding. Looks nice and provides a lot of thermal insulation.
Your MOM looks nice and provides a lot of thermal insulation!
Good on her for taking care of herself and her home.
Oh no, far more visceral. Nothing about the aesthetics.
The brick pictured makes my hands feel dry and papery. That's from when I was a kid, so I know what that's about. Buuuut....
There was a period where cement was used on wire frames to do sculpture - makes me want to gag. Fully repulsive to me. A tree made from cement angers me. It's all trash to me, zero redeeming elements.
A large cement column in a building under construction? I intentionally avoid it so as not to touch it. They smell bad, too. Once painted, I'm totally fine with them.
Dry cement powder? I would rather touch fire.
It's a sensory processing thing. Can't explain it more than that I guess.
I find differences in how people react to sensory inputs fascinating. I don't have any problems with concrete or concrete powder. For me hell on earth are lenticular prints (not viewing them, but touching them) even hearing someone glide their finger over one makes my skin crawl
Huh. Yeah, I have no problem with that, but I get you.
There's a kind of not refined pulp paper stock that was used to make cheap paperbacks, I've only seen it in older books from the 50s-70s, that does that to me. Only ever ran into it a few times, but if my fingernail touches it, it's worse than being electrocuted. Full body shivers and chills. Even thinking about it tenses me up.
You got that ASMR? Seems like there's some overlap between things like this, like you have some things you can't stand, some that send you into a trance, and they're infuriatingly close sometimes.
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This post kinda feels like op is ridiculing autism with a probably made up story. Hyperfixation is a thing with autists but they don't only talk about one topic and they shut up from time to time too. Autists are more than their hyperfixations, they're humans.
I had a learner on spectrum who physically attacked me for 2 hours because, after our classroom won the 'Golden Trashcan' Award for cleanest room, the Golden Trashcan was not real gold.
The only quote I remember from this was him screaming at me while gesturing at the trashcan, "That's not a thing! That's not even an animal!"
10/10, would teach again.
I hope you're alright after that physical attack! Hope someone educated the kid on their autism and their actions too. I think I slightly understand the train of thought with the "it's not an animal" argument though. I'm guessing the kid assumed that the word gold was reserved for actual gold unless talking about animals like the golden hamster or goldfish where it just meant gold colored :P
Edit: also sorry for sending this comment thrice, no idea how that happened
Also, there was no successful remediation of this behavior. I worked with him for 5 years and, while he did learn the academics, he never really adjusted well to our society.
Yep. He was we would be getting the precious metal. This was made very clear by him.
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You didnt have that one kid in any of your classes? A kid I went to school with had similarly deep feelings about evergreens over deciduous trees, and got in a fight with a Canadian kid after he started talking smack about maple syrup and maples in general. I dont think the Canadian wanted to fight, but he had on a Canadian flag shirt so the maple leaf was front and center, making him a target for the arborist. But it was literally trees all the time. Evergreens can photosynthesize year round so they are always giving us oxygen. Evergreen lumber is better for construction. Evergreen seeds are adapted to sprout after fires when there is more likely to be room for them to grow. Nonstop. Middle school is a weird time for a lot of folks and people on the spectrum are not exceptions.
At least he is forming concrete opinions
Ba Dum Tsss
honestly I love bricks and hate concrete blocks.
btw what's the most (not necessarily among these two) sustainable building material, lemmings?
Stone. It's natural, subject only to the slow erosion of time.
Caves. We should all live in caves.
unfortunately there aren't that many caves out there and it's hard to build new.
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I’d bet wood is better since if you use it for construction and farm it you can theoretically use it as a carbon sink, and it’s renewable.
What’s the delta on mining and shaping stone vs lumber is the question
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Honestly, whatever makes the most sense with the materials in the local area. And then I don't mean what you can get from the local hardware store, but literally, what the earth in the area provides. If you have lots of clay, then brick would be best. If you have lots of big stones, then stone construction it'll be. If you're deep in the woods, then a wooden building would serve you just right. Maybe a combination of materials and techniques if you have options in the area.
Bonus points if you can build in a way that passively optimises for managing things like moisture and temperature.
Cob and rammed earth are hard to beat if you’ve got the right environment for them
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I have a similar thing with flat roofs. They are terrible. When you are 5 years old, you already learn to draw houses with a pointy roof. The pointy roof has been invented about a 100 times in history, as people were looking for the best shape. The wave shaped roof tile with 2 waves per tile has been invented about 3 times in history as people were looking for the best shape. The advantages of a pointy roof over a flat roof:
- Rain flows off. Yes, you can give a flat roof a small inclination, but rain will not flow as well, and if your roof tilts a small bit during the decades, it can become horizontal again.
- Snow falls off, reducing the chance that the roof collapses under the weight of heavy snow.
- It is lighter and cheaper, as you can use thinner materials. This is because pointy is a stronger shape than flat.
- It gives more interior space.
- It allows more sunlight to reach the street.
- It has a smaller area-to-vloume-ratio through with heat can escape.
- Solar panels get a higher efficiency.
- It allows the roof to be made out of wavy roof tiles which provide the following advantages:
- Roofs designed with wavy roof tiles can be constructed when it rains.
- When a tile breaks, you can easily replace it, without having to cut it loose from the tiles next to it.
- Roof tiles do not fracture upon an uneven heat distribution. Meanwhile, the advantages of flat roofs are:
- If you design an apartment building, you can copy and paste the interior. (Thus less work for the architect.)
- A horizontal line is one segment less to draw compared to two diagonals. (Thus less work for the architect.)
- If a city has the same height restrictions for flat roofed buildings as for pointy roofed buildings, and the architect is too lazy to go to the city council to explain to them that that doesn't make sense, the architect can design a building with more volume by making the roof flat. In other words: the only reason any architect would design a building with a flat roof is because they are either lazy or they have no idea what they are doing.
- It is lighter and cheaper, as you can use thinner materials. This is because pointy is a stronger shape than flat.
- It gives more interior space.
If you're using lighter cheaper materials you'll need all the added interior space for roof trusses, none of it will be livable space.
- It allows more sunlight to reach the street.
No, for the same amount of occupiable space the shorter flat roof blocks less light than a standard 10:12 or 12:12 roof
- It has a smaller area-to-volume-ratio through which heat can escape.
The greater surface area of a pitched roof means this is absolutely not true. The hypotenuse is always longer than either leg.
- Solar panels get a higher efficiency.
This one actually depends on latitude, equatorialy it's better flat. And don't forget that the minimum summer angle is limited by the pitched roof.
- If a city has the same height restrictions for flat roofed buildings as for pointy roofed buildings, and the architect is too lazy to go to the city council to explain to them that that doesn't make sense, the architect can design a building with more volume by making the roof flat.
No it makes perfect sense. It goes back to your comment on letting sunlight through to the street. The maximum height is the maximum height so everyone gets the same amount of light.
In other words: ~~the only reason any architect would design a building with a flat roof is because they are either lazy or they have no idea what they are doing.~~ this guy thinks their habitat is the only kind over the whole planet and can't imagine people living in areas where snow load wouldn't need to be considered.
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Modern and brutalist architecture can have that effect on people. Fuck concrete, and fuck neo-imperialist colonial architecture.
Concrete is horrible for the environment and its fucked up global emissions of buildings and architecture. (Cement production alone constitutes 8% of global emissions, not considering its inefficiency in thermal lifecycles of a building and ultimate un-renewable waste). It is in fact not the best fit for every circumstance.
One shoe fits all architecture trends have effectively killed vernacular wisdom and climate conscious local innovation. Favoring “cheap” garbage that jacks up costs in other sectors, damages climate and ignores localized need, requiring complex, often power-hungry, solutions like extensive BAS to try and counterbalance their piss poor application.
(For those unaware modern buildings when all is said and done account for over 40% of global emissions. And the heating/cooling systems far outpace keeping the lights on in terms of energy consumption (something like 2/3 of the total buildings demands over time). Tackling that behemoth number is going to take a multifaceted approach but the importance of materials and place-specific design cannot be understated.)
- sincerely, someone whose installed one too many motors for automated blinds and slapdash bandaid HVAC solutions.
Okay I am a big fan of brutalist architecture. Guess I am in the minority... I feel the philosophy behind it is just being wildly misunderstood.
I love brutalist architecture.
Bullshit concrete is inferior to brick. The Romans used concrete. 😤
*Self repairing concrete, agree. Tho the cheap stuff we use today is ass
We should work on making self-healing and self-replicating concrete to become superior. 😌
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The irony is brick was thought of as cheap when buildings moved to it, from traditional stone blocks. The term "oh, that's so Redbrick", was a slam against something that had become cheap or slummy
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People when autistic boys have mental shutdowns: haha it's so quirky when he hyperfixates.
People when autistic girls have mental shutdowns: what a bitchy and emotional teenager. She's not even autistic she just does it for attention.
Really? Because I just got whipped with a switch or a belt when I had my little boy autistic meltdowns.
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"Mmmmm, yes, let's turn a funny post about autistic hyperfixations into gender warfare. This will be a good use of everyone's time."
Dude this is about tye gendered double standard in mental illness.
It is a thing, and for autistic women it hurts that we don't have funny stories about our trauma like this and it sucks.
The reaction to autistic men (here) is perfectly reasonable. We want that. Fuck off with your misogynist bullshit.
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Better keep this kid far away from any bulldozers.
I love autism
John Betjeman has been reincarnated as an Autistic German guy.
German flag
I would've been surprised if it had been different, lol.
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