@Rhube @sindarina @lackthereof @flyingpenguin I've heard of multiple cases of libraries that didn't account for the weight of the books in the design. Meanwhile in my apartment I'm like "how could the designers possibly know how much weight an individual tenant will load with their belongings?"
@Lunaphied Larger buildings such as offices generally have a pretty standard average load rating per square metre, around 500 kg or so IIRC?
Which is fine for regular usage, but not for heavier loads, like libraries, or server racks.
I reckon it’s less of an issue for apartments, since the unsupported span is generally much shorter.
But yes, I have also wondered 😂
Oct 23, 2026, 6:56 AM@sindarina @Lunaphied @Rhube @lackthereof @flyingpenguin human designers typically overspec by a wide margin, especially when lives, or other valuable things are on the line. In my experience when someone's whipping out a pencil, notebook and calculator the majority just refuse to fire up their brains. The percentage of people willing to think is lower than the percentage of people willing to try, which has scared the shit out of me more than once . A bad human design looks bad at first sight, usually. AI design looks polished. So humans, on average, are not fit to check an AI design.
Btw, it is theoretically possible to take appartment buildings down by establishing cast iron collections in them. But I've yet to see a rent contract that explicitly forbids that. As the world is getting stupider, I worry about such things 🤣
@Lunaphied The design load for a dwelling is set by building regs, so they're all designed to the same value.