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Figuring out nice sustainable building materials for a species that lives in vast puddle of aggressive solvent has been interesting! 

They use basically no metal aside from easily wrought ones like gold, and metal ore refining is a very new and dangerous science that can only be done on land. Wood is pretty rare as a building material except for scuds who live right by or on the land, as it's prone to heavy wear and or... melting after a while. 

Shell is basically the next best renewable biological building material, and although the weight isn't an issue underwater it's still much more brittle than wood and greater care must be taken during drilling not to shatter it. 

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Daniel M. Bensen

Why not grow calcareous algae or coral over trellises?

Daniel M. Bensen

Also what's the purpose of houses under water? To keep warm? Protection from enemies? Something stranger like concentrating food or keeping planktonic babies in the right places?

Jay Eaton

They do, but hardshell is (sort of) the brickwork to coral's wood. Stronger, and can be built quickly and reliably from stockpiled materials. Until they got bioengineering down pat, corals were much more finicky and unpredictable. Older buildings tend to use less coral and more hardshell.

Jay Eaton

All of those, plus respite from the currents, plus privacy, and also to keep objects they own from literally drifting away or being stolen. Scuds tend to consider anything that isn't nailed down, locked up, or attached to a body free for public use (or uh, private use)

Daniel M. Bensen

And even with bioengineering, I suppose coral will be much slower than shell. Maybe coral's a signal of affluence? Like having a very old wisteria vine on your house?

Daniel M. Bensen

Neat. I'm wondering about a possible artistic/architectural school of directing currents through a building. Feng Shui that's literally real. :)

Kristen King

scud architecture! how marvelous!