This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Technology in Architectural Practice and Committee on the Environment .
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Sarah Susanka, author of the "Not So Big..." series, spoke at the Green Prints Conference this past week in Atlanta, GA. She brought up a really interesting point, Beauty is Sustainability. Meaning a beautiful building will stand the test of time, while an efficient, ugly science project will not. On the other side of the argument, I have often said that Architecture gets downgraded to sculpture when it doesn't function. A beautiful leaky building will get repaired and the repair may need to be extensive if the forms of the building make it impossible to seal from the rain. Beautiful houses that are designed so specifically for one person's taste,
that no other future owner finds it useful, then it gets renovated or demolished. Timelessness is not easy to achieve. The goal of Historic Preservation is not to create fake history, but to allow sensible modifications to extend the usefulness of an Historic structure without drastically altering the historic components of the building. If beauty is to stand the test of time, it must function and be flexible for future owners and visa versa. If a functional building is going to last, then it must be desirable, beautiful.
The 70s gave sustainability a bad name as many of the pioneers were building scientists and not exactly artists. No one wants to live in a science project, other than the designer. Now we try to create cutesy copies of watered down traditionalism and cram these fundamentally unsustainable forms with green gadgets and green check list items. A gable roof will never protect a double hung window from heat gain. Most traditional projects use single hung units with the operator at the bottom, yet heat rises. Shouldn't we use sustainability as an opportunity to start actually designing houses again, rather than regurgitating the mistakes of the past? I know what people think they want, but this is based on what they see around them, not what is possible. Before I had a few nice projects in my neighborhood, everyone was told they had to have a bungalow. Now it's OK to have something more interesting.
If we Architects are too elite to make our services appropriate for people who can't afford to fork over half their annual salary for a set of drawings (the majority of Americans), then why should we complain about how low the bar is set for residential design? If we turn our noses up to regular people, then why should we complain about them not "getting us"? The state of residential design in this country is not the agent's fault or the builder. It's not even the homeowner's fault. IT'S OUR FAULT FOR ABANDONING THE LARGEST SECTOR OF WORK AVAILABLE! Sure plenty of Architects do residential work for the rich, but we are designing a very small fraction of the most numerous building type in America. If we want houses to last and not end up in the landfill every couple of decades, then WE must make them beautiful AND functional. I believe it's safe to say that the amateurs are doing a very lousy job without us and now their handiwork dictates what we design. Am I the only one insulted by this? What's the matter with us?
I have proven that a sole proprietor can make the same or better money doing residential work for regular people, provided one can recognize the appropriateness of the services offered and what a client really needs from us. Look at the difference in the amount of information found in a plan book set of drawings and a high end residential project. If you insist on providing full service for everything, then you have eliminated 80% of America from being potential customers. Most of us are in this category, so we should understand that we would never afford our fees for house plans, so how could others like us afford them? The only way we will expand our worth is to expand our pool of work. Lucky for us, we have a huge untapped resource that could help us double our numbers and reset the design bar to something unobtainable for the hacks.
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Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
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