Unfortunately, we think we're more involved in this sector of the industry than we really are. Most builders, most home owners, and most product manufacturers of "regular guy/ gal" housing have rarely engaged in the services or do business with a licensed Architect. When we created pattern books around the turn of the century in an effort to get better design out to the masses, we really set the course for disconnecting us from home design for the masses. Leila Ross Wilburn in my area to Gustav Stickley and his Craftsman magazine all made their contribution to making good design accessible. This unfortunately set a precedent to design houses without knowledge of the site they sit on.
Though some may disagree, Custom Design for me means designing houses specific for the site, whether directly for the occupant or for the investor/builder who intends to sell it to an unknown buyer. Some feel this must be taken to the extreme of micromanaging design for the specific homeowner down to the door knob. When we insist on Architectural Design being a Custom experience and we keep narrowing down what is Custom Design, we marginalize ourselves to a very small pool of customers. When so many Architects are disgusted with the idea of designing a Custom House that will be sold to an unknown owner, we eliminate our involvement in the vast majority of the housing market. It's just another design problem, don't be scared.
2006 Census:
1.8 million New Buildings Total
1.6 million New Houses
1.3 million New Spec Houses
100K New Houses Commissioned by Owners and built by Owners
200K New Houses Commissioned by Owners, built by Contractors
170K New Commercial Buildings
Not many of those 1.3 million spec houses were designed specifically for the site, not many of the 100K houses built by the owner were designed by Architects, most of the 200K houses commissioned by owners and built by professional builders came from plan books. Between the 170,000 commercial buildings and the houses that we Custom Designed specific to the owner's needs, it's probably generous to assume 250,000 buildings in America were Custom Designed by Architects TOTAL out of 1,800,000! Most of those 250,000 are commercial buildings. My guess is that we maybe Custom designed 50,000 houses at the top of the boom. In fact, the number of Custom Houses commissioned by owners went down from 330K in 1997 to 320K in 2006. The spec houses went from 750K to 1.3 million during that same period.
Now everyone I want you to ask yourself why you think society should be giving us more face time on TV or at Builder Shows when we're barely designing a fraction of the buildings in this country? Most people can't afford to buy a new house any other way other than buying a spec house. So what's the solution? Force everyone to use us and kill the housing market? Better Plan Books? Who will know who you are if your design comes from a book? How will your same design look and function in the cold mountains of Denver and the flat swampland of Miami? We all need to start Custom designing more of those 1,300,000 spec houses if we want to be viewed as a significant participant in the Home Building Industry as a whole, yet here we are. I've found that there is a huge void going unfilled. There are many people who can't afford to build or wait to build a fully Customized Architectural design, but want more than the El Cheapo box. A Custom spec house built once, specific for it's site that isn't a simplistic box seems to be filling that void. A high end spec house. I've seen spec houses sell for over a million dollars in my area.
If there are only 3 design vendors, then 1 licensed Architect sounds generously disproportionate in our favor considering our actual involvement in the Home Building Industry. I'm glad one is showing up.
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Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-23-2013 12:18
From: Brenda Nelson
Subject: Home Shows
I have learned that the Des Moines Home and Garden Show is coming up in a few weeks. I've never actually attended one of these, but I see them in major metro areas all the time and hear that attendance numbers can be in the thousands. The Des Moines show website has a list of exhibitors and under the "architecture etc..." category there are three listed. One appears to be an actual architect, the other two look like they are design firms that aren't architects or a home builder with a set of plans to offer. Which brings me to this question...why is the AIA not attending these? And/or why aren't more architects at these? I have a lot of people ask me about house design and even if they don't engage our services, aren't we trying to educate the general public about our profession?
And here's the second part...these shows have a main stage with a variety of presentations. I've attached the schedule from the Des Moines show for you to scan through. There isn't a professional architect on the list anywhere. To be fair, the HGTV gal is apparently a trained interior designer with a degree from Parsons in New York.
Can the AIA and/or CRAN develop a program that the local or state AIA component can present at these functions? Or that local architects can present at these functions? I still believe that part of the reason no one knows what we do is because we seem to avoid these main stream functions. I know it takes time away from our businesses and may not yield a single commission but I also think that it has possibilities worth exploring.
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Brenda Nelson Assoc. AIA
Woodruff Design, LLC
Ankeny IA
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