Custom Residential Architects Network

Editors of Residential Architect and Planners for Reinvention 2012: Regarding your invitation to attend the Reinvention Symposium "Occupy Every Street", I have some thoughts. Your adoption of the "Occupy" appellation is a real offense and taints the tone and intention of the Reinvention Symposium. Are you unaware of the grotesque rhetoric, the violence and intimidation, the vandalism and destruction, of the so-called "Occupy movement" whose name you embraced--and by association endorse? Their "big picture" view of the American culture and economy? Their "wish list?" The opening line of your invitation implies that you are quite aware and speaks the demagogic slander of "residential architects hav(ing) a reputation for indulging the 1 percent with pristine jewel box houses." This snarky attitude, but particularly the inclusion of it in your announcement, is truly repugnant to me. It is incredibly shallow, even ignorant, and quite disturbing considering your role as publishers to architects. And this is an invitation? I am a "residential architect" and, yes, my clients, for decades, have probably been among the 1%. Is my career, and those of my fellows, now suppose to bear some shame for doing this work? My One Percenter clients have been uniformly dynamic, creative, engaged and very generous citizens, as well as excellent clients. Cumulatively, all of the projects might have cost the clients hundreds of millions of dollars. Put another way, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money, by way of these projects, in their communities on: State, County and City permits and fees, including school districts where they had no children attending. Architectural, engineering, and miscellaneous consulting services. Landscape Architects and contractors. Countless specialty contractors and subcontractors. Countless building materials suppliers. Interior designers, cabinet and furniture makers. Artists and sculptors. Gardeners and housekeepers. Decades of (escalating) property taxes. Capital gains, transfer taxes and real estate commissions on sales. Oh, and along the way, they created endowments; funded schools in Nepal/Central America/Africa, scholarships, medical research; supported the Opera, Symphony, Habitat for Humanity and PBS, to name but a very few of the hundreds of acts of philanthropy locally and worldwide. Come to think of it, they would, any and all, be excellent topics for the agenda of a Reinvention Symposium, Citizen Client. Look, don't be dissing the One Percenters and their architects. They are, and have always been, on the front lines of job and wealth creation, probably creativity itself--a "redistribution" that works, nurtures and enriches a healthy community and country. Occupy your thoughts and imagination with that, and ditch the clichés. Robert Zinkhan, AIA ------------------------------------------- Robert Zinkhan AIA Robert G. Zinkhan, Architect AIA Santa Rosa CA -------------------------------------------

Robert,
I think you're missing the point. 1% of the wealthiest home owners are NOT paying the majority of property taxes nor are they influencing the country to the same capacity as the rest of the 99%. Do you drive around America and see a majority of wonderful, Architecturally designed houses or do you see acres and acres of the same ugly floor plan, little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky? Clearly, your extremely polarized political views have clouded your ability to understand that the majority of the country is NOT benefitting from the services we Architects provide. Is this somehow a good thing in your mind? I've built a very lucrative business around providing good design to the 99% and I still design houses for 1%ers as well. I have a $1.3 million dollar house under construction in the same neighborhood where I'm also renovating a single story 100 year old house that will sell at spec for about $500K. I don't judge people based on their success, nor do I shame them for being average. I once designed a porch repair for an elderly neighbor who paid me with a tasty dinner and I'm pretty sure she was in the other 1%. Our problem as a profession is that we haven't been able to break into the housing market in a meaningful way because we're NOT designing for the average person. At the height of the building boom the residential sector made 200% more than commercial. We are missing out on the largest piece of the pie. We allow speculative builders to decide what the majority of our built environment should look like. We have been shoved aside by these builders and the general public judges us based on our absence. People think of the home builder 1st when wanting to build a house, not us. We think people have tacky taste, but the reality is that we have sat idly by as the builder gives them all of their options. No one is going to fall in love with great Architecture if it's unobtainable, but they do fall in love with ugly houses because many of us refuse to adjust our business models to accommodate the average guy or gal. Frankly, I find it sad that you would allow your intense political hatred to shame the majority of American clients who have nowhere else to go, but to a lousy speculative builder offering a single floor plan solution that is often repeated hundreds of times. THE BAN OF OUR EXISTENCE! Your list of rationale as to why only wealthy people matter personally disgusts me. Everyone matters poor and rich! Imagine if we Architects could get even a tiny piece of that regular people business? I'm getting a piece of that business and my houses are starting to put the squeeze on the cookie cutters because people in my area have begun to realize there is something better that is obtainable for them now and they don't have to live in the same house as their neighbor any more. Why is that a bad thing? Moreover, how is our profession going to benefit from an elitist attitude that only rich people matter?

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Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
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