I've often wondered why we as Americans have such low standards for what passes as our built environment. Living in such a wealthy country one would assume we would expect high standards for design. Who's to say what the reason is. My opinion is that is comes from the consummerism culture of the USA. Instant gratification. The whole "I want my building and I want it now" thing doesn't help. It seems every client I've worked with has been in an uber rush to get into his/her building and is willing to sacrfice design time for it. Then I hear radio ads for pre-manufactured steel buildings and they talk up their aesthetics by adding stucco. Yeah, that'll look great! It's frusturating. How do we change this? Got me but I think it will take a sea change in thinking that probably won't happen in our lifetime.

I think it will happen in our lifetimes (assume you are close to my age :-). With a population growth of 95 million (1/3) in the next 30 years, there will have to be governmental standards imposed to ensure it's not a free for all. Competitions will be used more often and it'll open up the doors for younger firms and new ideas.
Prefab will change the idea of what you can get, taht it doesn't all have to be McMansions.

God I hope there is, anyway!

was in stockholm about a year ago- the design aesthetic was so pervasive, everywhere- I remember there was even a hinge that caught my eye.....
sometimes i think that here in the us, we just don't have that sensibility- whether it;s because we were never provided with it, or we could never create i don't know...
we can;t even fall back on the $$ driven society , which might suggest a tight , functional sort of anti-aesthetic ... but instead we've enormous surplus, luxury, that build and wants to build the strangest things? i don;t understand why. for those of you who are practicing architects, how do you feel about the us market ?

c, why limit your comment only to 'non-architect's standard building"?

i think the comment applicable with or without an architect.

what bothers me more is why such a difference in the notion of 'practice' in the so-called 'profession' v. academia?

academics try via discourse to burst the buble but why so little voices when it comes to actual building? is it just a great issue of a lack of interest in anything design or creative in this country?

As the archigram motto goes:

“Architecture or rain!”

i think a big part of the problem is not only consumerism, but wastefulness. I had never heard of the concept of a "15-year" building or a ten-year bldg until my second year in arch school at an internship. It comes down to cost efficiency for the client, and it isn't cost efficient to produce a 50-year building if one will get their money back on it in 15. In this case it was a (god-awful) casino, in middle America, and you know the impoverished masses would drop enough change in a few short years to justify the cost of the crappy building. Put up a glossy-looking movie set in a metal shed and people are convinced enough to buy into it, and yet have no reason to become attached to it or care when you rip it down in 10 years--it's something like the flavor-of-the-week TV show. It's a blip on the screen of the built environment.

My question is, with all the suburban sprawl, big boxes, prototypical franchises, etc. called "architecture" that many architects put up in the 80's, 90's --of all that, very little is worth saving for any reason. Culturally, economically, historically -- it has so little value in helping to create a meaningful landscape for humanity, a place that shapes our lives. How long are we as architects going to be a part of this?

And, would legislation to promote (read: force) sustainable design and materials help or hurt our cause? Such as proving that a building is built to last, using durable and functional materials; that it can have a second life with another function; that once its usefulness has past, the materials can be reused? ....(is this food for another thread...?)