​correction: 'Merica (not to be confused with Méjico​).

I don't think you understand this very well.  You sound like a realtor.

He's got it all figured out and is only coming here to confirm his beliefs. Don't rain on his parade.

That is how I explain it realtors lol These architects that sell the plans offer the ability to modify the plans. You buy the home and modify it to suit your needs.

It is good to hear the opinions of other architects that aren't involved. It is mostly "home designers" that participate. They make bank though. Upwards of $200k a year if they do it right with over 1k plans for sale. 

I am well into the industry and would like to hear the reasoning behind why certain architects feel this way. This way I can strengthen our product and offerings

Although teaming up against the idea does not provide what I am looking for.

Well into the industry is code for what, 2 years out of school these days? Damn, like I said earlier, if you can find someone dumb enough to buy stock plans, fine, take their money, but stock plans are the wallmart of the profession. Never seen one site or example I felt was worth 10% of the asking price.

Most designers already made their money when they first designed the plan for the client. So they got paid for their hours already. Reselling the plan at that point involves the cost of shipping and printing, which is covered by the shipping and handling of the product. As far as modifications go, I know architects that charge $100/hr with a minimum set of hours. Many of the changes have already been made, so tacking on that basement for $500 isn't an issue since they already made the basement for another client.

So, in other words, you made your money already and this is just residual income for reselling that plan to people that would never use your services because they don't live in your area. This allows you to earn more money, in the end without much effort at all right?

Also, the homes sell for ~$1000-$6000 each. So you get your "$50,000" each and then each year if they sold ten times you get an additional $5,000-$30,000 after all fees are paid. Not like you are designing these huge luxurious homes for free and then selling them for nothing. lol Plus Tiny Homes are all the rage right now, you can not tell me it take more th an a days work to design one of those and throw it online for $500

Arch, that last comment of yours demonstrates that you know very little on this subject... and for once, Ricky's rant is rather accurate.

Not knowing much seems to be the way to go, unfortunately.

^ I hear ya. Showing up with stock plans to my city's building department is a sure way to be crucified on the spot.

$1000-$6000 per print of an unbuildable house plan is good money.

I'm still waiting for Balkins to show us some of the buildings he designed! Get the fuck out!

have we ever seen any actual examples of Balkins' work?

It's right here in front of you.

Yes, we have. I don't have time to dredge up the links at the moment, but the ones I'm aware of: 1. A recent design charrette - group project with landscape students. Not actual built work: a blessing, because it's not code compliant; 2. A floor plan and elevation of a house, in which the main entrance was at the end of the bedroom wing, there were two mostly-glass walls that had a view of the broad side of the garage, and the house had no bathrooms. Also not actual built work, luckily; 3. A deck attached to a building belonging to his community college. Actual built work. Not ADA-compliant, and appeared from his photos to be wracking/heaving; 4. A report on stone construction and preservation - another academic group project, large swaths of which are plagiarized from other publications; 5. The infamous Astoria Opry theater - there is debate on this one, as both the theater and the city seemed to have no record of RB's involvement.  It would probably be better if he didn't insist that he worked on this, as code violations are abundant, and it's also been measured by licensed engineers who found it to be a few too many inches tall to be exempt from requiring a licensed professional. Some of these projects are on RB's website.

would LOVE to see some of this

There's that misused "maybe" again. Perhaps you should customize your spellcheck so that it always rejects "maybe".

The lack of a ramp is only one of five ADA issues that I see with that deck. The fact that you don't recognize the others is evidence of why your state should not allow unlicensed "building designers".

So to sum it up you call yourself a "building designer", but have never designed a single building?

"Be my guess." ??? Umm, yeah - your guess is as good as...

Guardrails aren't one of the five issues I have in mind. Also show me in the applicable accessibility standards where it says you don't need to meet ADA if the structure is present for 180 days or less.

kjdt, can you share where this thing is?

Most, if not all, of these things are in older threads here on archinect. It's difficult to search for them - there are just so many Rick-infested threads, and this site doesn't have a very good search interface.

The charrette with the landscape architects, and the plagiarism about masonry restoration are both here: http://rickbalkins.wavestar.x10host.com/

Oh shit!

Here's the plan and elevation of the house with no bathroom: https://postimg.org/image/wvhaa4v15/

As for temporary structures: even occupiable temporary art installations are required to meet ADA. If it's an unoccupiable sculpture then you might be in the clear - but then you probably would not want to attach it to a building exit.

Tents are temporary and need a building permit!

Unless there's some other equivalent accessible deck, then this one has to be on an accessible route. Federal law. It doesn't matter if it's temporary. 

I think you already know that. You're either playing really dumb or you are really dumb. Either way I'm ready to sign onto the Ignore Balkins Pledge too. Bye.

this has been...illuminating. so does he just live with his parents or off of an inheritance or what? clearly no one is paying him for any actual work

Yes he lives with his parents. Sometimes he is a movie theater janitor.

He's also mentioned picking up shifts on a garbage truck.

The way around it is that, in your contract, you are selling a design, not permit drawings. It has to be very clear that you're not giving them something that they can use to build. Also, take off all the titlehead stuff. They can then take it to the city themselves, and try to walk it through and get the permit guys to catch all your mistakes for you. When/if they come back to you saying that the plans you show them can't get permitted (say without X, Y, or Z information) reiterate that they bought a design scheme, and that more work would need to be done. At this point, you may also offer them your standard rate to upgrade the drawings and walk them through permitting for them. I'm in commercial work now, but before registration, I charged $500 for as-builts and minor changes, then a range of pricing, usually hourly, for multiple schemes. Most homeowners made up their minds after spending about $1000. This included separate fees for sketchup models if they needed to "visualize it" etc. Then walking it through permitting cost another $2k.

It is much easier for "home designers" than architects to pull this off. Simply state that they are buying the plans for a home that was designed for a specific area at a specific time. Codes may not be up to date and the home may not be suitable for your property which may require some modification. Still, it is great to start with something than to build something from scratch. Architects and home designers are creative, most people aren't. If they can hand over drawings of what they want after looking over 1000's of plans, it is a lot easier than pulling a picture out of a magazine which is copyrighted or trying to find ways to pull the image of what they want out of their head

Is that common to be required to stamp a drawing even if it wouldn't normally need an architect? I've run across this twice recently too. I don't really feel like stamping someone's HGTV dream, so I guess stick to commercial where there are at least some more sophisticated players.

Yes, that's in most (but not all) states' statutes that an architect or engineer must stamp any drawings, schedules, and specifications that they do that are submitted for permitting, even if that project would not require a stamp if done by someone unlicensed. The intent is to hold licensed professionals to the same standard of care regardless of the type of project.

yup, must stamp even if project is exempt -- responsibility lies with the professional , not the documents.

Helps explain why an architect tried to submit plans under my name before I got licensed. Just submit them under your dead grandma's name, sheesh.

So if I'm licensed in one jurisdiction but do exempt plans in another, am I required stamp them there too? Of course not, right?

Richard Balkins: "maybe" and "may be" are not the same. The former is not slang, nor is it a contraction of "may be". "May be" is a verb clause. "Maybe" is always an adverb - it doesn't stand on its own - it needs to describe a verb. For example: in your attempted sentence "It maybe annoying and frustrating" (as are so many of your posts) there is no verb. You might as well be writing "It tomorrow annoying and frustrating" - that makes about as much sense. If you want to play lawyer, learn to write at above a third grade level.

or: you're dumb

I don't dislike you, nor have I said or implied that you should leave the forum. Evidence of that is the fact that I'm still conversing with you. Most of the forum regulars have collectively put you on permanent ignore - and I'm the one you think wants you gone?

I do not agree with you that the difference between the two words will go unnoticed to most readers.  It's a glaring mistake that you're making over and over and over - it makes it appear that you do not have an elementary grasp of English.  If you want people to take you seriously you should write more carefully.  You tend to go for length rather than clarity. That always makes you look dumb.

And shit, the thing no one talks about is that there are tons and tons of run down homes in poor communities that you can buy, remodel, and sell to people. Many people in that demographic do not have cash to sink into repairs and need a low cost home that is already in good shape. You can make decent money too while helping underserved communities. It’s not a get rich quick glamorous Dwell mag thing, but it’s much more important.

Rich people are really that cheap. I don't do much residential anymore, but when I did I got lots of requests for help from people who'd bought their land, bought their stock plan, and lined up a builder - and then discovered that they needed oodles of changes to their stock plan to make it buildable. The stock plan companies sell the plans cheap - a few thousand dollars for mc-mansion plans. Where those stock plan companies try to make money is on changes. They charge $100 or more per individual change, per drawing. So if you have to enlarge one window to meet your local permitting requirements and it affects 2 plans, a section, an elevation, the window types, and a schedule, there's $600 in drafter fees to the stock plan company. If you want to move walls around or re-design the kitchen or change the roof line then you're getting into thousands or tens of thousands, and all of a sudden the cheap stock plans aren't cheap anymore. Those plans are stamped all over "copyrighted, may not be edited, altered, or otherwise modified" - so I wouldn't do it unless they wanted to pay for me to redesign and draw new drawings. Sometimes they chose to scrap the stock plans and start over with me, sometimes they chose to pay $30k worth of individual miniscule changes to the stock plan company to have their drafter do it, and sometimes they chose to let their builder painstakingly white-out or photoshop out thousands of "copyrighted..." warnings from all over the plans so that the builder or the client's nephew-who-is-studying-lighting-design could draw over them in Sketchup.

"how many houses are built this way?" we see lots of homes built this way, mostly rural settings -- people who are self-starters and on a budget are often able to make it work. "are rich people really that cheap?" yes, but not all of them...we work with the ones that see the difference in value between quick/easy & thoughtful

I'm very curious how much income he gets from these plans. I've read a portion of one of his books , which talks about total income, maybe he breaks it down later on.

@shellarchitect - Did you enjoy the book?

Why would you be making prints? Stock plans are usually sold as pdfs, downloaded by buyer, so their problem to print.

So you're planning to sell stock plans one paper set at a time? Good luck with that. Let us know how it goes.

Until then, time to join the ignore button campaign.

Rick, the project I designed was essentially a spec house, so most of my time was already paid for. The incremental cost to convert them into stock plans is minimal. I'm kinda pissed that I hadn't done the math before on what I'm losing by not converting the project to a stock plan. I actually designed the home specifically to appeal to a broad range of clients and to fit on a broad range of sites, sort of a modern farmhouse. It was sponsored by a national magazine so that definitely helped with exposure. I've been directing inquiries to several colleagues who have lines of pre-designed homes.

True, clients deserve unique work, but nothing is truly original so it doesn't take much to make a custom design more generic. I have hundreds or maybe thousands or designs I've done for clients or just for fun that won't get built for various reasons that could all be converted into stock plans pretty easily. It's fairly easy and commonly done to add verbiage that makes you not liable for anything.

And who the hell is spending 500 hours on design for a house. That would have to be quite a house. I've spent twice that time on very custom projects, but I can design and fully detail a new home in 100 to 150 hours, 200 tops.

These are all friends or people I know at least, making a significant portion of their income from very high quality stock home plans:

https://www.solsken.us/plans (I actually designed their "tulip" model, but did not name it...)

https://www.brightbuilthome.co...

http://www.hollandandfoley.com...

http://thegohome.us/

Rick, I'm not speaking theoretically, I actually make a living designing houses and renovations. Nothing I do is cookie-cutter, but not much is super high end either. I have spent 1000+ hours on a million dollar renovation, and almost 500 hours on what amounted to a kitchen addition, but most of my projects are for upper middle class people like doctors and lawyers who want a new home in the $400K to $800K range, or a renovation in the $200K to $400K range. I can deliver those in 100 to 200 hours, including construction details and energy modeling. That's assuming I don't get too wrapped up in interior design, which can eat up a lot of time.

The point is, the people who can afford to hire an architect to spend 500 hours on a custom home are not the market for pre-designed home plans. Most of the market of new-home buyers are not going to pay an architect for 500 hours of work. 

That Florida guy... Cheap finishes, nonsensical layouts, big wastes of space for no reason, children's book illustration level representation of some semblance of regional styles... yeesh.

They do kind of look like something that the roadrunner would zoom by over and over in the background of a cartoon. Unfortunately there's a large swath of American homeowners who aspire to owning a cartoon house.

He's got an excuse for everything. Looking back, 10 years passed and nothing changed in his life. It's very sad!

He said in another thread that he just did that recently, for an assignment. He's trying to finally finish a 2nd associate degree (after 15 years of community college+3 years at a 4-year university). When anybody questions why it's taking so long he says he wasn't full time in most years. But when anybody questions his education he claims he was full time most years. He's conveniently inconsistent, to suit any argument.

Honestly, I think the webpages I was building in the mid 90s are spectacular compared to ricky’s.

At least he actually made the website. That's better than the term paper that he links to on there, which is 90% verbatim copied from other websites. It's also better than nearly everything else he's ever said he was going to do, in the sense that he hasn't actually gotten around to doing any of those things - but he did make a website.

Check out his contact page..wtf?

Html5 is pretty much the best thing ever

instead of frames, use php. https://www.w3schools.com/php/php_includes.asp

I guess you can't do responsive web design on a
Commodore.

First he writes “...want clients that can pay for it”...then her writes “Good architects feel and believe they have a social responsibility“. Good architects either care about making good design more available for the masses, or they care about producing high quality custom projects. Both cannot be true. Not that one is right or wrong...there is a place for each approach, but you can’t claim that high-end custom luxury architecture is synonymous with “social responsibility”.

I betcha BB only wears custom tailored clothing from custom woven cloth from textiles raised on custom sheep.

I misspoke on that a bit...both can be true for a single architect, but not for a single architecture.

“Mass availability is the antithesis to exclusivity.” Exclusive yet socially responsible lol.

Tintt-

Im an immigrant, own a few custom tail coats, and make a living as an architect. What do you have going on as an American-born citizen?

^because his doorman has a nicer custom suit.

Lol

I grew up poor so I learned to sew in a house my great grandfather (an immigrant stonemason and carpenter) built.

Culturally significant and socially responsible are not the same thing. Socially implies that you are speaking of the masses, the “exclusive” minority that you aspire to serve is literally the opposite of that. Nothing wrong with that, just can’t open a 5 star molecular gastronomy restaurant and claim that your goal is to end world hunger.

Diller Scofidio, do you know Merica?

Oh, what class are you in?

Jla-x : you must live in a utopian fantasy where class doesn’t exist. Acknowledging the existence of class and people’s respective social standings is something that gets interpreted as a form of aggression towards them. There are people of various classes in this online community- and that is fine. But what I dont understand is why people like you seen to promote an agenda in which the only way “forward” in the world is to somehow accept others despite behaviors/customs/etiquettes that make them incompatible with members of the upper classes.

I wouldn’t want to have someone who curses, degrades women, listens to music with questionable lyrics, etc (low class behavior) around my kids. For the record- Trump may be a billionaire, but he’s low-class...

BB, what class are you in?

I wouldn't let my kids around a guy who told people he was in a higher class than a doorman.

trying to wrap my head around this one. just to make clear then, it's ok for decent people to invite their doorman into their house if the doorman behaves like decent people, but it's not ok to invite trump supporters into your house, due to them not behaving like decent people?

Spic plans? You racist.

tintt, I think he’s an aristocrat.

There are two class systems. One is based on economics, the other on behavior. They are not without influence on each other. In my experience money tends to make people boorish (entitlement, etc.). The penultimate reference is Class by Paul Fussell.

Curtkram - yes, if my doorman behaved in a way that I respected, I would have him over every day... however, most of the time that is NOT the case...

is the doorman a trump supporter?

True class only reveals itself when disaster hits. See the last scene of Titanic. Money and manners won’t predict who will step on your face to get into the life boat, or who will give you a hand.

class and humanity are not the same thing...

I enjoy designing for the non-upper class. I couldn't imagine designing for people like BB.

Ok, you are correct on the semantics, but “class” is a very shallow thing to judge people on. People should be judged as individuals not members of a social or economic class. When people are obsessed with that kind of thing it’s usually because of some kind of insecurity.

j, I think he is a member of the insufferables.

So you are saying that hardworking families are just interested in a pastiche/gimmick/knockoff of the real thing, because they can't afford the real thing... Good architects are interested in offering the real deal, not a polyester suit made to look like a linen/silk one...

aren't suits typically made of wool? surely this goes back to the class discussion above.

Some architects are interested in all sorts of higher ideals (however they may define them) but most are more interested in a paycheck. You can't eat ideals.

Problem is some architect designs are no better than stock plans for a fraction of the cost. Good perspective on square space and web designers... so true.

The architects I know selling stock plans are all very talented and as busy as can be doing custom work. They are selling pre-designed plans primarily to bring reasonably good design to the masses, as well as augment a paycheck that can be less than secure when you only work for the 1%.

I'm not claiming any level of talent, but I have designed and built for the 1% and the 0.1% and prefer working for those a little farther down the ladder. Not because I can't get those jobs, but because I don't like those people and how they treat others. 

Non sequitur (not you, Non). There are plenty of architects doing bad custom houses. It's just a bigger check.

Get a team of lawyers to write up a shiny TOS and cross your fingers.

Sorry, necroing this thread to add an important thing to factor in with stock house plans:

One thing when doing stock plans (pre-drawn) plans are: E&O insurance may not cover stock house plans as it may be essentially excluded under an exclusion. 

However, it may be covered by another type of insurance (sometimes included in Commercial general liability [CGL] insurance), that is... product liability insurance. While you might say, we aren't producing a product. Au contraire, the stock plans themselves are products/goods. To an extent, that also applies to what is built but GCs deals with workmanship defect issues... we would be subject to design defect issues. 

The workmanship defect would be next to zero... only being maybe the actual prints, themselves. 

If you are going into stock house plans, you may want to consider talking with the insurance carrier regarding product liability insurance coverage for design defects from what is built from the product goods (the plans), carefully worded warranties or something as it may apply your CGL / BOP (BOP = Business Owner's Policy). Additionally, you'll probably want E&O (professional liability) insurance coverage for customization work (services) you may perform. 

E&O coverage may leave you a gaping hole that you need to cover under another type of insurance policy such as product liability insurance. This coverage should be relatively inexpensive but volume of sales may factor in. 

However, your product liability exposure will mostly be in the form of design defect issues or failure to warn/disclaimer. You can mitigate the risk. 

Additionally, forming an LLC or similar business entity types will also be advantageous.

Be mindful to minimize expressed or implied warranties. ie. Don't over-promise or over-claim. General "don't" if you are trying to mitigate liability risks. Product liabilities may fall into a form of strict liability offense. 

Stock house plans would be a fringe case of sorts. If you are a furniture manufacturer, this would be a clear case of product liability applying given that the design and manufacturing are under the responsibility of one legal party.... often the case is in a very vertically integrated business. House plans are goods as is what is built from them. 

In the stock house plan commerce and the housing developed from the plans, the liability would likely be bifurcated between the designer and builder... mainly along the lines of design flaws and workmanship flaws.

From Weycer Law Firm's website: https://weycerlawfirm.com/blog...

What is Product Liability?

Product liability refers to when you’re trying to hold a manufacturer liable for an injury you sustained while using their product. Unlike in strict liability cases, you have to be able to show some sort of negligence from the part of the Defendant (the entity getting sued). There are three ways you can do so in these kinds of cases:

1. Design Defects. This type of product liability claim alleges that the design of the product was erroneous, making the product unreasonably dangerous to the consumer. If a defect in design harms the consumer or a third party (bystander, passenger, etc…), the injured party will be able to sue for product liability. Examples of design defects include making a chair that cannot hold weight, or a car that is so top heavy it makes it more prone to roll over in the case of an accident.

2. Manufacturing Defects. Manufacturing defects include using outdated components, or the wrong type of screws, or attaching parts incorrectly, or building a product in a way that makes it unreasonably dangerous. For example, making lamps that are prone to causing electric shocks when plugged in, or a blender with a lid that fails to fasten properly.

3. Failure to Warn. Designers of a product also have the responsibility to warn consumers about any limitations to use. Going back to the chair example, if it can only hold up to 200 lbs, it should include a warning letting consumers know about such limitation. Another example is a warning about the side effects of certain medications. Manufacturers are required to test their products to be aware of any limitations or side effects, both for the intended purpose as well as for foreseeable uses of their product (e.g. using a chair as a step stool).

------------------------------------

As designers, of the stock house plans, we'll be responsible under #1 and in part #3 as it pertains to the design. The builder would have responsibilities under #2 and in part #3 as it pertains to building it. E&O pertains to services (professional services) where pre-designed plans themselves are goods sold vs. services rendered. So, E&O may have a hole in coverage so you may consider product liability insurance to address that hole for stock house plans.

Under no circumstances am I an attorney. In addition, this is not a complete and exhaustive coverage of these legal matters.You should consult your own legal counsel and insurance carrier to understand these issues as it may apply to your business activities.

The same thing happens where there are mountains of money for architecture.

True, but I'm not really familiar with that condition.

I like that one... but I'd say it would be meh if every other house looked like it too.

I am not familiar with the urban design around the Venturi home. But if it's your typical American burbs, yes that's horrible most of the time.

Horrible to whom? Many people like the suburban lifestyle for its convenience. Urban areas are imo horrible if you have kids. It just becomes annoying to deal with, and with less free time to sit around and sip coffee on the street, or hop around bars, it’s really more of a burden than a benefit. Add to that the small living areas, lack of green space, and high costs...Environmentally, yes it’s almost always destructive, but doesn’t necessarily have to be. Architects and academics also almost always ignore the qualities and cultural relevance of suburbs.

Cities were not always places people wanted to live. It took a long time for cites to become desired places. Suburbs have only been around for a short time. Improvement can be made. Improving the quality of the dwellings, the urban design, the relationship to the environment.

Urban areas are imo horrible if you have kids. It just becomes annoying to deal with, and with less free time to sit around and sip coffee on the street, or hop around bars, it’s really more of a burden than a benefit.

If you have kids and are still hopping around bars, something's gotta be wrong with you...

Reading comprehension. I said that when someone had kids they don’t typically do those things...and living in an urban area is more of a burden than an amenity.

Horrible to whom? The planet for starters. All these resources wasted on commuting between work in the city and home in the suburbs, all this time spent away from the family but stuck in traffic, not being able to get around without a car AND a trimmed lawn does not equal green space. Urban areas are great for having kids, daycare is around the corner, literally, and so is a café ;) The library is on the other side of the canal, part of a combined school/gym/daycare/coffee place/apartment block that faces a square with small neighbourhood shops run by local people. Within 5 min. walking distance I have three different larger supermarkets to choose from. There's a nice little family park with playing equipment for kids and suggestive sculptures by artist/designer Joep van Lieshout for the adults at the end of the street, if I look the other way there's a nice canal that has a Mecanoo swimming pool on it's edge and tram and busstops on its bridge. Within 10 min. walking distance there's a larger park, designed by famous landscape architects, with a children's petting zoo and a nature playground where kids build huts, explore and play in the mud, make campfires to roast bread, there are also two daycares in the park, a sports club (korfball!), event spaces, restaurants, a small cinema, a brewery and an icecream shop just to name a few. There was a circus in the park not too long ago, a kid's fair with rides just now I think and different musical events and festivals year round. Also, I hear lots of birds chirping while typing this at 6 in the morning, so yeah that's horrible.

That's really romantic, randomised. I live in an urban area with kids in the US, I should write my version sometime. lol. First, we live in the city but my husband commutes to a suburb (our fault I know, we suck). Quick, do you guys have problems with poop in parks? Dog poop, goose poop? Syringes, condoms in parks, etc? Our local elementary school does not have a library or a music program. 

I currently live in what would have been one of the first subburb of my city, back in the 60s. Now, it's borderline urban with services and proximity to transit... yet I get to keep my single-fam detached home. Homes stay on the market for hours here... not weeks. Suck it subburbanites, enjoy your secluded overpriced boxes.

My neighborhood is a first suburb too but from the 1880's.

Depends on the specific city and suburb in question.

Tintt, yes there's some dog poo but most people (their owners I suppose) pick that up and there are specific parts of the parks assigned to dogs and their owners so it's much easier to contain and avoid. Goose poo is only a minor issue at very isolated quiet places where water and grass meet and I haven't found a syringe since I live in Amsterdam, heroin is not that big over here or the users just use it in the privacy of their homes. And I think I only found 2 used condoms outside in all these years, but I haven't really looked for those so maybe I simply overlooked most of them.

Discarted syringes and used condoms are not uncommon for me... but that's mostly because we (Gov of Canada) give them away (along with pipes and sandwiches) to those who use/need them, for free. There are also daily clean-up crews dedicated for those so it's not as bad as it once was.

what kind of pipes?

The kind people like to smoke little white rocks in. Personally, they should add an option to deliver classic tobacco pipes too. I had one in grad school and would love to pull it out again on occasion.

I understand needles, but why do they give out pipes?

Pipes are shared amongst users and desease can spreadly easily. So fresh pipes are available.

I live in a suburban metro area that has a lot of large companies...one employs over 20k people of all levels...around here there is a mix of expensive sfr, low cost sfr, and apartments for all income spectrums. It’s not at all walkable, but there are a lot of good parks, natural areas, and attractions. I think the paradigm of companies being in cities and people commuting is starting to slowly change due to ridiculously high living costs of “desirable” cities. Also, sustainability is a complicated issue. Sure suburban areas are mostly very unsustainable as I acknowledged, but it’s very possible to make the urban form of sub-urban far more sustainable
than it is...

My area is the poster child of what not to do as an urban designer, but I see changes happening slowly. It’s not a matter of tabula rasa thinking...it is what it is...and we designers need to engage and improve it rather than wish it away...

You don't necessarily need to wish it away but at least don't make any more of them, that's the very least we can do as urban designers and architects. Don't become part of the problem but work on proposing solutions.

Do you assume that urbanism can be applied tabula-rasa rather than naturally evolved? The forces that caused cities to exist don’t really exist anymore. What we have now are cities that exist for amenity more than economic necessity. Urbanism without the Industry is as cartoonish as suburbia without the
smell of cowshit.

Sorry but I don't understand your response.

We have to look at cities from an evolutionary perspective. Cities evolved into what they are today because of specific economic forces like trade, industry, etc. That took time. Now the economic drivers have completely changed, but the city itself is a continuation of that lineage. We can’t force urban form, it occurs in tune with the economic forces of the times. There is no real necessity of location anymore to justify the same kind of cities of the past. Many new developments in and around post industrial cities are similar to the suburbs because they are replicating and marketing the positive traits/artifacts/evolutionary manifestations of “urban life.” Both are based on fantasy in a sense...the suburbs offer an artificial idealized slice of the countryside without the “smell of cow shit”. Similarly, some new urban projects offer an artificial idealized slice of urbanism with all of its amenities and none of its original economic driving forces and grit...leaving urban lifestyle a “commodity” in and of itself. In both cases, we’ve compartmentalized , dislocated (physically and psychologically), and centralized everything that makes the wheels turn out of site and mind, leaving only the amenities in place. It’s almost Disney like or Vegas like. This has some good, but mostly bad consequences. Environmentally, I’d say it’s more important to think about the decentralization and integration of production in tune with current economics and technologies than to be convinced of the superiority of the artifacts of past forces (as nice as they are.)

*y'all

I literally just said this tho, so...

I said that too, still took the place though simply because I'm an architect and made it work :)

Auto-centric and autocentric culture for starters.

Does that make me a designer elite?

So off-putting? That's where school shooters spawn.

The culture of suburbia is rich in its own way. Just have to watch a few good 80’s movies to get that. Academic and design elites are off-put by suburbs because they are comparing a new type of built environment to one that is older and more evolved. Not too long ago cities were terrible places to live. Technology improved, things changed, and now they are more desirable. I’m optimistic that the same will be true for suburbs as we further decentralize work, improve cars, and design more environmentally conscious dwellings and landscapes...

Some code changes could really improve suburbs also... Mainly, get rid of the stupid 5’ side setbacks. There is a case to be made for row houses and medium density sub-urban...

Should've said zoning overhaul not code...

"Why is suburbia so off-putting?" Suburbia is made up primarily of speculative developments that are comprised of lowest common denominator "features" that can be itemized on a spreadsheet. People buy and are satisfied by what's available. But what makes homes nice by comparison is efficient, thoughtful layouts made with honest materials and crafted with care. These can be modest, but since there isn't a quick way to market this type of home. Modesty in scope has not been saleable so we get the situation we have now where homes are distinguished by how many & how expensive the features are, not whether they are part of a thoughtful whole.

"These can be modest, but, since there isn't a quick way to market this type of home", there are few speculative developments that are actually any good. [partial sentence above not edited in time]

proto, its a chicken and egg argument. Developers offer a product that is affordable and acceptable to the buyer. Not great, but neither is McDonald's. Architects can't affect demand of a product without presenting an alternative product to the market. Designers are selling a service, developers are selling a product. The financing, process, etc is completely out of reach for the masses. Homeowners would 100% buy a better product if it existed on the same shelf for a comparable price. Supply precedes demand. No one demanded an i-phone. The product was introduced to the market. The burden of innovation is on the innovator not the consumer.

As long as speculative development is driven by amenities, as opposed to quality, nothing will change. There has been some movement by developers to appear green, which is dragging the quality back into buildings kicking & screaming because the marketing said so. But again, this is the marketing of perception vs a fundamental doing the right thing.

Rick, I don’t respect complacency. It is far from being a virtue. I don’t understand how people can be content with doing their 9-5 for years and years without ever wanting more in life. Ok- I take that back- people want more, but without putting in more. And im not talking aboit people who work 2 or 3 jobs. Yes- those people may be working long and hard, but they are putting in more effort than they should be if they want more money. Case in point: if you are working two or three jobs and still earning $40,000, quit one of your jobs and use that motivation to educate yourself in a way that would make you more valuable. Look at the loss as an investment. And to those who say they can’t because they need to support their families and pay off student debt: Don’t mean to uncompassionate, but no one made you make kids you can’t afford, and no one put a gun to your head telling you to take out debt you will be having a hard time paying back. Sometimes life sucks- but to simply kick back and pity yourself and become complacent and want nothing more than life is just a lazy way to live life... Part of the beauty of life is your ability to have dreams and fantasies. Nothing is too difficult to achieve; nothing is too difficult to obtain- even a custom-designed house.

One other thought- this idea that you need a 3 or 4,000 sf home is bullshit. The fantasy of most Americans described by the white picket fence, a suburban home where you are best friends with your nieghbors, where you have a yard in which your dog can run around, and a garage where everyone has a car is a misnomer. That is only 1 VERSION of the environment of the American Dream- yet that is the only environment advertised out there. And you know why a lot of people choose to stay at jobs for 30+ years? Its because they get locked into paying a 30 year mortgage by staying at a job they probably start hating after 5 years.

It goes beyond that--the whole "American (suburban) dream was heavily promoted BECAUSE it locked people into a 30-year mortgage.

The average family moves to a different home every seven years.

How much for a section?