Am I the only one out there who's disheartened by the lack of transparency in terms of budget on built works? Not to discount anyone's efforts but - everything I see is always catering to the neoliberal agenda: build with reinforced concrete, clad with precious wood, huge floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere. I think it's pretty easy to slap on and collage luxury materials, what's hard is making something inexpensive look nice. The average person cannot afford to commission a house like this (maybe only a tiny house). Can anything Instagram-worthy actually be built for under 300K?
Why isn't budgeting ever a topic in our pedagogy? Sure, the devil is in the details, but what about the bank account? Are we to remain pawns to the rich and powerful in perpetuity? Or is this just how things are and have always been?
you should ask who is hiring architects - and who is building affordable dwellings. Generally speaking, affordable dwelling is built by governments, governments are accountable to the wealthy, end of the line. How can you keep the populace entertained and worried about mundane things like taking the trash to the next block or the leaky windows if you build them nice things? Once they live in a place like ours, they will have too much time and want to become free.
Nov 16, 21 4:27 pm ·
·
delfina
good point JLC... so how do you
feel about these conditions?
Nov 16, 21 4:37 pm ·
·
JLC-1
doesn't really matter how I feel; this "system" where all society is tasked with catering only to the rich can't last, because the rich consume 10 times what the rest of us do, hence we will run out of resources. But right now it's a race, what will collapse first? Climate or Society?
I hope it's society. We can and should restart this civilization, and make it work for everybody this time.
I'm in conversations about construction costs almost daily. Perhaps in part due to my focus, high-performance residential design, which is a niche that involves a lot of passion and sharing among professionals, and costs are a critical component of virtually every project so we put it front and center.
A 600sf house (ADU) I designed was just built to Passive House standards on the Maine coast for under $200K for the building alone. Most of my new homes follow the Pretty Good House approach, simple and good quality with good performance, 1500 to 3000 sf, and are coming in between $250 and 350 per square foot. (https://www.prettygoodhouse.or...) Square foot pricing is not a good way to estimate projects but it's the only tool I know of to compare costs.
As to why costs aren't published more often, in my experience it's almost always due to clients who want privacy. It's often hard enough to get them to let me share photos of their interiors; they don't want their neighbors to know how much they paid.
budget transparency
Am I the only one out there who's disheartened by the lack of transparency in terms of budget on built works? Not to discount anyone's efforts but - everything I see is always catering to the neoliberal agenda: build with reinforced concrete, clad with precious wood, huge floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere. I think it's pretty easy to slap on and collage luxury materials, what's hard is making something inexpensive look nice. The average person cannot afford to commission a house like this (maybe only a tiny house). Can anything Instagram-worthy actually be built for under 300K?
Why isn't budgeting ever a topic in our pedagogy? Sure, the devil is in the details, but what about the bank account? Are we to remain pawns to the rich and powerful in perpetuity? Or is this just how things are and have always been?
you should ask who is hiring architects - and who is building affordable dwellings. Generally speaking, affordable dwelling is built by governments, governments are accountable to the wealthy, end of the line. How can you keep the populace entertained and worried about mundane things like taking the trash to the next block or the leaky windows if you build them nice things? Once they live in a place like ours, they will have too much time and want to become free.
good point JLC... so how do you feel about these conditions?
doesn't really matter how I feel; this "system" where all society is tasked with catering only to the rich can't last, because the rich consume 10 times what the rest of us do, hence we will run out of resources. But right now it's a race, what will collapse first? Climate or Society?
I hope it's society. We can and should restart this civilization, and make it work for everybody this time.
I'm in conversations about construction costs almost daily. Perhaps in part due to my focus, high-performance residential design, which is a niche that involves a lot of passion and sharing among professionals, and costs are a critical component of virtually every project so we put it front and center.
A 600sf house (ADU) I designed was just built to Passive House standards on the Maine coast for under $200K for the building alone. Most of my new homes follow the Pretty Good House approach, simple and good quality with good performance, 1500 to 3000 sf, and are coming in between $250 and 350 per square foot. (https://www.prettygoodhouse.or...) Square foot pricing is not a good way to estimate projects but it's the only tool I know of to compare costs.
As to why costs aren't published more often, in my experience it's almost always due to clients who want privacy. It's often hard enough to get them to let me share photos of their interiors; they don't want their neighbors to know how much they paid.
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