Observation: construction costs are rising due to complex rooflines, high-priced flashing, and irregular foundation geometries due to seemingly whimsical floor plan angles and curves. Have you wondered how we came to accept a status quo that is characterized by difficult to build and conduct spec or custom plans that spell headache as a supervene of framing nightmares and delays? It seems only a soft market can curtail the current extravagance and waste (design-wise) in much of the existing stock of move up and custom plans resulting in out of funds numbers. To ward off the high costs of new home construction (and narrowing profitability for the builder/ developer) let's look for a little at exactly what we are building, and act sensibly now by examining precedence. For wisdom in construction law let us go back for the future.
Recall that our current 'contemporary' designs are admittedly based on the thinking of late 19th century American Craft movement architects like McKim, Mead, and White, at times construction for clients who did not have the resources of the Vanderbilts, in a free-form vernacular. There was a backlash against the Greco-Roman model (on which was based our colonial style) by Americans of modest means, as it tended to be contrived and difficult to 'fill out', especially for starter and midsize homes. The resulting 'organic' development of the plan (with no observation for economy), thinking championed by Flwright and others, has led to many of today's excesses resulting in much higher construction costs per area enclosed.
DRYWALL SETTLEMENT
Volvo's catchy ad a few years back - 'boxy but good' -- was exactly the mentality of 15th-19th century architects and builders. And there was a very good reckon why. While aged Greek and Roman settlements tended towards houses being built on the principle of accretion, that is, one started a singular room or two and then added as time and resources permitted, the great villas and palaces of subsequent years, straight through much of the 19th century, adopted a straightforward perimeter plan. It was the great humanist revelation of the Italian Renaissance that prodded inquisitive builders to excavate the great Roman ruins below years of rubble.
What they found were temples and basilicas, palaces, etc. Any of which they attempted to restore. The great construction programs of the Vatican resulted in churches, nobles' palaces, and municipal assembly halls built upon the law of aged Roman grandeur. The Romans advanced the arch and concrete in which to mimic and exceed the great marble temples of their Greek brethren. But they were also practical.
What was the corporal supervene of the new construction program? The footprints of the new construction were almost all the time rectangular; the walls grew two to six stories level up. The whole buildings received a straightforward hip roof, sometimes with gable ends. Rectangles and square plans with little or no perimeter wall undulation and straightforward roofs meant two things: ease of construction, efficiency of materials, less room for error, and --- lower costs! What they didn't care much about at the time due to the great stone mass- energy efficiency - is now found to be linked to construction envelope geometry, among other factors.
When rich urban merchants wished to leave their palace digs to build their villas in the countryside (our example of luxury homes in suburbia and high-end 'gated communities') they too adopted similar law of build and construction. A Vizentine architect named Palladio popularized the country villa by modeling Any modestly constructed plans on the Greek and Roman temple form. His contemporary architects and builders looked at the urban palaces (that omitted the column and pediment) to build a range of inviting 'luxury homes'. No bay windows or octagons until the Gothic revival in this country. 'H' and 'L' plans, all symmetrically disposed, was the overriding plan geometry.
How can we apply these law today and yield the same benefits? The rural scheme highlighted below started as a rambling but symmetrical plan with two outbuildings (garage and guest house) linked by covered walks to the town house, similar to the Palladian central mass with hyphens to matching outer blocks.
Preliminary costs indicated that the buildings needed to be more compact. So we tucked a three-car garage into a rectangular plan. The roofline breaks to form a little H plan. Front and back elevations are exactly symmetrical. Interior spaces do not have to have the angles and curves of today's plans in order to be inviting or different (well, the client did insist on a curved stair!). There is a more formal feel, yet all the spaces flow beautifully.
The inviting observation about Renaissance build is that the surface can be simple, a mark of propriety, while the interiors are open to the most lavish attractive effects. Yes, there were temples in the round and Roman Caesars had some amazingly complex floor plans, such as Hadrian's villa Any miles out of Rome. But tremendous palaces are not our prototype here.
The work on of Italian and French designers, who continued the block plans for Monarch and merchant, extends into our Gilded Age culminating in this country's artistic zenith. Like the builders Any generations ago, exertion was put into potential construction and finishes, not extravagant and arbitrary plan manipulation. They were involved about leaks, and cost of construction. Their architects then could persuade them to put icing on the cake. Our colonial forefathers built exactly in this way, and while too much of the salt box can be very monotonous, architects should be more right of their client's budgets, seeing back at precedent occasionally to perceive that a pleasing, inviting and beautiful whole aesthetic supervene does not requisite query wild plans and violent roof lines.
Recall the imperative of yesteryear's modular construction principles. Based on a regular grid and straightforward plan, construction components (plumbing, foundation, wall and roof design) yielded extreme efficiencies. construction costs were minimized and trades/ material suppliers recognized the savings and passed them onto the builder. When was the last time a contractor could go to a framer or roofer and negotiate a better deal due to sufficient design/ planning? It is rare in a boom mentality to receive any allowance it seems, and so the floor planning continues to get wilder. Remember the contemporary movement: less is more (see photo below: Philip Johnson's glass and steel concoction). query rational plans from your architect!
Yes, go back and study precedent to build a new hereafter of efficiently constructed (for builders: more profitable) and elegant designs based on unerring tradition. Not a bad idea. The Neo-traditional movement is inviting ahead at full steam. Catch the train.
Boxy But Good! DRYWALL SETTLEMENT
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