Land+Living: Instant architecture, just add water

News — May 12, 2005 Posted by James

Understanding the process of design

We live in an age where people have grown accustomed to instant gratification. Fast food, fast lanes, fast news - you want it and you want it NOW!

I had a client come to me in April with a vague idea of how they wanted to remodel their home... and they wanted to break ground by the end of May! Uh... yeah. Most people have no concept of what it takes to design a building.

Design takes time; architect Arrol Gellner wrote an article published yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle explaining the process of design. But he doesn't even begin to talk about dealing with government agencies to gain approvals and permits or the actual construction process.

Article: SF Gate - Rome (or your bathroom) wasn't designed in a day

5 comments

Comments (5)

Brian — May 12, 2005
But they do it on TV every Sunday night!

ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition only fuels this expectation of instant change by remodeling or rebuilding homes in "7 days". Even on Monday night's "How did they do that" recap they still don't explain the months of planning and wads of cash that go into building a house in a week. Is "Reality TV" an oxymoron?

James — May 12, 2005
Don't even get me started!!

I hate that show only because they refuse to acknowledge that there is a longer planning process... even in an outside interview I heard with Ty whatever-his-name-is, he continues to feed the line that they do this all in a week, except for a couple times when they went over by a day or two. PLEASE! AS if a city will let you waltz in and do a major construction project without a proper set of plans, engineering, plan review, etc. etc. etc. Good call, Brian, you are so right. Wouldn't it actually be all the more impressive if they showed just how much EFFORT went into the project to help these people out?

ali — May 12, 2005
look at all new sprawling developments...

my parents recently bought a brand new house, in a brand new development, in a suburb of las vegas. they flew out there, toured the models, picked one they liked, sat down with a salesperson, chose the upgrades they wanted, and the house was move-in ready in about 8 months. so, for the millions of people that are buying new homes, in rapidly developing areas, their "unrealistic" expectations are being met.

James — May 12, 2005
Apples and oranges

While that is a good point, Ali, it is not exactly the same thing. Certainly your parents were able to make some choices based on upgrade packages along with other customizations, but that is still quite different from remodeling an existing home, or building one from the ground up to meet your exact and unique specifications. In the case you mention, the bones of the design have already been developed... and they share that design with many of their neighbors. But it still took eight months before the home was ready, even with all of the basic approvals and design elements already in place. But your point does raise an issue affecting architects, that they are cut out of the creation of most new homes built in the United States. In this way, housing developers have figured out how to cater to the general public much better than the architecture profession has, albeit with generally lesser design quality.

johntunger — May 12, 2005
speaking of unreality

Well, if the guys from the show are doing interviews that suggest there's no planning or design that happens before the house is built in a week, how about all the planning, design, scripting, organization, and just plain schlepping that goes into getting a show on TV in the first place? I mean, reality TV may be cheaper to produce and quicker to film than TV series used to be, but someone still has to coordinate everything happening on a schedule, etc. I'm not saying that there's more effort put into the filming than the design of the build, I'm just pointing out that they pretty much have to be lying about not laying a lot of groundwork in advance. Most of the cotractors I know have been complaining like mad about materials shortages, for instance. If you want concrete, and you want it now, you're either SOL or paying through the nose, or both. On the other hand, when have you ever known people to have realistic expectations about a field they are not personally involved in up to their eyeballs? I *still* believe, for instance, that my high dollar appliances (car, laptop, mig welder, etc) should just work forever without breakdowns or maintenance. but that doesn't make it so...