Image Source:
"Arial View of Cookie-Cutter Homes." Photo. Bigstock.com 24 Jan. 2012.
"Arial View of Cookie-Cutter Homes." Photo. Bigstock.com 24 Jan. 2012.
Who is responsible for creating the uninspired, cookie cutter houses of suburban sprawl?
There are literally hundreds of people and groups who collaborate in order to successfully plan, develop, build, sell and purchase homes in the ever-expanding growth of suburban life. When this complex process runs smoothly, the common outcome of this venture is the creation of a “clustered world” where “suburban neighborhoods have been constructed of similar houses sold at similar prices to families who purchase similar kinds of household goods” (Hayden, 2004, 32). Why do developers continue to build these homes, architects continue to design these homes, and buyers continue to invest in these properties when there is nothing unique about the homes, and there is little to no diversity or sense of community?
for entire essay click here.
kim's paper was very well written and i hope to have an edited pdf available for all of you to look at on blackboard as a resource to good essay writing. Please note her on strong stance of who is responsible in her conclusion. This would be a good start for you response and discussion.
ReplyDeleteother questions [perhaps more specific] that arose from her essay that i think can be discussed are as follows:
How do we create Place? What do people care about? [influenced by Duany's reading]
How can designers help to create greater CONSUMER AWARENESS of what they prefer and what their true options are? Why do we as consumers accept what we are given? We do not hold this same passive behavior when it comes to the other products we buy.
Consumers are looking for affordable housing with amenities and a sense of community. The concept of production building has really spun off into the sprawl method and a re-direction needs to take place. In some areas builders are doing a better job of offering cookie cutter homes with customizable features, more elevation choices in the facades and neighborhoods with trails and parks. For many though, the desire for the intimate, rich culture that comes in the heart of the city will always remain and those properties will continue to be snatched up immediately. Unfortunately those areas tended to have the engaging differences in design but because of high overhead costs, builders have gone to the cookie cutter look--production outweighs consumer needs. For many, this process produces the affordable home that social classes can purchase as opposed to the high end custom homes that only the wealthy can move into. For some cities, consumers have no other options and that is why there is a passive behavior--people are not going to picket or boycott these builders. Some of those people cannot afford to purchase an existing home and renovate it to get it up to date, they need the home with everything brand new. Homes can be indispensable unlike a lot of the products that people buy to try or to just buy.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see a cost breakdown from a builder standpoint of production housing costs versus a neighborhood with 15-20 different style homes.
This website, in my opinion, has a great spin on this concept of the consumer and their behavior and investment. http://www.archdesignlabs.com/2011/05/consumer-architecture/
My favorite line is: "If the client feels, and knows that they are in control of the units then they become emotionally invested in the home. That emotional investment is what the client needs, and wants. The design and solution to different problems is what we crave as Architects and Designers."
I LOVE that last paragraph. Once people become emotionally invested in their home/neighborhood, they will do everything in their power to make that home/neighborhood the best it can possibly be. Communities definitely need more emotional investments from the homeowners, and I don't see that emotional attachment being formed from the closed-off, cookie-cutter homes in conventional neighborhoods. Great website.
Deletei believe it is hard to be emotionally invested in something when you weren't part of the process itself. many of these conventional neighborhoods are all so similar, and devoid of any real thought about how it occupied, how it responds to its context, how it preforms environmentally...that the house and community itself has no aspect to it that a human can emotionally invest in. we may emotionally invest in what we put in it, because we were part of the process of acquiring it...but not to the house itself which is such an odd dichotomy to me because we are supposedly investing 30 years into it.
DeleteI think that nowadays, many people need to move to suburban areas because of many reasons like air pollution and traffic in cities, easy and cheap life,and ... After a while, with increasing population in suburbs, house requirement is increasing, too and builders who take the advantage of that, start to produce buildings as ignoring design and aesthetic. At the same time, people who need houses which are especially low price, ignore building design, too. That is why amount of cookie cutter houses in suburbs are growing day after day. I like Candace's favourite line, too. This paragraph explains reason of cookie cutter houses of suburban sprawl.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your statement about how cookie cutter buyers aren't necessarily interested in street appeal. Of if they are, the cost of the house and benefits of living in the suburbs often weigh out the fact that they have the same house as everyone on the block.
Deletethat is a very well made point. the concern is truly just ownership of a place to live. but perhaps the single family home isn't the answer of this? do you believe this is too harsh? perhaps multi-family units?
Deleteor it is my belief that the government be more involved with low-income affordable housing that are EXCELLENT examples of sustainability and "near-to-NET ZERO" off-grid housing. this would be a fantastic investment for the government to show that they are serious about environmental concerns as it relates to the construction industry, would be a great opportunity to "advertise" that these homes don't have to look like "hippie domes", and finally the gain would be in low utilities bills for those that need to accrue their profit, rather than spend it.
"My favorite line is: "If the client feels, and knows that they are in control of the units then they become emotionally invested in the home. That emotional investment is what the client needs, and wants. The design and solution to different problems is what we crave as Architects and Designers."
ReplyDeleteI think this an awesome line. So often these cookie cutter homes are designed with the general, average family in mind. That extra personalization that the client can receive can make a project. Candace, I think, sums it up 'production outweighs consumer needs.' The sprawling areas are part of a mass production of homes without the personalization of the client/user.
I think as designers we should be able to make known the options that a client can potentially have within their home. Your 'average' consumer may think you aren't able to actually get what you want when you are searching for a home in a developing area. Why don't they fight for what they want within their home? It's essentially another product that is being used in our economy.
brittnie you're assuming that the potential home owners can afford design fees. there is a very small percent that is willing to pay for, or can afford to have a home custom designed and built for them by an architect or designer. there has to be some kind of norm. DAN GAGE mentioned earlier about notions of regional design. I think that developers have to be held to certain regional standards, especially as it relates to sun, wind, climate, etc.
DeleteI do agree with you though, that designers HAVE to be involved. as stated in the Colton reading, "Many builders now design the homes that they build..."[page 309]. If architects/designers are involved, i think they have very little say, due to my own professional experience of housing development, because the architects/designers are not the ones that have invested the money into the land itself.
My idea to help meet in the middle, is to have some standardizations but to add variety, and therefore a greater sense of community, is to perhaps design types of houses whose plans and relationship to the site and community are of preferences to HOW the occupants plan to live most efficiently and effectively. For example, a variation of homes that attract to the "empty nesters", "the single professional", etc.
The reading by Dunham-Jones stated that "in 1999 only 7% of U.S. households had a working dad, a stay-at-home mom, and children under 18. Suburban households increasingly reflect the changing demographics of the country -- 65% of households do not have children, and 25% of households are people living alone." We are currently building MASS amounts of houses that are built for the "ideal" nuclear, post war family of the 40s and 50s. DESIGNERS can play a key role in this shift.
some final thoughts to conclude this discussion:
ReplyDeleteall the players are responsible. and in my opinion only two things can truly shift the attitude of housing development. Governmental mandates and expectations, or course voted on by the public...example being regionalism expectations of design and development along with sustainability standards. Informing the "market", the people and having them demand change.
some interesting supportive texts i found in various readings....
the fault of the builders:
"The primary goal of the industry [National Home Builders Association] remains to build and sell individual houses as quickly and profitably as possible, to "blow and go", as they put it." - Duany, 113
"market experts":
"...the market experts, who have been unrelentingly spreading the same message for over thirty years: build sprawl or lose your shirt. Specifically: do not mix uses; do not mix incomes; build walls and security gates; put the garages up front; and assume that nobody will walk." -Duany 101
government municipalities not being more progressive and forward thinking:
"...in national surveys, homeownership continues to be highly valued and is still identified as a primary goal for a majority of Americans. Also, in a survey sponsored by the Fannie Mae Foundation in 2002, Americans identified the lack of affordable homes for low- and moderate-income families as second only to lack of affordable health care...However, housing is no longer a top issue to many of the members of Congress or to many among the American public." - Colton, 306
architects/designers:
"This bias against suburbia disengages architects from the environment in which half of Americans now lie and work. Not only does this disengagement reinforce the common perception of architects as elitist, it also guarantees the marginalization of the profession...it also perpetuates the sense that architecture is a clubby profession principally concerned with serving the wealthy, a profession cut off from everyday life and indifferent to the large influence it might enjoy." -Dunham-Jones, 6.
Things i'm interested in learning more about...as a result of the reading...
Clinton-Gore administration's "Livable Communities Initiative."
1990s - Smart Growth models/New Urbanism communities as many examples were listed in Dunham-Jones article.
finally, i thought that the Developer's Utopias reading was TRULY fascinating, especially once you got past the first few pages...i was curious why none of you referenced it ever in your essays or questions? was it too hard? did you not make it past the beginning? the article tended to focus on the development of upper-middle class which i thought was a good perspective for all of you to be aware of as well.
ReplyDeleteI mean nobody wanted to bring up the issue and vulgarity of the "Front Sight" Development in Las Vegas...those interested in "guns and ammo" was its developmental strategy and target market!!!
What about the idea that PULTE HOMES...their four different buyer profiles: "traditional family, the single person, the empty nester, and the extended family". Is this a good idea? What about the fact that we have few national home builders/developers that are responsible for the suburban landscape inn "approximately 700 communities across twenty-seven states. In 2006 Pulte employed more than 12.400 people and earned revenues of $14.2 BILLION. The average price of the homes it sold in 2006 was slightly over $337,000." This is crazy! What does it mean?
I'm also surprised that none of you focused a question around "The American Dream Extreme" / "Domestic Bling" / "Building Big" [The average floor area of new single family homes in 2005 was 15 percent larger than in 1995. 150 percent larger than 1950. 2005 American Housing Survey found nearly 3.9 million homes in the United States with 4,000 square feet of space or more.] "teen rooms" / "...catering to consumers' appetite for luxury"
this is truly fascinating and disgusting...and nobody mentioned it. did it not get read?
I read all the articles that were posted in the week 2 readings on Blackboard and none of this is ringing a bell. Did that reading get posted elsewhere?
DeleteKim-
DeleteI just checked the articles I printed off and what was on Blackboard and I too, did not come across the Developer's Utopia article that Lindsay is referencing.
Lindsey-
DeleteMy brother owns a Pulte home in KC and while I am aware of their buyer profiles they are another cookie cutter neighborhood with the vinyl siding, the small lots, fake shutters and in KC they didn't even complete their neighborhood--they sold it to another home builder because of bankruptcy issues. They definitely are one of the largest national chains, but I don't believe that their standards or design solutions are the best solution. I am interested in finding out how many competitors they have in these other states that they seem to be overtaking the market--could it be their affordable princes?
this explains it! i didn't post it. APOLOGIES! i will post it though, for those of you that are interested to read it.
ReplyDelete