Hi Yolanda,
I know I am late to this but recently read your post and the topic of single family home design I feel is important and certainly should demand our attention.
With some similarity to you, my initial interest in architecture started when as a 12 year old visiting Florida we looked at model houses and their marketing sheets with plans and elevations were fascinating to me. Unlike you the vast majority of my career of over 30 years has been in educational and institutional projects. I have recently considered what issues do I want to try to invest some energy towards and smart sensible single family homes is one of them.
I am always amazed that architects have either ceded or just lost responsibility for design of single family homes and suburban communities, especially given that over 60% of Americans live in single family detached homes according to the census bureau.
To me there are two keys issues that need to happen; 1 - Educate the public to understand and appreciate the value of design, art, and the built environment. This is a long term issue that really needs to be addressed in school curriculum, from primary to secondary education, no small task given that there has been more emphasis on STEM and not on STEAM and continual de-emphasis of the arts. And 2 - Convey and convince builders and developers that better, responsive and responsible design is good business.
It is good to hear that you have focused your career on 'middle class housing'. There has to be a way to improve home design for regular people and it should be an issue we as a community work on.
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John Fallon AIA
Fallon + Pacheco Architects
Bloomfield NJ
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-26-2017 16:02
From: Yolanda Lettieri
Subject: Residential Architecture for the Middle Class?
I have spent a good portion of my career designing homes for the Middle Class, that is, "production housing". I have also been a member of the AIA since 2003. These two sectors of the world of architecture have never really met. In fact, AIA members have informally shared with me that production housing is considered a kind of "evil" in architecture, that is, that it isn't actually architecture, and that it's just another widget for people to consume and throw away in 20 years or less. I spent most of my childhood living in badly maintained apartments in an inflated housing market in the San Francisco Bay Area, where, although my family was considered part of the Middle Class, could not afford a house near my parents' jobs. We finally found a home, built by the famous homebuilder Kaufman & Broad, aka KB Home, about 50 miles from where we were living. As a child, I had already become enamored with architecture: sweeping skyscrapers, bridges, and beautiful things. But to me, nothing was more beautiful than a place to call Home. Through KB's brochure home plans, I learned about architecture - the correct placement of doors and windows, architectural styles, privacy for bedrooms and publicly allocating family and kitchen spaces. I decided that I wanted to design and build homes for people like me: those who weren't rich, and didn't want to live poor.
My question to you is this: how do we as architects reconcile the market-driven architectural style seen in production housing (and elsewhere) with what we consider to be "true" architecture? How do we engage our communities to see things the way we "see" them? Are there other ways in which architects are detached from the community, or reality, for that matter?
A penny for your thoughts!
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Yolanda Lettieri AIA
Principal
YSL Architecture
Hawthorne CA
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