Custom Residential Architects Network

 View Only

Community HTML

Michigan Loft

Quick Links

Who we are

The Custom Residential Architects Network (CRAN®) Knowledge Community develops knowledge and information to benefit architects who are engaged in, or who are interested in learning more about, custom residential practice. CRAN® presents information and facilitates the exchange of knowledge and expertise to promote the professional development of its members via discussion forums, national symposia and conventions, publications, and local activities.

2024 CRAN® Symposium

September 18-22

The Westin Seattle
1900 5th Avenue 
Seattle, Washington 98101

Registration will open in July 2024.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Download the prospectus for the CRAN forum at AIA24 and the CRAN Symposium sponsorships. 

2023 Symposium

The CRAN® 2023 Symposium was held October 11 - 15. View the schedule for more info>.

A new project born from CRAN years ago: Architectural Delight

  • 1.  A new project born from CRAN years ago: Architectural Delight

    Posted 05-25-2021 09:47 AM

    Architectural Delight | Beyond the Style Wars

    About 10 years ago, when involved with CRAN leadership, I helped lead a project with the board to produce a position paper that would celebrate all styles of good architecture, as long as they related to their context. The conclusion was a CRAN white paper that we used as a guiding message for style inclusivity for years. (Addendum 1 below) 

    Through the years I have continued to work on this theory, lectured on it as it relates to the Picturesque movement in the 1700's, and now further developed the message to include cultural sustainability. We started a new complimentary group, in alliance with all, no dues, just friends, and are planning a Zoomcast which will be starting soon. Check us out.

    Sign up at www.architecturaldelight.org

    And Instagram @architectural.delight

    It's rewarding to think that our efforts here at CRAN can spurn future movements to spread our ideals.

    Thanks,

    David Andreozzi, Architect

     

     

    Addendum 1
     
    Contextual Sustainability:
    The True Formula for Judging Good Architecture

    Architecture should be judged according to Vitruvius's Ultimate Synthesis.  A "recipe" to what defines all good architecture; a perfectly blended combination of Commodity, Firmness, and Delight. It is our job as architects to tweak these ingredients, but at some point the cake simple does not rise, or the structure is NOT architecture.

    Upon this age old paradigm CRAN suggests viewing this Ultimate Synthesis in a new updated genesis. An architectural order that relearns and reapplies the historic code of the architectural genome-commodity, firmness, and delight- but then adds to this matrix two more elements: vernacular, both cultural and topographic, and regionalism, in respect to natural resources and labor. It is a new architectural order based on an age-old formula that suggests that local materials, culture, and ideologies form the architectural building blocks to true idiosyncratic regional design.

    The debate over traditional and modern is set forth by architects and critics that are territorial to their own style preferences and unable to accept exclusivity.  Contextual Sustainability is a style blind code to judge all architecture, traditional or modern...



    ------------------------------
    David Andreozzi AIA
    Barrington RI
    ------------------------------
    CRAN March AIAU Course