[GSBN] Square footage of straw-bale homes

[Graeme North]

Interesting discussion.

Houses (in the West at least) are by far, and above all other things, about social display - and here size/prestige/street appearance really does matter to most.

Rational design does not necessarily fulfill this criteria.  

Hence architects who have an understanding of environmental issues - and there are plenty who don't really "get it" even if they are supposedly taught about these issues nowadays -  have real problems dealing with some commissions unless you have a client who wants to display that are really in tune with environmental  awareness by building small.  

Rather you are more likely to get the planted roof on the car factory  - which was one recent example that came my way.


Graeme
Graeme North Architects
49 Matthew Road
RD1
Warkworth
tel/fax +64 (0)9 4259305
 
graeme at ecodesign.co.nz
www.ecodesign.co.nz


On 13/05/2011, at 3:03 AM, Andrew Webb wrote:

> Architects design something like 5% of houses; it may be less.  My impression from blogs, magazines and awards is that architecture that is considered good design has nothing to do with size (perhaps with the exception of Dubai).  The Australian Institute of Architects has a handful of award categories, and one is Small Architecture.  The others are Residential, Public, Urban Design and Sustainable Architecture, from memory. Most projects I remember from university also had nothing to do with (large) size; one project I remember was to design a single self-contained room.  
> 
> I don't think the education of architects is the major problem.  The education of clients is.  The housing market is dominated by large project home companies of various levels of so called prestige, which is supported by mainstream press which is thinly veiled marketing of Large and Excess.  I have often had questions from clients such as "we only need two bedrooms, but should we have four for resale value?" or, "we would be happy with a carport but I suppose we need a double garage for resale?".  Typically these people have no intention of selling.  But, as a house is a huge cost and a mortgage is a huge burden, they are scared and believe, or at least question whether they should believe, what most newspapers, magazines, TV lifestyle programs, and particularly real estate agents tell them.  Compounding this, of course, is the overarching growth fetish and consumerism of capitalist society in general.  
> 
> I always try to design to a budget; almost every project is a struggle to rein in the client to theirs.  I like what Bob Borson says on his blog - from a list of desirable client traits, 
> "Understand their budget: this is not the same as knowing your budget. It’s sort of a glass half empty versus glass half full mentality – but with money. One has an empty “budget bag” that they think they can put stuff in until it’s full; the other has a bag with their budget in  it and they take things out until the budget is expended. It might seem like the same thing but it’s not. The group putting stuff in the bag will continually try and jam more stuff in, well beyond when the zipper will close (just sit on it and then try…). The other, well, when you take the last thing out, that’s it, there’s nothing left. Whenever we have clients that stress quantity over quality, it’s a harbinger of things to come. It’s not the clients job to know what things cost, but when they keep increasing the square footage of the project, or continue to add program requirements without ever thinking that these things have costs associated with them, it’s shows that they aren’t thinking about the very base fact that everything has a cost associated with it."
> 
> -Andrew
> 
> 
> On 12/05/2011 10:21 PM, Derek Roff wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> I have wondered about the education of architects, and perhaps some of the architects on this list can comment.  
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