> The theories that are taught in architecture schools today are of a different sort, and in the belief that the field of architecture should be grounded in intellectual speculation, rather than pragmatic observation, students are more likely to be assigned French post-structuralist texts than A Pattern Language. Which is a shame.
It's just astonishing, decades after Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, that pragmatic observation is still on the margins. What, a half-century of abject failure in building and neighbourhood design isn't enough to demonstrate the fundamental wrongheadedness of dogmatic, a priori design principles?
There's an unforeseen problem with well patterned livable houses--they often don't sell well to conventional real estate buyers. If you need to relocate or access equity quickly, you're stuck with an remarkable property but buyers looking for McMansions. Buyers that do drop by out of curiosity comment with gems such as, "We could never live here, the master bath needs to be as big as the bedroom."
Seems as though the only way to move such a property is to offer it so far below market that people become willing to compromise and consider the more livable home instead of yet another generic "keeping up with the Joneses" colonial:
It's galling, because such easily substitutable boxes have little intrinsic value beyond market. The cost to build a colonial is quite low compared to the cost of building, for example, "... varying ceiling heights between large and small rooms to create different degrees of intimacy."
One eye-line in my home reveals 8 ceiling heights, correlating to the intimacy of the spaces below them. It's extraordinary, but generic buyers want five bedrooms with full baths so what should be livable spaces end up the size of closets.
What's worse, when buyers today see the prices of McMansions plunging, they expect to see the price of a well patterned home (that may have cost 5x - 8x as much to build) also plunge, despite the more complex home already having a replacement cost higher than its asking price, price of materials and labor having risen.
(PS. Serious inquiries welcome for a well patterned home a commuter train ride from Manhattan.)
> Seems as though the only way to move such a property is to offer it so far below market
You don't understand the term "market".
> What's worse, when buyers today see the prices of McMansions plunging, they expect to see the price of a well patterned home (that may have cost 5x - 8x as much to build) also plunge, despite the more complex home already having a replacement cost higher than its asking price, price of materials and labor having risen.
There's a cost associated with being "goofy". If that cost exceeds the benefits, perhaps you should reconsider your decisions.
In 2009, it's fair to say the market doesn't understand the term market.
Less flippantly, "the market" and "the market for a well-patterened home" are two different things, and with zero properties of any kind changing hands for 10 - 12 months in certain affluent zip codes (home prices from seven to eight figures and sellers withdrawing listings rather than lower pricing), data is insufficient to establish what the broad market is, much less what a niche market would be. With no comps, pricing becomes arbitrary.
> In 2009, it's fair to say the market doesn't understand the term market.
Actually, it does. Past performance is no guarantee and all that.
> Less flippantly, "the market" and "the market for a well-patterened home" are two different things
Yes, the latter is a subset of the former. So?
> data is insufficient to establish what the broad market is, much less what a niche market would be. With no comps, pricing becomes arbitrary.
Actually, that data tells us that sellers in those places want too much money today. They may be able to get it tomorrow, or maybe not.
> With no comps, pricing becomes arbitrary.
Comps are not the final word on pricing. They aren't even necessary.
People buy when when they'd rather have what you're selling than the money that you're willing to accept for it. People sell when they'd rather have the money offered than the good they currently possess. There's nothing more to it than that.
Cost doesn't come into it. Neither does any notion of "intrinsic value" beyond the above.
If you perceive that the value of something that you have is more than you're being offered, that's the market saying "keep it".
"The main criteria by which one can distinguish between different market structures are: the number and size of producers and consumers in the market, the type of goods and services being traded, and the degree to which information can flow freely."
Here we see few to no sellers, few to no buyers, and no information flow. By http://www.answers.com/topic/market definitions 4d or 5, there is no market. By definitions 4a - 4c, the market is halted, illiquid, or frozen.
I'd also argue against the idea:
> that data tells us that sellers in those places want too much money today
It may tell us buyers don't have enough money, which seems a different thing entirely.
Externalities innate to producing a type of home may put such a home out of reach of the set of individuals presently seeking to purchase a home. Building a home absorbs labor, materials, land, and other inputs; those must be paid for in their appropriate markets (not a question of 'perception'), and a rational builder/seller will not build/sell for less than those costs unless forced.
Me and two other people built a house without blueprints. We just thought out the internals as we built it, debating the layouts by pretending to take actions on the bare floors. We got most things right, and a couple things wrong (doors in bad spots - why oh why not 2 feet right?). There are very few 90 degree angles (by design). Its an amazing house, very livable, and it suffers the same problem as yours.
Custom-designed or heavily modified buildings tend to be quirky; they are designed around the particular tastes and requirements of the previous owners. Generic houses are more one-size-fits-all. They may not fit any particular person as well, but you know what you're getting and there are certain baseline expectations that won't be violated.
To some extent, people actually will pay for quirkiness. It can be easier to find a home you love in a neighborhood with a mix of houses of different ages and styles and owner-modifications. Old houses can be more valuable partly because they've been modified over the years to be more livable. But for houses that are farther from the norm, it's harder to match the right house to the right buyer.
(I say this as the owner of an 80-year-old house in Seattle with some very odd changes made by previous occupants.)
That's like asking (in 2006 after the Intel switch but before everyone heard of the iPhone), "If it's so much better, why doesn't anyone want a Mac?" Arguably, "the market" didn't even know what it was, much less why they should value one. It's not that no one wanted a Mac, it's that less than 1 in 25 did. If only 10 people went shopping, odds were none were looking at a Mac.
Folks like Lindal Cedar Homes spend money marketing livable homes as an experience, but the general population isn't yet aware of the benefits or why they should even desire such a home.
It's a political problem; the democratization of principles. Sometimes what everyone likes isn't what's best for everyone.
It's interesting to note that Kent Beck, who brought Alexander to the attention of Erich Gamma, did so with the intention that it could be used for interface design (if I remember right).
I recommend Notes on the Synthesis of Form to everyone. For one, it's a delightful read (Alexander is a master linguist), but it's also tremendously helpful for anyone thinking about building a large system, especially software. The main takeaway for me was thinking in terms of systems of constraints. When designing a vacuum, constraints might be: needs to be reasonably priced, needs to be profitable, needs to be easy to carry, needs to be durable, needs to be powerful enough, etc. Adjusting one constraint usually affects another, so it's easy to see how complicated this can get.
Alexander formalizes the process, and demonstrates mathematics to solve the constraint problem. This assumes, of course, that you can articulate and quantify the constraints in the first place.
Web developers are lucky: unlike architects or product designers they can quickly test their assumptions (A/B tests) and move the system to a better state.
I'd also recommend The Timeless Way of Building, which provides the overview of Alexander's method (of which A Pattern Language is just one piece). I once wrote a review of The Timeless Way from a programmer's perspective: http://advogato.org/person/mbrubeck/diary/106.html
(The Oregon Experiment, which I mention in that link, might also be of interest to programmers inside huge organizations.)
I second the recommendation. A Pattern Language outlined a lot of the actual patterns (which was neat), but Notes on the Synthesis of Form did a better job of illuminating a broad conceptual foundation for designing systems. I think I need to re-read it now that you mention it.
I have great respect for Alexander's ideas, but when he's mentioned, I can't resist sharing this cheeky presentation from one of his Berkeley hills neighbors about the "patterns" evident from the exterior of Alexander's house:
(I don't believe the presentation was prepared with the intent to belittle Alexander's work, and I don't share it in a negative spirit -- but rather as a sort of "only human"/"cobbler's children" observation about the contrasts between a professional oeuvre and personal life.)
That's exactly how I'd expect Christopher Alexander's house to look. The buildings he praises in his work include few cathedrals, and many folk houses in traditional villages around the world. He wrote that the clean, sterile lines of Modernism were designed to enhance the egos of architects, not the lives of their clients. The houses he built in Mexico (The Production of Houses) were made cheaply, using community labor, from handmade local materials.
He also believes that a building is never finished, and should be continually modified by its inhabitants. (Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn is another book that should be read by both programmers and architects.)
Wow...that's... really... his house? What a mess. I can't see how a renowned architect would want to live in such a ramshackle way. Seems like if you're an architect you need to have your house be a showcase of your work - an example that clients could look to get an idea of some of your better work.
"Design Patterns aren't" is required reading for anyone interested in both Alexander's work and software design patterns: http://perl.plover.com/yak/design/
Gosh, if you've ever even thought about building your own home, APL is invaluable.
I think the book should be required reading for everyone in high school, and the language acquired with enough fluency that you could "speak" your own house into being.
Fantastic stuff.
His magnum opus (4 volumes) The Nature of Order is rather daunting, by comparison, but probably quite important. I've got it, but haven't had time to really dig in...
I never would have been aware of APL without being in software, and I'd never read anything on architecture or building before that. It was one of the most interesting books I've ever read, and it made a lot of sense. Yes, if I were building my own home, I would definitely re-read it cover to cover.
It's just astonishing, decades after Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, that pragmatic observation is still on the margins. What, a half-century of abject failure in building and neighbourhood design isn't enough to demonstrate the fundamental wrongheadedness of dogmatic, a priori design principles?