Is there anything made in America that’s less innovative than the
single-family home? While we obsess over the new in terms of what we
keep in our houses — the ever-increasing speed and
functionality of our Smartphones, entertainment options built into
refrigerators, sophisticated devices that monitor, analyze and report on
our sleep cycles, even the superior technology of the running shoes we
put on before heading out the flimsy fiberboard door — we’re incredibly
undemanding of the houses themselves. These continue to be built the
same way they have for over a century, and usually not as well. Walls
and windows are thin, materials cheap, design (and I use the term
loosely) not well-considered. The building process is a protracted
affair, taking far too long and creating embarrassing amounts of
building waste (over 50 percent of all waste produced in the United
States, in fact).
But the lack of innovation extends beyond the
high-tech. Not so long ago homes were designed to make the most of their
surrounding climate and terrain. Vernacular forms like the shotgun, in
places like New Orleans, served a purpose that went far beyond
aesthetics — they encouraged natural cooling by improving
cross-ventilation. In Texas and New Mexico, thick adobe walls similarly
kept heat in during the winter, and out during the summer. Houses were
sited and windows placed to maximize or minimize sun exposure as needed.
No longer. Today, it’s essentially
the same floor plan, sheetrock and construction that’s used coast to
coast. Glossy brochures with stock images of smiling families advertise
“Spanish Gothic” or “Tuscan Villa,” but what’s really on offer is the
same dumb box with a stage set of a façade tacked onto the front. The
reasons behind the advertised vernacular styles have long since
disappeared, their function surrendered to ornament.
more about suburbia:
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