Sam Day retweeted
An interesting phenomenon of America's ostensibly progressive participatory planning era is that craftsmanship has migrated to the regulatory-light regions.
We're now seeing the best stuff in the POOREST states.
As early as the 1950s, large premodern commercial buildings picked up a bad connotation in urban America as they became associated with blight as factories and wealthier families flew to the suburbs.
Does the public prefer traditional architecture? Half a century of surveys find:
worksinprogress.co/issue/do-…
- Between 60 and 95 percent prefer traditional architecture;
- This pattern holds across gender, class, race, nationality and political views;
- More traditional densification schemes seem to attract remarkably high levels of survey support;
- Laypeople and design professionals respond dramatically differently, with professionals far more favourable to modern styles.
Research is still at an early stage, and many questions remain. Personally, I am particularly interested in how the public would respond to a non-traditional but richer and more decorative style? I think they might like it, but we don’t have hard evidence yet.
But the results are already puzzling. Why do people end up buying buildings that are so different to the buildings they say they prefer? How did we end up in this odd situation? What can we do about it?
Read more in @RobertKwolek's definitive review of architectural visual preference surveying.
1
4
391
Thus mid-century urban developers like Herbert Greenwald and William Zeckendorf needed to bring a fresh look to counter the narrative of urban decline. That’s why they turned to architects like Mies and I.M. Pei.
1
1
112
Today, these modernist buildings have become associated with gentrification and global capital and people don’t like them for that.
It isn’t because modern styles are inherently less likable (except for how they tend to butcher the ground floor as @Cobylefko has pointed out)
1
2
84
Sam Day retweeted
I met Dolly Parton once backstage at a concert. She was so incredibly gracious, warm, and kind to everyone. At one point, she leaned over to me and whispered in my ear: "My true political belief," she said, "is that we need affordable housing in walkable neighborhoods."
One of the more damaging concepts that emerged from zoning was the idea that all buildings on a block should be the same height.
4
237
Developers do about 75% of the building in America, but only ~ 25% of total architectural billings come from developer clients.
Developers clearly don’t find architects valuable. Why?
3
3
440
Sam Day retweeted
The purpose of American zoning is to put the most people—low- and middle-class families—in the worst locations so that the best locations, the quiet, elevated side streets, can be reserved for a small number of wealthier people. Everything else is just kind of window dressing.
“Someone..ought to draw up at catalogue of types of buildings listed in order of size and it would be immediately obvious that domestic buildings of less than normal size—the little cottage…the lockkeepers lodge..—are those that offer us at least a semblance of peace,
1
132
An investor closed on our first “Superquad” in @WheelerDistrict this week. These have 4 residential units plus a ground floor commercial suite. In total it’s about 3500 SF for ~$1.1MM. We don’t have any others available at the moment, but more are in the works.
3
12
481
The interiors have real wood floors, real wood windows, and real exhausting hood vents.
Half the units have ~120 SF roof decks, all of them are flush with windows.
1
2
98
I would’ve never started in development were 4plexes not FHA eligible.
I came to the table without real development experience or money, but a lender still wrote me a pre-approval letter for an FHA loan to take out 100% of my construction costs on this quad.
