BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – BACKGROUND – PRESS/MEDIA
House Design and Construction Health Report: Interview with Before The Architect
· · · · · · ·
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Ralph Pressel, Principal
Before The Architect,
Telephone: 770-889-6964
Address: 2985 Heatherwyn Way, Cumming, GA 30040
Website: http://www.beforethearchitect.com
E-mail: jrp2h2000@yahoo.com.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Release. House Design and Construction Health Report 2003: Controversial, Surprise Interview with Before The Architect
Cumming, GA. January 1, 2003. Before The Architect recently interviewed on its surprising, even controversial views about the business environment of custom house design and construction. Before The Architect designs and drafts building plans nationally. The forum was its headquarters in North Georgia. The interview was a no-holds-barred exposition.
These are excerpts from this surprise interview:
Q: How would you characterize the house building business today? A: These are not the good old days, mortgages aside. .. People can search hard, travel far for good design and construction, find less, pay more. The craft of building is in declining health — aging players, smart and impassioned craftsmen - they’re scarcer and scarcer on job sites . .. Most buyers – consumers – of houses, additions, remodeling haven’t a clue about home building at all, let alone building better.
Q: Why? A: Form follows function: fundamentally, it’s about people spending major money more or less blindly. People know less, so they expect less and they get it. Custom house builders build what buyers buy. Generations of Me-Me-Me buyers learned to be more selfish and irresponsible, to demand instant satisfaction . .. So to speak, “Here’s a stock house plan, just add water.” . . .
Q: I know you call them “Generations Me.” But doesn’t your view have another side to it? A: Yes, there are always other sides to my stories. Generations Me has fostered some good. Take for one example, Cyberville. Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Hotmail — all about cheaper, easier, faster communication — benefits [to] means and ends. But in house plans and home building means [are] better some to none, ends [are] none to worse. That’s because standards have diminished; that is, both standards expected and standards delivered. .. Buyers focus on five-peak façades and not what’s holding them up, the chandelier and not the wiring, the sink and not the drain. Custom home designers and custom house builders easily echo that superficiality.
Q: Aren’t we protected? You know, there are rules and regulations. Right? A: Really? We have a saying about folks who gather round you when you build a
—MORE—
house or add on, ‘It's your dream home; it's their business deal.’ Now first off, I absolutely must say that there surely are excellent house brokers, custom house builders, inspectors, and others involved in constructing and remodeling houses. I’ve even met a few. And second off, I absolutely must say again that the marketplace for services and goods doesn’t just happen – it’s demanded and supplied. Buyers demand, sellers supply. Of whom little is demanded, little is expected. And little is delivered. So let’s see more generally about house brokers, custom house builders, building inspectors, and the law – the major players – and allow for the exceptions. Brokers sell you what you want to buy, and you’ve got to know what that is and most buyers know diddly about important matters of structure and function. Custom house builders build you what you specify, and you’ve got to do the specifying or you get what they give. What do buyers know about significant specs? More diddly. Building codes are minimum safety standards. Minimum standards – [there’s] little or nothing to them about durability, convenience, more safety, better materials, means, and methods. Building inspectors – independents aside - are government employees who work without implied warranties of fitness – no guarantees [that] they get it right. They screw it up, they walk, you pay. My design and building experience with courts and lawyers is that they break hearts and pick pockets, respectively. Building better and best is primarily on the buyer. Buyer beware. Buyer be wise. Or it’s buyer be sorry for leaving it all up to someone else.
Q: What are you doing to make a difference? A: Three things. 1) Our website - over 100 entertaining pages dedicated to teach and challenge in custom house design and construction. 2) Our e-publication ”Home Design Standards - Home Building Standards” – now 43 pages of time-tested truths about home building and home remodeling . . “Home Design Standards - Home Building Standards,” 3) Our services - consulting, designing and drafting.
Q: Nice plug? A: You asked.
Q: Well, what about the website? A: Lots of free design information, free construction information, not just the how of building, but what and why. Hundreds of drawings . .. Lots of first-evers: first tutorial on Craftsman Style from perspectives of both design and construction; first practical description on the web of a spiral staircase design; first PDFs I’ve ever seen of actual sheets of draftings produced for jobs; first time I recall anybody’s offered second opinions on building plans and even presented examples; first place I’ve ever been to where you can get the feel of just how complex it is to design and build well; first effort I’ve found on the web to make custom house design and construction accessible to most anyone. No hotels or high-rises, just houses, ma-and-pa storefronts, small plants. No jokes, no games. No news, no weather. There really are some song lyrics in the back, but no music. Yes, we even have our own self-styled dictionary.
Q: No jokes on your website, but aren’t there are some funny quotes? A: Yes, and some . . not so funny.
Q: Examples? A: Jokes? Humor? Joke, sort of: ‘The donkey to which you strapped that check must have lost his way or died en route.’ No joke: ‘It is my belief that we live to learn about good and evil. My business world
—MORE—
overflows with educational opportunity.’ Humor: ‘Design me up, Scotty!’ Not humorous: ‘Design standards are what ought to be built, not what must be built.’ Personally, I like the longer quotes, they’re like little stories. True stories. Like the one . ..
Q: What about your design standards publication? A: Some entries are existing codes worth repeating. Some come from listening . . and reading . . and thinking. Most come from life experience, I say they’re from the granite knee, life’s crucible: improving, getting it right sooner or later, like rinse, lather, rinse. It’s all about materials, means, and methods . .. From layout and foundations to roofs and finishing. In a sense, these are our recipes for better and best house design and house construction. We consult, design, and draft plans using these standards all the time.
Q: You name names. A: You mean the products? The product makers?
Q: Yes. How come? A: Look, you’re on the site trying hard to do a good job better. Like us, going on 4 decades. The materials you use can make the difference between good and great bigtime. Franklin’s Tite-Bond, White Lightning caulk, Brass Craft plumbing connections, Benjamin Moore paint . .. They proved their true worth [to us] . . . over and over again. You don’t turn your back on friends, not real job-site friends like those. Spread the word, save the grief. We’re adding Laticrete masonry additives and adhesives and Simpson Strong-Tie connectors in the quarterly update.
Q: Endorsements? A: It’s only been me paying them down all the years. Not the other way around. Not yet, anyway.
Q: And your services? A: Nationally, for house building and remodeling, light commercial and industrial, say, leasehold storefront interiors and steel shell buildouts. Consulting, designing, drafting.
Q: Speaking of paying, who pays for all your standards? Don’t they run up the already blooming bills for building a house? A: Our design materials are generally at par to slightly pricier than coded and commonly used materials. Design labor is usually about the same, once crews change their ways of building. We’ve got a quote right on this point. It’s this, ‘Do you want to hear the bad news now or live it later?’ That is, later when the basement smells like a basement, when there’s not enough hot water or the toilet keeps plugging [up], when the new ceiling fan won’t work, when the four-year old wall paint looks 10 years old, later when the roofing sags. It’s cheaper to get it right than it is to make it right.
Q: What’s going to change things from your view of residential design and house construction? A: Nothing lasts forever. On the big screen, long-term view it’ll be cheaper, easier, faster design and construction that benefit both means and ends. Sea changes. Paradigm shifts. You know, bigger than Wal-Mart, smaller than antibiotics. We see probes into our future all around us - geodesic domes and biospheres, various applications with concrete, water-borne cities like Norman Nixon's Freedom Ship, the smaller houses of Sarah Susanka, Jim Tolpin et al., Paolo Soleri’s arcology and the Cosanti Foundation’s
—MORE—
Arcosanti, Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language. They’re worthy probes and prospects, but they’re not roadmaps into our future. You need to stir in: a) much more independent means of total-use energy production; b) a cultural insistence on and acceptance of more efficiently designed, more attractive, smaller sized house structures; c) less economic dependence on big cities as we know them. For starters, that ought to do it. Since this is my wish list, let me add … high-speed…, wireless . . . computer technology seamless both in software and hardware acquisition, adaptation, and application . ..
On the small screen, near-term view, change if at all noticeable will come from social and economic elements already in play like a cat stalking – slowly, patiently, and probably just as messy in its intermittent outcomes: 1) folks buying and building smaller — for me, a given from US demography, people propelled by wealth and experience to demand better and best; 2)fewer design … and construction craftsmen to deliver better and best; 3)marketplace economics of design, construction, and ownership that penalize prevalent practices while pending reward for demonstrably better ways and means to draw and build.
Q: That’s it? A: Thanks for asking.
Complimentary copy of “Home Design Standards - Home Building Standards”, January 1, 2003 available on request to jrp2h2000@yahoo.com.
Summary: Before The Architect recently interviewed about its business and business environment in custom house design and construction. Candid views expose fundamental weaknesses in designing and building materials, means, and methods. Before The Architect offers near-term and long-term solutions.
Background: Before The Architect provides custom house design and construction consulting, design, and Autocad 2000 drafting for residential, light commercial and industrial building projects. Its principals, Ralph and Jean Pressel, have worked hands-on in designing and building going on four decades both on their own and for others.
# # #
· · · · · · ·
(If this is your first visit to Before The Architect, please consider spending a few moments looking over the Site Map, in order to get a feel for the architecture of the site itself. Before The Architect E-mail: jrp2h2000@yahoo.com. )