DESIGN | When Beauty and Budget Work Together
Trying to design an affordable house with an architect? Proceed with caution.
Written By Fernando Pagés Ruiz
Starting with Herbert and Katherine Jacobs’s $5,000 home built in 1937, designed to show he could create affordable housing, Frank Lloyd Wright initiated his Usonian design line. “Unimpeded by a foundation, front porch, protruding chimney, or distracting shrubbery,” Wright sought to create well-crafted houses for the everyday person. Yet not even Wright could hold off the impulse toward high design and lost his way with increasingly elaborate architectural flourishes. Soon, the moderate Usonian homes gave way to the pricier Prairie styles he became famous for.
Maybe architects should not be called to design in the simple, clean proportions and ordinary materials required for affordability any more than Michelin Star chefs should be asked to create cafeteria menus. Great poets don’t write greeting cards. And only builders keenly aware of construction costs can guide designs toward affordability. I am a big fan of several architects, including Wright. I worked with his student, Geoffrey Childs, designing a very affordable complex of twelve infill houses. However, most of my experience with academically trained architects is that they resist the compromises required to achieve low cost.
For example, an excellent architect and close friend and I got into an argument. He accused me of “evil” for insisting roof pitches between 4/12 and 6/12 were ideal for lowering costs and improving structural performance. I even had the wind tunnel tests to support the structural assertion and went to the trouble to have a truss manufacturer weigh in by pricing two similar roofs of varying pitch. But my friend’s love for steeper roofs ran deeper than logic. I have lived through the same type of argument enough times to know that design supersedes cost considerations for many architects and that they have deep insecurity about being associated with buildings that would not meet their peer group’s approval. Affordable housing is not always the prettiest, but it can be elegant in its efficiency.
Architects I know will characterize the most affordable housing with words like bleak, dismal, and deplorable, or the descriptor I hear most often: “hideous,” expressing absolute contempt. This is unfortunate, because architects should strive to provide unsubsidized design for every rung of the housing ladder, from homeless on up.
Throughout Lincoln, Nebraska, you find many simple, low-cost ranch homes built by Ervin Peterson, founder of Peterson Construction Company. His son, the late Bob Peterson, was my adviser in designing and building affordable homes—he always knew how to resolve a problem or do a pricey thing cheaply. His dad’s homes required just $25 down and an agreement to do some work, such as laying floor tile and painting. This made buying a house a snap, and many people did so. Peterson constructed about 2,500 of these homes across the city.
The homes included clever design elements, such as a sealed crawl space that served as a giant plenum for the heating system. The Petersons used two layers of drywall with wood spacers instead of framing studs to create room for electrical wiring between demising bedroom walls. They bought materials in bulk. And they knew how many studs and nails went into each model. They were masters of affordable housing. While designers regard these homes as “hideous,” I find them beautiful, and even today, 2,500 homeowners still love them dearly. A hideous house is better than no house, and when affordability is even more critical than global warming, architects will do well to remember this.
The acclaimed Miami architect and planner Andrés Duany is one of the few I have worked with who will submit to the stringent restraint required for the most affordable manufactured housing. Despite his openness to value engineering, we have argued about simplifying façades because “otherwise, everyone will hate it,” as he told me on one project. Everyone except, of course, the people who finally find a home within their means. They will love it. Fortunately, Duany is devoted to design solutions and talented enough to achieve the tenuous balance required for low-cost housing to succeed aesthetically.
You may not have the opportunity to work with a designer of the caliber of Duany or Wright, willing to spend a year resolving the challenges of a $500 commission—the sum Jacobs paid Wright for the design of his $5,000 house. So, you will have to get deeply involved in the design process, analyzing every ornament, window trim flourish, and aspect of the roof pitch to control the outcome. Architects can be imposing, but don’t back down. You must start with a budget; if the design exceeds your cost limitations, even if it’s a nice-looking house, don’t sign off. Insist on meeting your pricing criteria.
Fernando Pagés Ruiz builds non-subsidized affordable homes for a largely immigrant community. He collaborates with DPZ CoDesign on cost reduction, chairs CNU Latino, and writes for Fine Homebuilding and the Green Building Advisor. He is busy researching and writing the second edition of his bestseller Building an Affordable House with The Taunton Press.
As an architect actively involved in the world of affordable housing, I generally agree with what you are saying. I worked for several years for a good sized general contractor who always said that a square was the most efficient building type and like Wright, I have long designed on a four foot by eight foot module to eliminate waste. Architecture in academia has failed the profession in many practical aspects of practice, affordability being but one.
There are a couple of things I'd like to point out, however.
First, Wright's Prairie Style came well before, not after, his Usonian Period. The height of his Prairie Style was in 1909 with the Robie House & his Usonians were in the Thirties & Forties during/after the Depression. When you are trying to make a point, facts matter. Wright was responding to the economic realities of his time.
The second is that Wright's $500. commission for Jacobs was 10% of the $5000. construction cost of the house. Most architects I know would be happy to be garnering 10% residential commissions today. When the cost to construct a 1500 sf. home (the size of the Jacobs House) is roughly $250,000 today, exclusive of the cost of land, site preparation, or other associated fees, a $25,000 fee would be nice. Five percent is a much more common fee number.
When he had the opportunity to spend his clients money, Wright generally did. He was, after all, building a house directly atop a waterfall in Pennsylvania for department store magnate Edgar Kaufman at about the same time he was designing the Jacobs house. His initial fee was to be $8000 for a $40,000 weekend house, a 20% fee. The final cost was over $155,000 and he received an additional $11.5k.
The purchasing power of Jacobs' $5000. in 1936 is $116,500 today and would result in a $11,650. fee at 10% today. I doubt anybody can build for $116k today with contemporary prices, but a fee of $11.5k would not be unreasonable for an affordable house. So while the purchasing power of construction has decreased dramatically, the purchasing power of custom architectural fees remains roughly unchanged.
Good morning Fernando. I read your latest article with great interest. I'm a retired journalist who has spent most of my career focusing on homebuilding and remodeling and heavy/civil construction. In my youth I worked as a production framer as well as a builder of concrete forms. My first magazine job was with Better Homes and Gardens as a building/remodeling editor. We scoured the country for good affordable home ideas. And I've been a lifelong, self educated student of design after I happened upon Frank Lloyd Wright's "The Future of Architecture. "
The one thing nobody seems to understand it that every right angle corner (aside from the four corners of the rectangle) in the exterior of a home's envelope adds at least $10K to the cost, and nearly doubles the labor time. The layout team has to double up on stakes and stringlines. The concrete guy has to measure, cut, install and brace an additional section of the forms. The framer must do likewise not only for the wall but all the different length joists, rafters and roof sheathing sections. Siding, drywall, ceiling, flooring plumbing and electrical runs all take additional measuring, cutting and installation time. And in terms of air leaks and weather tightness, the corners are always the most problematic.
Simple math will also show that the most efficient form for maximizing the interior space while minimizing exterior surface area (thus reducing HVAC energy loss to the outside) is a cube. The longer the form stretches out, the more bump outs one adds, the greater the exterior surface area and the more inefficient your heating and cooling envelope becomes.
if you look at single family dwellings in Europe they are almost all uniformly simple, two story rectangles for this same reason. And yet these homes are not bland, because of the proportions and detailing of windows, doors and trim. The use of low walls, garden gates and landscaping also help mitigate the flat front look.
Americans seem to think that a busy looking front facade implies $$$$$. But in fact these pointless gables and visual carbuncles add cost without adding any significant interior space.
It is a challenge to arrange the rooms in a home within a simple rectangle. But I'm working on some plans for a home I intend to build next year and I'm hoping to show that with a simple footprint properly detailed, one can save money for use on upgraded interior finishes and accoutrements and create a significantly more energy efficient design. If you'd like to discuss further email me at surfcat12@gmail.com. I live in Alabama, so relevant to your Substack's title at least.