Who’s Really Designing Your House? 6 Designers You Didn’t Want to Design Your Home

Christopher Alexander’s The Timeless Way of Building was originally published in 1979. It is an interesting book with a hippy vibe. I did have a major revelation that came from it, and I want to challenge you guys with this thought.

Who is really designing your house? Who is really making the decisions that determine style, layout, materials, and set moldings? I would challenge you that we are not being as intentional as we could be when it comes to great design.

If you’ve heard me speak publicly, you’ve heard me say that you must FIGHT in order to build a great house. That is because so many things are pushing against authentic design. But what became clear as I read Alexander’s book is that unseen forces design 80–90% of the homes that are being built today.

Alexander points out that less than 5% of houses are actually designed by architects. I have heard this statistic and had understood it was 2–3% of houses. I want to qualify that an architecturally designed house is a house plan of more than 6 sheets that lays out a design criteria based on an ideal or proposal.

I do not consider starter houses to be architecturally designed, even though an “architect” might have put together the plans for building. Because those houses are designed to be disposable and cheap, I won’t include them.

Let’s consider a great house by Charles Dilbeck (who did small and large cottage houses) as a gold standard example. He was concerned with style. He cared about details. He designed interior as well as exterior elements. These elements were carefully considered and harmonious. They all contribute to the story or the narrative of the home.

What happens today with plans is that you get 6 or 8 sheets. You get your floor plan, your 4 elevations, maybe an electrical plan, and you’re free to go.

Here are the 6 ways designs get made that do not consider design or purpose.

Code: Code is a safety trigger intended to protect us. It is a lowest common denominator for building. It says your fireplace needs 12” of non-combustible area, so that mantels look foolish and silly around historic [profiles]. I’m not anti-code, but realize that code is determining design. The handrail on a porch is a good example. I see guys putting them at 42” on a porch with a 2’ drop, and it looks ridiculous.

Energy Efficiency: Don’t get me started. We can get in trouble pretty quick here chasing after numbers to hit a metric that doesn’t necessarily make the house better or last longer. Windows would be the obvious example, especially here in the south. We’d rather put a cheap window in that will need to be replaced in 20 years than a long-lasting window that will last 100 years.

Tradespeople: You may not realize how much your trades drive design, but they do. I can’t tell you how many cottages I see built with boxed eaves when they should be open tails. Why does this happen? Well, it’s not clearly defined on the plans, and the framer says casually, “It’s okay to box in the eaves, right?” The builder, unsure, says sure.

Plug boxes in “convenient” or “standard” places on most homes can sit right in the middle of the paneling.

Stair details, skirt boards, base returns, crown details—these are non-specified interior trim details that will get done like they did down the street if someone isn’t watching.

Lumberyards: You send your plans to the lumberyard and they quote your plans. What materials are they quoting on a 6-page set if no one is specifying the material? I know you wanted a plank door, but those are special orders; we have 6-panel doors in stock—will that work? I know you wanted trim around the windows, but we can’t get that material; we normally just butt the siding into the jamb. I saw the stair detail, but iron is more popular than wood, okay?

Material reps (Tile, wood, stone): Why do houses look dated? Why does something appear 10 years old, 10 years later? Because when you go to the tile store, it is filled up with the newest trends, the hottest colors and shapes, and so you make your selections based on what is available, not what is best.

Budget: This one is obvious; we all have a budget and we need to make the best choices with the money we have.

The hard truth is that it is very hard to build a purposeful, composed, and meaningful house today because there are so many things fighting against you. You are going to need to make compromises to manage budget and selections so that you get a house that makes sense.

The plans we are putting together for people cost more and take longer because we are working through details so that mistakes can be avoided and details worked through so that it all makes sense.

We must plan to build beautifully, or you can get run over in the process by all the people who want to make their job easier and our houses more run-of-the-mill.