Fewer architects focus on residential design

These days, fewer architects are focusing on residential design than ever before – and it’s due in large part to decreasing demand for new, original home designs.

Another reason for the decline may be that an architect’s services aren’t legally required for homes, said Stuart Murr, a local intern architect and home builder who started design-build company Smart Designs LLC in July 2005.

Missouri statutes state that an architect is not required for a single-family residence.

“Anybody can build their own house if they want to – they just have to meet certain inspection and code requirements,” said Murr, who previously spent more than five years in commercial design with the firm that is now Pellham Phillips Architects. “So they take existing house plans of some kind and try to fit them onto a lot.”

For homeowners who want to find their own home designs, there are plenty of Web sites and books with plans available. Those also can be helpful, Murr said, even when a homeowner plans to enlist the services of an architect to design the home.

Most of Murr’s home design clients, he said, come to him only after they’ve done extensive research and haven’t found exactly what they want.

Decrease in demand

A steady decline in original designs for single-family homes began after World War II, according to Michael Buono, director of Drury University’s Hammons School of Architecture. He points to the rapid increase in need for new homes as the driving force behind an increase in similar-looking homes based on a handful of designs.

“There was a tremendous explosion in need for housing, and developers felt they could repeat things and still be successful,” Buono said.

He estimates that only about 5 percent of new homes have an architect involved in their designs. The rest, he says, are copied – some will be designs a developer has seen in other places, while in other cases, an entire subdivision will have homes built with the same one or two floor plans.

Drury’s Buono thinks that method translates into missed opportunities to individualize homes.

“Most people don’t want to pay the fees to design a home, even though designing a home is just as complex as designing a large building,” he said. “They will not balk at paying 6 percent to a Realtor who might show a house in one day, but they’ll balk at paying 6 (percent) or 10 percent to an architect who may have to work six to eight months.”

That additional expense – architects usually bill by the hour – is one reason that starter homes are often built based on a handful of designs.

“For homes in the $100,000 to $125,000 range, you can’t afford to have an architect involved,” said Jeff Smith, architect with Butler, Rosenbury & Partners and former president of the American Institute of Architects Springfield chapter. “Once you get to $200,000 and up, you have an opportunity to make changes that make that home unique.”

The advantages

Many architects agree that originality is the key reason to enlist an architect for home design.

“You can look and see how spaces can be moved around and look at how efficiently space can be used,” said Byron Bassinger of Bassinger Architectural Design, which specializes in residential design. “Many people, with the house they’re going to live in, they want it to be tailored to how they’re going to live in it.”

That’s also part of the reason architects are rarely involved in larger subdivisions that aren’t built to suit individual homeowners.

“You’re designing for that particular person,” Smith said.

Bassinger said clients almost always have ideas in mind when they come to him for assistance.

“They’ll take particular plans that they like aspects of and they’ll combine all of those. They have ideas and a floor plan they have a strong liking for, but there are a few things they want to change about it,” he said. “That’s where the plan books can come in handy – as a starting reference.”

Overall, Drury professor Buono said, people who want an individual feel for their homes would do well to find an architect.

“But they should be committed to work with that architect and they should be willing to compensate them for that work,” he said.

The Law on Architecture Work

Missouri law says “no person shall practice architecture in Missouri,” including planning, aesthetic and structural design, without an architect’s license. The law, however, provides the following project types as exceptions:

• a “dwelling house,” either single-family or multifamily for not more than two families;

• a commercial or industrial building for employment, assembly, housing, sleeping or eating of not more than nine persons;

• any one structure containing less than 20,000 cubic feet, except as provided above, and which is not a part or a portion of a project which contains more than one structure; and

• a building or structure used exclusively for farm purposes.

Source: Missouri Revised Statutes, Sections 327.091 and 327.101[[In-content Ad]]