Excerpts from Chapters Six to Ten
Chapter Six
Architectural Styles and Plans
Storybook Style cliffside in Big Sur, California.
THIS chapter is a short synopsis of styles and is intended to provide you with basic information on the most popular styles used in today’s residential market. The list is more comprehensive than the descriptions that follow since not all the styles on the list are popular enough to warrant a description. However, there are one or more pictures of each style described. For a more comprehensive treatise on home styles, their origins, applications and more photographs, please consult the book Home Styles--Origins, Characteristics and Applications, which you will enjoy for its analysis of many styles, the cultures from which they originated and their contemporary applications for today.
Traditional styles are those that have a local, regional or international history. These styles have stood the test of time and are never out of style. Vernacular styles are those that are common to or reflect the culture, environment, materials and resources of a particular period or region.
Traditional styles are those that have a local, regional or international history. These styles have stood the test of time and are never out of style. Vernacular styles are those that are common to or reflect the culture, environment, materials and resources of a particular period or region.
Storybook Style
When thinking of Storybook Style like the one shown here, think of eclectic, whimsical, comical, carefree, and other nicknames you wish to use that will evoke images of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel and other fictional characters and the way they live, resulting in the incorporation of fantasy and artists’ renditions of allegorical children’s books. The Storybook Style started in the 1920s in California but the craze lasted only until the mid to late 1930s.
Castles
Schloss Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig's
Bavarian castle in Germany.
Medieval castles can take on any shape or size and can have features from many popular vernacular styles. Usually quite large with many rooms, castles can have Gothic, Romanesque/
Italianate, Chateauesque, Second Empire and Mediterranean elements, depending on their country of origin and where they are reproduced. Originally built as forts to protect the king’s domain from enemy attack, many have deep moats and drawbridges with portcullis (pointed, grated wooden or iron drop gates), tapered water tables, crenellated towers, grand courtyards and formal gardens.
Italianate, Chateauesque, Second Empire and Mediterranean elements, depending on their country of origin and where they are reproduced. Originally built as forts to protect the king’s domain from enemy attack, many have deep moats and drawbridges with portcullis (pointed, grated wooden or iron drop gates), tapered water tables, crenellated towers, grand courtyards and formal gardens.
French Styles
French styles include Provincial with its highly identifiable quoins, eyebrow arched windows, arched dormers and steeply pitched slate roofs, Normandy and Country with their steep slate roofs and minimal detailing, Empire, employing lavish ornamentation and striking cornice details and Second Empire, which is famous for its concave and convex and mansard and brightly colored details and elements. In general, homes that employ elements and/or features of more than one derivative style are considered eclectic.
Chapter Seven
Your Home's Environment (Landscaping and the Neighborhood)
Your home will be just a naked house if its surroundings are not clothed with appropriate landscaping to complement the design. The landscaping should not be done haphazardly. Careful and thoughtful planning can enhance a well designed home and give it character and enhance its visual appeal. It needs to fit the architectural style, the location (neighborhood) and the region. Plants need to be indigenous to the region and as maintenance free as possible. Landscaping can be a protection as well as decoration.
If you decide to design your own landscaping for your home, visit a local reputable botanical nursery or garden center. Take photos of your home with you, including photos of the sides and rear. You cannot take too many pictures. The more you have, the better the landscape people can assist you. In my judgment, you should take pictures of your neighbors’ homes as well.
Find out what plantings are indigenous to your region and require the least amount of maintenance, including water. Xeriscape landscaping is the principle and process of landscaping with completely maintenance-free materials for your area.
If you decide to design your own landscaping for your home, visit a local reputable botanical nursery or garden center. Take photos of your home with you, including photos of the sides and rear. You cannot take too many pictures. The more you have, the better the landscape people can assist you. In my judgment, you should take pictures of your neighbors’ homes as well.
Find out what plantings are indigenous to your region and require the least amount of maintenance, including water. Xeriscape landscaping is the principle and process of landscaping with completely maintenance-free materials for your area.
Chapter Eight
"Universal Design for Barrier-Free Living"
FOR centuries, homes were designed and built “for the lifespan of the building”, not for the lifespan of the people who live in them. It’s time we started to think of designing and building for “the lifespan of the people: all people”. We are not the same people we were when we first moved into our homes, but our homes have not changed with us for the most part. Also, altering our homes for our current needs without considering the future can be quite expensive, financially and emotionally.
Most homes built in the twentieth century were built for so-called “average” people. By definition, the average person is a healthy male, six feet tall, weighing 165 pounds or a healthy female, five feet five inches tall, weighing 130 pounds. How many people in today’s world fit into that mold? Not many. The average person is certainly not in the majority.
What is healthy? A healthy person in the built environment has unlimited mobility and dexterity, no impedance to movement and is able to perform normal tasks with ease. Is that true of everyone? Certainly not. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that one person in four will experience some sort of disability at least temporarily sometime during their lifetime. These disabilities will limit the way we live in our homes while disabled, either temporarily or permanently.
Most homes built in the twentieth century were built for so-called “average” people. By definition, the average person is a healthy male, six feet tall, weighing 165 pounds or a healthy female, five feet five inches tall, weighing 130 pounds. How many people in today’s world fit into that mold? Not many. The average person is certainly not in the majority.
What is healthy? A healthy person in the built environment has unlimited mobility and dexterity, no impedance to movement and is able to perform normal tasks with ease. Is that true of everyone? Certainly not. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that one person in four will experience some sort of disability at least temporarily sometime during their lifetime. These disabilities will limit the way we live in our homes while disabled, either temporarily or permanently.
Chapter Nine
Energy Efficiency and Conservation
ENERGY conservation can best be explained in another term: energy efficiency. Prior to the global energy crisis of 1973, brought on by the Arab oil embargo, we were in energy heaven. That crisis should have taught us that we cannot continue on the free ride forever. Change was needed, but we balked—and paid for it. Our gas guzzling vehicles rolled off the assembly lines in record numbers until the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, when gasoline prices surged up, eventually to more than four dollars a gallon in the U.S., even higher elsewhere.
The real benefit of solar technology has only come about since 2000, when photovoltaics became popular. The difference between conventional solar technology and photovoltaic is this: conventional solar systems take cold water and run it through pipes to heat it from the Sun’s energy. Photovoltaics captures the Sun’s energy to produce electricity.
Wind power is real free energy to produce and inexpensive to distribute. Perhaps you have seen wind farms around the country lately, but it is not really new technology. The Dutch have been using windmills for centuries, and harnessing the wind for electricity started decades ago. In California, wind farms have sprouted in the area north of Mount San Jacinto northwest of Palm Springs and in Beaumont. Former oil well owners have begun harvesting wind energy in west Texas and wind farms are sprouting in other parts of the American west and Midwest where the wind is a constant part of life. In the Philippines, there is a new wind farm on the north coast of Luzon Island. Soon, wind farms will be just about everywhere that wind can be harnessed.
Hydroelectric power is not new. It is more than a hundred years old. Famous power plants include Niagara Falls in New York State, Hoover Dam in Nevada and many others. Why am I bringing up huge hydroelectric power plants when discussing home planning? The answer is quite simple.
If large hydro plants can produce electricity for millions of households, why can’t smaller plants be built to service smaller areas? The answer is that they can, and are. For many decades, small turbines built into dams along small rivers in local communities have been providing electric power to small communities and even single households, especially isolated farmers and mountain resorts.
The real benefit of solar technology has only come about since 2000, when photovoltaics became popular. The difference between conventional solar technology and photovoltaic is this: conventional solar systems take cold water and run it through pipes to heat it from the Sun’s energy. Photovoltaics captures the Sun’s energy to produce electricity.
Wind power is real free energy to produce and inexpensive to distribute. Perhaps you have seen wind farms around the country lately, but it is not really new technology. The Dutch have been using windmills for centuries, and harnessing the wind for electricity started decades ago. In California, wind farms have sprouted in the area north of Mount San Jacinto northwest of Palm Springs and in Beaumont. Former oil well owners have begun harvesting wind energy in west Texas and wind farms are sprouting in other parts of the American west and Midwest where the wind is a constant part of life. In the Philippines, there is a new wind farm on the north coast of Luzon Island. Soon, wind farms will be just about everywhere that wind can be harnessed.
Hydroelectric power is not new. It is more than a hundred years old. Famous power plants include Niagara Falls in New York State, Hoover Dam in Nevada and many others. Why am I bringing up huge hydroelectric power plants when discussing home planning? The answer is quite simple.
If large hydro plants can produce electricity for millions of households, why can’t smaller plants be built to service smaller areas? The answer is that they can, and are. For many decades, small turbines built into dams along small rivers in local communities have been providing electric power to small communities and even single households, especially isolated farmers and mountain resorts.
Chapter Ten
Materials Selection
There is a quote from a popular trade journal that is quite appropriate to this chapter. “The sweet taste of low price lasts only briefly, while the bitterness of poor quality lasts a lifetime.” When selecting materials for your home or addition, you need to put quality above price in almost every instance. However, your budget will have a lot to say about what you can realistically afford. Balancing quality with your budget can be a challenge, but it can be managed with careful, practical planning.
Some of the materials and products that need to be considered at the design development stage are:
Some of the materials and products that need to be considered at the design development stage are:
- Principal superstructure
- Insulation
- Exterior cladding and finish
- Fenestration (windows and doors)
- Plumbing materials and fixtures and appliances
- Electrical wiring and strategic placement
- Electrical fixtures
- Roofing
- Flooring
- Cabinetry
- Kitchen appliances and fixtures
- Lighting
- HVAC systems
- Indoor air quality
