This gets said a lot - but in practice, very little housing is built that way.
The mega builders that build big developments certainly don't match up house plans with the way lots are oriented, and that's where most houses are built.
I'm not trying to argue we shouldn't work on that, but to just dismiss off the shelf house plans entirely because "you have to build for the site" is rejecting the reality of how things are done.
At the very least, a repository of plans that was categorized simply by the orientation it was optimized for would be a step ahead of how most housing is planned and built today.
Anyone who has driven through a bunch of tract homes knows this to be true. The homes are built to maximize the number of homes in the available space and nothing else.
If you really don't believe me just survey home owners in those now 2-year old tract homes. Even if the actual houses have excellent construction you'll discover the builder completely declined to take into account things like drainage of the lot or how maintenance can be performed.
I duno if I agree with this. They might not go lot to lot but a big developer also is the one who orientates the lots and selects the designs ... I think it is all relative to how they do business / organize lots.
It's more general than lot to lot, but still seems to take into account the general lay of the land, the city's codes and etc.
I'm around Kansas City. The biggest builders here will be in multiple subdivisions at once, with varying topography, and they may or may not have been the ones to plat out the lots.
They will absolutely sell you any house plan in their catalog to go on any lot, so long as it fits. You might get a walkout basement instead of a full in-ground basement, but that's about how much it varies.
The only variability is that smaller plans would be available in nicer subdivisions (that require bigger/expensive houses) and larger plans won't be available in subdivisions where they don't physically fit on the lots.
> The biggest builders here will be in multiple subdivisions at once, with varying topography
You are ignoring the tens of thousands of hours pre-built builders put into streamlining designs that can be put on almost any plot of land. Think of it as downloading a piece of software and saying "oh it just works everywhere" while ignoring the engineering time that went into testing and bug fixing on every platform.
Regardless of what you see as a casual outside observer, an architect and civil engineer are putting their stamps on each set of blueprints for each construction site.
> Regardless of what you see as a casual outside observer, an architect and civil engineer are putting their stamps on each set of blueprints for each construction site.
Hard disagree on this wishful thinking. I've literally seen the submitted plans for my house - there was absolutely no architect or engineer stamp on them. The true mega-builders might do this, but smaller operations (say, 25 to a few hundred houses a year) don't.
In my subdivision (which will be a few hundred houses built by one company) the plans are all new to this subdivision, designed by the head guy, and there aren't enough houses of any plan to amortize "tens of thousands of hours" among them (they've built 4 copies of my house so far, for reference).
You don't need an engineer or architect involved in building a "normal" house or developing plans in large parts of the country. There's no calculations required, for the most part, either. The codes allow a prescriptive path to compliance, so if you fall the span charts in the codes, it's good to go.
The only real notable exception is in truss design - but that's never designed by an architect either. The builder sends the house design to a truss company along with required loads in the area, and the truss company sends back trusses that cover the space and hold the required loads.
Threads like this are peak HN - people who "know better" how the world should work (and hey, I wish I worked like that too) telling people who have actually experienced something their experience can't possibly be real. I actually have had a house built recently. I did a ton of research, and this builder was the best I could do in my area and at my price range (about $600k). The options get a LOT worse as you spend less on new constructions.
> Threads like this are peak HN - people who "know better" how the world should work (and hey, I wish I worked like that too) telling people who have actually experienced something their experience can't possibly be real.
"Engineer's Disease" -- the idea that deep domain and problem solving skills easily transfer over to other areas in anything but a superficial sense.
> Threads like this are peak HN - people who "know better" how the world should work (and hey, I wish I worked like that too) telling people who have actually experienced something their experience can't possibly be real.
> Threads like this are peak HN - people who "know better" how the world should work
Peak self own. I literally asked an architect before posting.
> there was absolutely no architect or engineer stamp on them.
Did you review the copies on file at the planning department? While there are exemptions in some states for simple or stick built homes, larger planned developments or construction financing (which all big builders use) will require it.
> While there are exemptions in some states for simple or stick built homes,
The vast, vast majority of single family homes built in the US are simple, stick built homes, without anything going on that requires any more engineering than consulting the span charts in the codes.
You are ignoring the tens of thousands of hours pre-built builders put into streamlining designs that can be put on almost any plot of land.
No they aren't. This thread was started by someone saying "The idea of planning a house without taking into account the site where it will sit will never produce a good house.".
Both of you (and everyone) is saying this isn't true.
I'm actually taking issue with that assertion - mid-sized builders absolutely don't have that kind of time put into the designs of their house. They build one and iterate on the problems - it's not so different from software. I know - we've had quite a few problems related to being the 2nd iteration of a new house plan for a builder.
Just think of how shitty it would be to be #1. There is a lot to be gained by being house #10 or 100 in terms of design cleanup. Achitecture houses that are one off will always have weird quirks because its the first of iteration or cost a ton to address those issues .
I think the "good house" would need to be defined first.
Like, going by objective measures like "how well it is insulated and how much it costs to cool/heat it", or "how well it uses the space of the plot" most of them fall well within "good", partly because at least on insulation level most countries require them to be at least decent.
But how well that fits the new owners ? Now that's where there would be actual benefit from either customization or doing it from scratch.
They just want to sell a bunch of houses quickly, not to create perfect houses. Good enough is quite literally good enough for them.
There will be compromises because they build for average buyer, not for you.
And people that are looking for a house usually want to move there as soon as possible, doing custom not only means you need to pay more but that you also have to wait longer and pay for the place you're currently living extra year or two.
Ideally all would start from some common plans then architect would customize it based on the future home owner input but that's frankly expensive.
I think ideally we would all live in modest, reasonably sized simple rectangular houses that are built to last, to be energy efficient, and which achieve low cost through standard designs.
The "then architect" part of the process results in McMansions that are awful to live in, are environmentally disastrous, and contribute to the growing unaffordability of housing for all but the upper classes.
Ideally people would have a variety of options for size and style based on what they like and can afford rather than being forced into your personal preferences. There are more important factors than energy efficiency for most buyers. While I don't have a McMansion myself, they are actually quite livable for the target market of upper-middle class suburban nuclear families with children. The major homebuilders literally hire sociologists to do field research on such families and then design house plans to fit their lifestyle.
Architects don’t design McMansions. The lack of an architect is actually how they are produced. Less than 10% of housing in the US was designed by an architect.
> I think ideally we would all live in modest, reasonably sized simple rectangular houses that are built to last, to be energy efficient, and which achieve low cost through standard designs.
In an ideal world yes, in the real world you'll get run out of town being called a "communist", or no one will buy the houses because actually built-to-last homes are waaay more expensive than the cheap drywall and wood stuff that one sees go up in the air with every tornado video.
Those might not be common in the US or in your place but are very common in others and are at least in the country I live in, because they are just an investment.
The entire purpose of designing your own house is to take these things into account. If you're looking for a cookie-cutter generic design, just let a mega builder use one of their templates and they'll get what you're talking about here.
You're missing my point - it's that less people have access to the type of "use an architect and build a custom home" experience you're talking about.
I was shocked when I was looking to have a new home built a few years ago how much you have to spend to actually get into a "custom home" and not a fairly templated house.
Even if you're having a new house built, you get a lot less choices than you might think. To most builders, "custom home" means you get to pick the paint and flooring, not that you have appreciable input into anything structural.
I'm sure it varies regionally, but where I'm at (Kansas City market) you have to be in about the $800k range, generally, to be able to work with an actual architect and build something custom - and that's just plain out of reach for most people.
I know, but I was assuming the OP already knew they had the opportunity to dictate the architecture of their house, since that's what they were asking about. Either they have money or they have volunteer labor and low expectations.
The mega builders that build big developments certainly don't match up house plans with the way lots are oriented, and that's where most houses are built.
I'm not trying to argue we shouldn't work on that, but to just dismiss off the shelf house plans entirely because "you have to build for the site" is rejecting the reality of how things are done.
At the very least, a repository of plans that was categorized simply by the orientation it was optimized for would be a step ahead of how most housing is planned and built today.