Cohousing-L Mailing List: Designing Your Own CoHousing

[Harry Pasternak (Harry_Pasternak]

John
Here are a few of my reasons for stating that the homeowner can design their
own home better than an architect:

* Two of the most "acclaimed" architects in the western world are Corbusier
and Frank Lloyd Wright. A large proportion of architecture schools in the
western world are based on their concepts, notions and designs. Neither
Corbusier or Wright trained as an architect! -Corbu was a cubist painter
(like Picasso)-Wright was a drop-out from civil engineering (I believe he
lasted three months).

* Witold Rybczynski, professor of architecture at McGill University and
author of many books on housing and house design (including "Home")  was
interviewed on Canadian Broadcast Radio's morning national show
"Morningside"-the host asked Rybczynski who was the best person to design
ones own home, the architect or the homeowner? Rybczynski replied, the
homeowner!

* In an open design competition held in Denmark for a
cohousing/collaborative/cooperative project- the winning design was by six
undergraduate landscaping students!-the development was built-within months
there was a line-up for people trying to get into that project. The project
was studied by Danish architect Jan Gehl and his students-the conclusion, it
"works" and the people love living in the community.

* I studied with Gehl for a year- his 30 years of  evaluative research 
across the western world - on the psychology, sociology of
cohousing/collaborative/cooperative housing as related to its design choices
-makes him the world authority in this field. How many architects are aware
of his work? ( I suggested Gehl to the authors of the cohousing book, they
had never heard of him.)

* According to the chief building inspector for Ontario, 80% of all single
family detached homes built in Ontario are designed and built by their
owners-over the past 14 years, approximately 2000 of these  people have
attended the Thousand Islands Institute's "The Knack of Home Construction" -a
64 hour, nine day intensive hands-on design and build workshop-yes they leave
and do it.

* Have I done evaluative research?  I was brought in by the Ontario Housing
Corporation, to study severe problems in a variety of
cohousing/collaborative/cooperative projects, all designed by architects.
They had ever problem conceivable-the project with the most problems had won
a national design award - of course, before the folks moved in .

Lastly, people do need to learn  a seven step design process-don't have to be
able to draw (use Broderbund's 3 D Home Architect)-yes, they need to send
someone to take a week long intensive "learn how to build a home" workshop. 

Did you know that many Schools of Architecture in Canada no longer teach home
construction or drafting!?

Harry (Harry_Pasternak [at] tvo.org)