Ok slightly revised. I'm a lot happier with this.
Problem:
Suburban planning is often criticized for its low density, car-centered organization, and lack of third places. This has spawned urban planning strategies to increase density and encourage social interaction. While this is well-intentioned, if the actual architecture continues to be repetitive and generic, we are still failing to create distinctive places. “New Urbanist” and “Smart Growth” developments might indeed function better, but in many cases the overall quality is still anonymous. The current strategies for the creation of character are generally in two camps; one where the architecture attempts to create a faux-historic character, and one based on current contemporary trends of residential architecture which are potentially just as generic. The generation of authentic character is noticeably missing in the discussion.
Purpose:
Architecture should respond to the human desire for personal and community identity. Rather than designing with preconceived notions about aesthetic style, authentic architectural character should be derived from the distinct quality of a place, the identity of the users, and the innovation of the architect.
The strategies and precedents are so far the same as I posted before though.
Some issues to deal with:
- is it economically feasible to care about character? Is this only possible for custom homes, or can it be a strategy to differentiate multiple houses within a single development. Is is possible to design for customization and variety without it being horribly expensive? - there are historic precedents to how that might be done.
- is it a question of creating new communities or retrofitting existing ones?
