I have not but I do love looking at your sketches. Care to share more for us to ogle over? Doodles on napkins or more formal matters not. Share away!

I do love Virgil's sketches!! My dad's best sketches almost always start on a napkin or a 2x4.

I don't know a lot of architects that build houses....

Yes, I have.

Virgil, I respect your opinion and thus want to know, with what did you pair your Pinot Grigio?

Well, since you asked...mini Hatch Chile tacos! A seasonal favorite down hyar!

Oh, yeah...

I can't verify, for sure, that I've seen a custom home designed by an architect.

But...

I *can* tell you that I've driven through a few custom neighborhoods, and out of 3 or 4 dozen houses, I like maybe 3 or 4 single properties, if I'm lucky. So I have my suspicions.

I nearly knocked on one door, to ask who the architect was. I should have.

I've seen the outside of a few, but all of them are so modern I hate them. :P

I know of a large company building designed by an architect, and his ego took over during the design process...we're talking hissy fits and such when decorative items were removed due to budget concerns, or if someone even suggested he stay in the same (non upscale) hotel room as everyone else. :P

I've seen the blueprints for a modest 1200 sq ft home designed for accessible design, and the owner gave me a tour as the walls were going up. It was reasonable, and blended into the local vernacular styles well enough, but it definitely wasn't 'Wow', just 'OK'.

Admittedly though, around here architect pretty much means modern, so perhaps that's why I'm biased against them.

If someone commissioned me to create a teapot for them, and then started talking about breaking the handle, switching the lid, or painting over it, I just might throw a hissy fit, too, lol. So I can see that, definitely. Details matter.

Actually there are a couple Frank Lloyd Wright houses in the area but I have never been inside...

One Devoted Dame - yes, but if you couldn't afford the teapot the architect was suggesting, you'd hope he'd work with you to find a solution, not throw a hissy fit at you!

Here's some of the ones architect-designed in our area.
One is for a narrow lot (i suppose he did OK, though the house isn't stunning IMHO, esp since its surrounded by Tudor revivals and other classical designs). It appears he also removed all the old, mature trees on his lot too.

A few blocks away is this crazy-wonder, that you usually can't see because they left every tree possible on the tiny urban lot

There's the ADA one that I dont have a pic with siding on. The roof looks pretty flat to me, most in the neighborhood are 1-1/3 or 1-2/3 story.

And then there's the one the 'righteous' condo owners with their 'black and white' 3+ stories built to the absolute limit of the property, such that the im amazed a snow grader hasn't wiped it out. It's likely destroyed the market value of the beautiful old house next to it, and the neighborhood seems to hate it considering how many times I've walked by and seen it vandalized with graffitti saying 'get out' and other such things.

I live in one, sort of. A local well-known architect designed a row of four houses, and mine is the one of the four that most closely matches the original drawings. All of them have the same floorplan with minor variations, but I think the builder tried out different styles on the elevations to appeal to different sorts of buyers. Mine is the only one that looks like the architect originally intended on the elevations and various interior details.

I've been in a lot of houses designed by architects for individual clients.

I built one. Designed by a somewhat notable Seattle architect.

People who have an eye can tell that an architect designed it. Others are like, how come you didn't just find a plan on the Internet?

My spouse made the mistake of telling his mom and dad how much it costs. We'll never hear the end of it. Of course they think it's all my fault but actually it wasn't.

It's not for everyone, obviously.

Pal brings up a good point... A house/building could be designed by an architect, and then a builder could take liberties with the design. In that case, when the finished product fails to match the drawings, does it really count?

yes, sil and bro have done two architect designed, custom built homes very unusual, both of them (of course i mean homes and people)

Ours was designed by an architect. 17 years later we still love the house and there are only minor things we would change. More things that we could have better used the space as our family grew and changed.

I think it counts. They are recognizable as the architect's work. And with all of them the floorplans are the same, essentially and the windows and doors are in the same places. Just different materials on the front facades.

Grew up in two. My folks had both their homes designed by an architect, and the family business built them. Perfect. Sadly someone else doesn't think so, they are buying the first house, a ranch, for the lot and replacing the house with something twice its size. The woes of living in a good school district.

Around the corner from the customized developer-built house I live I now is an architect who studied under FLW and was at Taliesin. He designed and built his own house, somewhat Usonian, very cool,but when he's ready to sell it will take a while.

Actually the building I used to live in was designed by an early 19th century architect, the addition was designed by a turn of the 20th century architect (Louis Hickman) and there was a small addition (removed) designed by Horace Trumbauer's office, (of all people). The composer of "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" owned the house from 1858-1875, before the additions by the later architects.

The neighboring building was designed by Wilson Eyre, and the building at the end of the complex was designed by John Stewart.

I'm building two homes designed by an esteemed local contemporary architect, unfortunately he died, when necessary his previous assistant now assists us if we need architectural help. That said, I would never build a house without an architect, nor would I buy online plans as I've never seen a local lot that would work with those type of plans.

In a word... yes.

The house we are building is 100% custom, AIA architect designed, as are most, if not all, homes in our subdivision. It isn't a captive subdivision, so different builders and architects throught the neighborhood,. I think ours is the third or fourth house our architect has designed in the neighborhood, with at least one more on the boards.

Yes. Quite a few.

We have numerous custom designed homes in my neighborhood. I live in a 1958 custom designed home. I was told the roof was designed so a helicopter could land on it. There were AC ducts installed outside on the patio. The house could be divided into two wings-each with its own living room and with a sliding wood door that closed them off. The original owners even had an extra large bed custom made for the long bedroom. Unfortunately, by the time I got to it, it was in terrible condition and had been severely neglected. Here is the home back then. It looks essentially the same now, but I had to restore the screen block and roof.

There seems to be a misconception that a home designed by an architect and a home built using an internet plan are mutually exclusive. That is not the case. For example, the oft-touted architect Sarah Susanka sells house plans on the internet, you can see them here:

https://www.houseplans.com/exclusive/sarah-susanka

More examples:

Licensed architect selling plans online

Licensed architect selling plans online

Another

I think, guessing, that most of these online plans were actually designed for a specific client, for their unique lot (which would be the whole point of having an architect, IMHO), but then put up for sale on the internet.

P.S. Virgil, Hatch chiles are the best!

Countless having been in construction supply and high end window and doors, both residential and commercial for 30 plus years on Long Island near the Hamptons and the Gold Coast.

I agree, the two aren't mutually exclusive, and architects in America have published books of plans or patterns since the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century anyway.

But I think the internet and computer aided drafting have led to an explosion of plans churned out by designers and marketed under a small group of names. And many of these plans are not all that well-conceived to begin with, and then they are chosen with little regard to where they are being built so you end up with houses designed for zero lot lines out on the prairie and hillside houses shoehorned onto flat lots.

In addition it seems like of the thousands if plans out there, people on GW choose from about six.

On the other hand there seems to be two prevailing notions: one that working with an architect is going to be a nightmarish experience with a prima Donna that results in something bizarre -- or that architects who design custom houses are geniuses and the ones who create stock plans are hacks. The reality is probably mostly in the middle somewhere.

The same sorts of notions prevail in the Decorating forum about interior designers and in the Kitchen forums about kitchen designers: mostly that they are narcissists who have their own agendas and your money or talentless hacks who have your money, and that their most significant training is in How to Rip People Off.

Again I think the middle is true. They are people of average talent trying to turn out something serviceable.

"AIA architect designed"

Love that. The AIA is no different than a country club. If your check clears the bank you're a member of the club. There's no vetting of design talent to be a member. Not saying there's no design talent there. I am saying their talent level is no different than non AIA architects.Plenty from both groups who couldn't design their way out of a wet paper bag.

I only said that because ha,f the time a poster posts a plan on this site you architects chime in "are you sure you are dealing with an architect and not a designer?" That's one way to be sure, other than checking state licenses.

HA!, mojomom! Actually, it's pretty easy to tell if a posted plan has been designed by an experienced architect or not! When an architect here asks the question, chances are they are gently suggesting something to the poster...

In my current neighborhood, there are a couple of architect designed houses that I love. Another couple that are awful. In the next neighborhood over, there are lots of architect houses that are beautiful. This one is one of my favorites.

Yes, both custom-for-resident and custom-spec. (These are tear-down/new builds).

What is interesting with some of the custom-spec houses is that the investors/builders sometimes will adapt the plans to fit on another property and to me it never seems to work quite as well. The "prototype" houses are a much better fit for their lots. So even though this is suburban infill, site considerations still make a noticeable difference.

On-line plan factories are virtually unknown in this neck of the world. And, instead of architects, most one-offs--indeed, whole subdivisions--are designed by architectural technologists, a speciality that doesn't exist south of the border.

So far, with one exception, I've only built from technologist's plans--and those usually adapted from subdivision floor plans. What I most remember about the architect's design--a luxury 6,000 footer--was when my building partner was stuck on site with two corners that didn't quite come together or some such. He called the architect, who sagely advised him to "use your on-site ingenuity" to solve the problem with the plans.

There are architects, and there are architects.

As for taste, in an age where the works of Lucian Freud and Andy Warhol are the nec plus ultra of high art....

Worthy wrote, "...two corners that didn't quite come together..."

Yep, those are the very worst kind of corners.

Wonder if the footings and stem walls didn't quite come together...I always tried to put my walls and corners on the foundations...:-)

One of the things that my mentor in design school said, was that unfortunately there was no grade for taste.

And like in any other profession, there was someone at the top of the class and someone at the bottom.

Additionally, the most talented don't always get the most press. It's the one who is the biggest promoter who does.

In my architectural school, the saying was, "The "A" students go into teaching. The "B" students wind up working for the "C" students". The rest of the students switched majors, graduated, made fortunes and retired early...

LOL. So true unfortunately.

Yes. I've been to two(that I know about)-one, when house hunting locally, another, when on vacation in Hana, Maui-the art studio was next to the house, and we were invited in. Both homeowners were architects, and designed for themselves. Hands down, these were ones of the most memorable houses I've ever been to. Nothing remotely pretentious about them..but the light, the airiness, the flow, the feel..they both seemed like they were born to stand there, one on a hill in California, another one, on the island right next to the Pacific Ocean. Like Venus that came out of the water-beautiful without even knowing it..

Unforgettable.

Sure, and they all have memories and stories.

Many years ago, I worked on one of Christopher Alexander's houses in the Berkeley hills. He used a lot of graduate student grunt labor. His team would take months to make even the most trivial decisions, with endless discussions. IIRC that house took five years to finish, and the couple who commissioned it got divorced before it was done.

I once lived down the street from a pair of Thomas Gordon Smith post-modern numbers (the Tuscan and Laurentian), kind of a snarky send up of the typical suburban snout house. They were painted in a sort of Pompeii meets Miami Vice color scheme, with a neoclassical column in the middle of their wide garage doors, to break up the span. Sadly, one house was eventually repainted in boring colors, and some quirky exterior details removed. I never saw the insides, which were painted in huge classical style murals.

When I first got married we went to England and saw the Colefax and Fowler building, the one with the Wyatt/Wyattville yellow drawing room. It's up on the second floor, via a dark, narrow, twisty flight of stairs papered with what look to be bad baroque paintings, but may be theatrical backdrops. The room itself isn't as wide or tall as it looks in pictures, and the arc of the ceiling is quite shallow.

When I saw it, all the Nancy Lancaster furniture was gone, it was full of lamps. The paint work was a little obscured by nicotine and wood smoke, but you could still see the complicated oil glazing-- there are tiny pin point flecks of many colors in the glaze, which give an almost pearly effect. I think Fowler deliberately allowed the painters to use dirty brushes!

Yes, Alexander was an academic and theorist, more interested in writing than designing physical things. Some folks like his books and find them useful. I always thought of them as aspiring cook books for architecture, full of ingredients and recipes, but really unknowing of how to actually successfully "bake" a successful architectural cake! Others mileage may vary!

So...AIA is pretty much the same as AKC (American Kennel Club). Send a check and get 'papers'.

^Actually he knows a lot about standard North American building practices, as well as vernacular systems in various parts of the world. He can also swing a hammer, as he is a licensed contractor and knows the code. He could also do calculus in his head, which helps with the engineering. (According to his wiki entry, he's back in England now, still building.)

That's not the cause of the slow ups. He was trying to invent a new set of processes, including a more "democratic" decision making process, on the fly and on the site. That's not easy, and it doesn't mesh with the American finance system very well. Some of the problems are laid out in The Nature of Order book series, not The Pattern Language, which is not the mature work.

When you're fighting the dominant paradigm, you are going to run into obstacles and make enemies, as he did.

Just for kicks. I looked up the number of architects per capita in our little resort town of 12,000 residents -- at least 30! So yes, lots of architecturally designed houses round here. There are no captive builder subdivisions in twon although there are a few in the commuter communities nearby.

As far as AIA, if it is anything like the ABA, while membership is optional (licensure and state bar admission is mandatory, but association membership is not) the dues go to support the profession and the standards of the profession, . So it may be pay your money for membership, but also by doing so you support your profession. Same with AMA, ADA, etc,. Free ride if you want . . .

Never mind how expensive so many of those cutesy cottages cost to build compared to something without a ridiculous roof and 5 rooms deep.