Why Do Architects Love Designing Houses?

Home. Our shelter. Our private space. In an urbanized world with dense megalopolises like Tokyo, Shanghai, and São Paulo, homes are getting smaller and more expensive than ever. If you are claustrophobic, Marie Kondo is your best ally in the quest to earn some extra space.  And even though private backyards have become a luxury for most, our data shows that single-family houses are still the most popular project type on ArchDaily. Why is this? (Especially when it seems incongruous given the reality of today’s crowded cities.) Why do some universities still insist on designing and building houses as academic exercises? Wouldn’t it be more creative—and more useful—to develop architecture in small-scale spaces? Would it be more rewarding to develop solutions on bigger scales?

Nicolas Valencia: According to our data, single-family houses are the most popular category on ArchDaily. Why do you think this is still happening?

José Tomás Franco: I think it’s one of the few types that really resonates with every person, anywhere in the world. It symbolizes many things: it’s the greatest dream of the contemporary citizen, it’s our private space par excellence, and maybe the only space where we really are who we are.

Maria Erman: I think housing projects are probably the most demanded ones among clients, and architects come to ArchDaily for inspiration and, ultimately, design solutions

Fabián Dejtiar: I believe the house is the most important financial investment people make in their lives, so it’s natural to collect examples to get inspiration.

Matheus Pereira: When designing homes, architects can have greater control of the project by trying to satisfy all of the clients’ requirements. Also, designing a house is to build a small part of a city and that implies to think about how it dialogues with the rest of the urban fabric.

José Tomás Franco: I’m not so sure about that. I think that architects do not have much freedom to choose the projects that we want to work on and develop. What is shown in printed magazines or digital media is a significant part of what it’s being built, but it is not everything. Our profession is a little bit idealized. So, when we get into university, the “house on the prairie,” that home without any other buildings nearby, becomes the greatest achievement we could achieve, from day one.

Nevertheless, housing as a category provides a unique challenge —nothing less than designing the most intimate space of a person or a family. It’s an immense responsibility.

Nicolas Valencia: So why do we focus on houses, when we can have a bigger impact on a bigger scale?

Maria Erman: Maybe because a house gives you a fair amount of freedom in relation to the site. When you design apartments, the scale is limited by, say, four walls, but larger scale projects are controlled by stricter limitations ruled by local authorities. When designing a house, an architect probably has more freedom to shape it.

José Tomás Franco: Regarding what Maria said, apartments provide similar challenges when it comes to interior design, but have very specific problems as well: the connection with the city, the relation with the streets, orientations, and how to trigger a collective life and make it work. In addition, you are often designing without a known user, so the spaces become “standard” and adapted for “everyone” after the fact. This can be dangerous.