Focus 580; Designing and Building Affordable Housing

This morning in this first hour we will return to a subject that we've discussed. Generally speaking we've discussed quite a lot on the program something that interests us and that's architecture. We've talked a lot about what architects do we have talked about why it is that we respond to certain buildings the way that we do why we like some and not like others. We've talked about the relationship between people who design buildings and then those people who actually have to build the designs. And we've talked about historic preservation of talk about a number of things and generally with one of the guests that we have with us here this morning Bill Rose. He's a research architect with the building Research Council and a part of the School of Architecture here. And he's been with us before and we've talked about these various and sundry things. We ask him to come back this morning and talk and talk about a specific topic and sometimes the conversations we have do have particular focus we try to concentrate on. And we thought we'd talk a little bit about designing and building affordable housing. One of the things certainly we know is that across the country in big cities and small towns there is a real need for affordable housing. We try to talk a little

bit about what it is when we use that phrase and the role that architects can play in our playing in meeting that need. And in addition to having with us Bill Rose We also have Len Dearborn She is assistant professor of architecture at the University of Illinois and has been on the faculty here since 2000 and to and this is an issue that she's particularly interested in and has been involved in various places that she has been when she was working on her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and also during the time that she was teaching at University of Oregon here. She is an active member of the university's East St. Louis Action Research Project where she teaches design studios and other courses that are all focused on improving conditions in East St. Louis Illinois. As we talk as always questions or welcome the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and we do also have that toll free line that's good anyway. You can hear us 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Thank you both so much for me. I'm glad to be here. You know it's one of things I guess I

think we should do at the beginning is say this. A lot of them probably on this program is talk about what it is we're talking about. And because I think over time the kind of terminology that we use has changed I think more clearly. There was a time when people were talking more and more about low income housing that that was that the kind of phrase that you sought to describe what it was we're talking about and I think now we've we have. Abandon that term in favor of the term affordable which I think is probably more broad. And makes the point that we really need a range of housing in this country and there's a big part of the range that we need that we that we really don't have or that there's a shortage. So if I asked the question what do you mean by affordable housing. What do you mean affordable housing really goes to the notion of. At a certain point we said people should spend not more than 25 percent of their income on their housing. That's crept up over the years to

30 percent and now it's somewhere between 30 and 35 percent so that number of course varies depending on someone's income or the household income. And. So that's where it. And as the cost of housing has risen out of proportion to incomes rising that the people who fall in that range of not meeting that criteria grows. So. In San Francisco for example people with quite high incomes have a housing affordability problem they're spending more than 30 35 percent of their income on their housing. Just because the cost of housing is so high and in such great demand here in champagne it's not as big a problem for as great a number of people although there are still a lot of people who have housing affordability issue. Well if if then given that we're this is sort of a relative issue that it

depends on the individual's income and it also depends on what is the average price of housing wherever you happen to be. Is there what is the safe we talked about a single family home. What's the sort of price the average sort of price range is that we're talking about where the housing isn't. There is a possible answer a question like that. Again that depends on your geographic location. In San Francisco that might be anything up to two hundred fifty thousand three hundred thousand dollars or more in large cities it's a bigger issue. When we moved to the south actually in there was a study that was done in 2002 where they show that in some parts of south Louisiana for example housing affordability has actually become more housing has become more affordable over the past few years but in most places it is increasingly less affordable. So in some places you'd say it's difficult to find a house for less than quarter of a million bucks. And then

at other places you'd say Well here we're talking about it's difficult to find a house for let's say under seventy thousand dollars it's sort of it's it's all going to depend on where you are. Right. The marketplace is the biggest determinant of the. Of the cost of housing both for new housing as well as for rental housing. The market however is is rigged a little bit where policy intervenes where rents are stabilized and in New York City for example and where are you. Rents are pegged using a formula in for example HUD's Section 8 housing. But for the most part the marketplace makes these determinations of how much housing is going to cost and it's up to the people to do to deal with that. But one of the ways that that the government HUD for example is trying to influence the marketplace is through their emphasis on affordable housing. The goes to reducing the cost of housing reducing the

expense of new construction. And here they have a they have a curious relationship with the National Association of Home Builders What's what's the interest of the National Association of Homebuilders while it's making a profit. But the interest of HUD giving it the benefit of the doubt that is to make housing affordable for for the U.S. population both in our city as well as the rural populations and I might also point out that one of our greatest sources of affordable housing is in manufactured housing and the code that governs manufactured housing is managed through. So when we talk about affordable housing I think we have to talk about the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to a great extent. But what's funny in this relationship between whose interest is in ensuring good housing for the population and the National Association of Home Builders as they both

have an interest in lowering the expense side of the ledger. It's just that the actual cost. Whether the money goes to lower rents or lower housing costs or to greater profits sort of depends on the level of control that's exerted. And there's a lot of interest in reducing housing expense but it doesn't always translate into reducing housing cost for for the occupants. Well I'm sure that there's a big difference in real estate costs from one place to another but when you if you ask the question what about the cost of new construction say that you were going to build a house. Is there really very much difference in how much it costs to build a house say in central Illinois and you can compare that with with California for you know to pick one stand. Yeah in general no. The US in the past has had full

model building codes and these determine how and the before were largely similar. Except that the code that was used widely in California in the eastern United States had stiffer structural requirements Well one of these codes was called the uniform building code. One was called the basic building code one was called the National Building Code and one was called the standard building code but we didn't have a standard basic national uniform building code until the architects among others started saying maybe it's time for a single building code for the U.S. One of the problems was that all these adjectives had been garnered by these individual organizations and so we had to find another when he called it the International Building Code. And to the extent that that this

building code is adopted by municipalities or states the cost will be will sort of be able to. You can pull it right out of the cost of materials which are rather uniform around the United States except for Alaska where they have to travel by boat and by the code to which they're built. However in some areas codes are stiffer than in others for example where there are stiff energy codes. The costs can go up but otherwise the costs are pretty standard across the United States and its location location location. It seems that that determines the eventual cost of the units. We're talking here this morning in this part because 580 Labov designing building affordable housing and we have two guests Bill Rose. He's research architect with the building Research Council at U of on. And he's certainly been here before the program talked about various kinds of architectural topics. Our other guest is Linda Bourne She's assistant professor of architecture at University of Illinois. Something that she's this is something

she's very much interested in and has been throughout her academic career. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. I want to return to something that I think Bill touched on and something that seems to come up whenever you get into the subject that is somehow we have this idea. I don't know there if that's a popular idea and an idea that people have in the in the building industry but I kind of think that it's it's both. That is that you can't make money building affordable housing. You know that you can if you want to make money you've got to build quarter million dollar houses and up. And if you're thinking about wanting to to build a kind of a house. Or a kind of housing that will meet the needs of somebody who who is in the market for a $50000 house or $70000 house or something under $100000 you just can't do that. And then in fact if we want that kind of housing the government's got to get involved and provide some kind of subsidies because industry just can't can't do that.

Well I think that it's true to a certain extent there. Right now in order to produce particularly housing that's affordable to people who are at 50 percent of median income for example and under. In most places there is some some subsidy required from somewhere. It's almost impossible given that we have standard building costs. But when as you move up a little bit there are developers who do or do make a good living by volume primarily as opposed to when you're doing larger more expensive houses. Obviously you don't have to do as many of them to make the same amount of money. So you know if your profit is a percentage so that's kind of you know where where that comes from but I know when we look at particularly the the lower spectrum of affordable housing. There does need to be subsidies from a number of different sources be it government or nonprofit developers as opposed to for profit

developers or teams of nonprofit for profit developers doing the housing development is advantageous. I might also mention that there are some builders who who just they seem rich in building low income affordable housing I'm thinking in particular of one Perry Bigelow in the Chicago land area. He's he's one of these entrepreneur types dreamer visionary you. Who seems to relish his particular task that he's taken on and that is of building affordable housing. Just more and more and you can't see can't sort of grow in this vision without making enough money. I haven't really seen people involved in building affordable housing for the profit only

of the people I've seen who've been involved have always had a little more something going for them and and I think it keeps them going through hard times. But I think in the end it probably gives them greater satisfaction. We have a caller to bring in the conversation we can do that and the callers in Chicago on our toll free 1 1 4. 0 0 0. I'm wondering if we're talking about oh we need to talk about more than affordable housing but maybe affordable communities and the so that we also need affordable transportation we need public transportation. And I really feel looking at what's happening with that. The country demographically what the fact that we want to bring in workers who we expect to work at a very very low income. We are at a point with our infrastructure where I think we need to do plan you know no big deal maybe regional maybe interstate and develop communities where

there is affordable and rational transportation that would facilitate workers going back and forth. I just feel like we need to be planning and not just talking about individual developers building houses but it's going to have to be the government coming in as well and really sitting down and putting aside politics which seems almost impossible in this day and age and do some rational planning to. Not only could there be resources but to promote the resource of humans and their labor. Oh well because a great point because I raise you are coming up with yet the actual cost of housing what people pay for their mortgage or their rent every month is only one component of what we want to think about when we're thinking about affordability the cost of transportation clearly is it is another issue that needs to be added into that equation. Often times land costs are cheaper the further you move away from the center of urban areas therefore that's where the

the lower or more affordable housing tends to be built. But but likewise there are other components. For example energy costs. You know it may cost more to super insulate a house to start with but over the term of that that house while people are living there that's going to reduce their housing costs in terms of what they're paying for oil or gas. So I think there's a number of components. In terms of the on the issue of transportation one good example to look at is in the metro east area in St. Louis which is an area that I'm familiar with the Metro Link has actually been extended into East St. Louis and now gives people the opportunity in NE St. Louis where there's there's not a lot of opportunities for employment. People can get on the Metro Link and actually go to work at the airport in the St. Louis airport to downtown St. Louis. So it's really opened up a

whole new. Opportunity of opportunity simply by having mass transit available. That's clean efficient and easy to use. I'm just wondering wondering if the government at any level whether state or federal I mean for that I get I can't remember what happened in England in England. They pushed out from London of London got more expense. They pushed people out of the city and they were in as you said further from the sea the land was cheaper and they built up housing complexes. And these people were practically. They were almost isolated and well in prices where they had no transportation out. And then the late 80s there were riots in that area because people were almost they were like isolated poverty where with no transportation and even has a better public transportation system than we have. But that still happened there and

when I see Mayor Daley not wanting to end he destroyed the housing project planning not to build more affordable housing and a lot of people being pushed down to. And Section 8 I think I just have the Asian's of this happening in the future here. The There's a slight cultural difference between here and England in that we are married to the car in the United States now it's not to say that that it's not important for us to think about public transportation but I I do think that we look at it a little bit differently it's unusual to have a lot of households that don't have access to some sort of vehicular transportation although not not unheard of Certainly. And just running the numbers in from the latest census in St. Louis in the neighborhood that I'm working in and there are 40 percent of the households that don't have access to cars so it is an issue particularly in low income communities. And I

do think it's something that needs to continually be kept in the in the forefront of this whole discussion. Well there's some discussion of that. Thank you and things well it seems to me that what the caller does point to is one of the issues historically in this country and probably other places one of the failures of our efforts in public housing and that is that we sort of forgot what communities were all about and that people had all range of needs a place to sleep at night was one of them. But there there are a lot of other things that go into community. People have to have to have work they have to have a way to get to work. They have to have someplace to go to the grocery they have to have a pharmacy so they can buy stuff like that there. They've got to be able to go to get to church and the kids have to be able to get to school and you hope that there are other sort of community institutions and that that all you need all of those sorts of things and that we completely when we came along and wiped out whole neighborhoods and then built housing

for people and said OK here you go. Good luck. We completely forgot all of these other things that go into making a community. And I think that's true and I think one of the reactions by HUD to the the failures of public housing in the in the mid part of the century was there Section 8 program in which they sought to. Have affordable housing units be interspersed among the entire marketplace that is there was no no attempt to segregate but indeed to integrate these units within the larger communities. But this only puts off the questions of what goes into a good community. There is sort of a presumption that we won't be doing community building but instead we will. Well presume that it's being done and that we will will have affordable housing spread more evenly throughout the community. I think up to the point that the

caller made and that is that that this isn't just the lumber nails and brick issue by any means this is how do we build good communities. Is is never off the table even when we we adopt integrated programs like Section 8 or so. There are others I'm sure who are more familiar with some of the good and bad examples of efforts along those lines. The other thing that goes into this equation is the issue of zoning. And at the turn of the century because of the Industrial Revolution we had conditions that were not. Healthy where we had housing next to industry and so on and so zoning was instituted over time and what it did was segregate uses. And one of the the issues that we now have is zoning is a tool which segregates land uses. So you can't have commercial development

finally interspersed with housing for example or other employment opportunities very fine a very fine mix of those because there's oftentimes the zoning regulations don't allow it for particular classes of zoning in and oftentimes single family residential is one of those classes. And it's sort of become a crutch for us in a way to not allow a better mix a more livable habitable community with those mix of uses very close together so that people can walk places for example. Well Mike a couple calls here I just hope that these folks would mind waiting for a minute or two when I just make the connection between some of things we've been talking about in architecture. This seems to be a natural thing for architects and students of architecture to be interested in. And I'm sure that in schools architecture schools across the country there are people who are getting assignments to design stuff like this how they get given the fact that most of those things will never be built. And in fact probably most people will

never live in an architect designed house. What sort of role is there for architects not only to design you know drop pictures of housing like this but actually get housing like that bill. Well I think one of the architects that we could look at for example is Michael Piet's Haku works primarily or his his offices are in Oakland California and in Seattle Washington. And one of the things that he does in his practice is a lot of participation by people who might become residents of these housing complexes so what we call a design Charette to really find out what are what are the issues for this particular group of people be they low income moderate income. Sir seeking home ownership or renting immigrants from various backgrounds. What are the kinds of things that they are

needing and wanting in their housing. And one of the things that he's really been pushing recently is this whole idea of live work housing for not not live work housing as we think of in the kind of live work lofts that the yuppies tend to want to go toward but live work housing that allows the opportunity for people to to have income generating activities in their home be it home daycare fixing bicycles or whatever so allowing the House to be flexible enough so that space can be set aside for some of these income generating activities without causing undue stress on the rest of the neighborhood or on the neighbors so that requires a pretty sensitive approach to thinking about design for example. The other issue related to design is thinking about how. Moderate income housing in affordable housing fits into a

given context. And if we think about the public housing in the past where things really stuck out because they were designed you know monolithic way to you know the blocks the approach is exactly opposite. Look at what's going on around. If it's small scale Have you were designed represent small scale so it's broken down has you know different kinds of detail in as opposed to the much larger scale. When we talk take some more calls here we have someone in Wellington. Their next line number one. Yeah I got Kabul Bank the fattiest field here and I know you mentioned and I know which was kind of interesting even and I know you see a lot of people moving down from Chicago one young couple who were just starting out all right. Well maybe by you know I will probably pop or something. And they're finding that they're being I priced a market and I

knew I'd exaggerated version of this is what places like Aspen or Steamboat Springs or something that I'm much driven. The community because they can't afford housing not supportable when it comes time for them. You know what the turnover of the generations and then. I mentioned I was in London and upon a much time BBC up quite interesting. They were talking about that. Type of how things have become so I mean one that people English are moving up into I am out in particular I want to tell you what I want to find out. I get to be treated to people fleeing to the city they were going to kind of you know what I'm able to keep the plug so my own people to come in and let him out a bit. Spirited English kind of thought it was an opportunity to help out

being out and out. Closer to the point where the French are happy giving English French and they don't know I got a problem with losing their or their school or keeping their or their town photo whatever but it became me you know she died stead of being French which they're not real keen about and I'll put it that you know I should come in Bobby's property relatively cheaply enough simplify them so to speak and the locals are tired of being priced out of the market for some time. When you kind of try to fix one problem you can kind of really tough other problems I think sometimes have greater issues in the long run that application type very well. Bought a buyout. I wanted dancers what they might be. You know you raise to two very good points. One is the one that the previous caller made and that is that.

That when someone participates in a community it's not as though they just have a house there's a there's a full cultural integration that has to go on and end Nations communities states. It seems to me that they are there resources for providing livable support are not inexhaustible. I think anyone who's involved in affordable housing in affordable communities hast to at some point bump up against the sort of the reality of the scarcity of world's resources. And not be so naive as to think that somewhere somehow. The world can provide good decent living for every four for an expanding population. It's just really

really tough to find those resources and there's there's a cost for for housing that that I think anyone like us those of us here and those of you who call and recognize that it's it's a. It's an uphill struggle to try to to make it through and where resources are scarce but England you point out has is sort of reaching its limits and I know from my experience that France is as well that they're borrowing a lot of money to make it through some of the commitments that they've had right now. And times are getting tough. Well thanks for the comments. We certainly appreciate it. Let's go to Belgium that is over by death of another country. Lie number two. Hello. Oh not a couple points like you folks. Thank you. For individuals

times very unscrupulous about the way they do it. Well what it is it comes into an individual come into a community when I'm sick me a neighborhood and there are usually a pop and bottom and in the individual hours and I'm building my home a building with a person as well. Family and I don't want to be. But what about anything I'm saying about the LA Times of families who moved in and how does one mediately touring and next door by inspection situation own a picnic area that's been extremely blighted. I

don't really care to property at all like your original owners. They just let it matter. And I get my check from the government. I don't like to improve property and it just. Neighborhood rapidly. Why did. I get it right. Yeah you're right I'm not. I think it's the issue of absentee landlords is not just a section 8 issue it's an issue in general when any body takes over a property that has been an own home owner occupied property and it makes it into a rental property. There there's generally seems to be the degrading of

that property over time and there are a number of reasons for that we can't blame the residents of that property. The renters of that property be they Section 8 or or other renters completely. They made they can do some things but it's really not their responsibility to fix the porch handrail or plant flowers or those kinds of things those are in fact the responsibility of the of the landlord. Keep the property. Right. I agree with I understand what you're saying there and I think again it's it may be an issue that is a landlord responsibility not that it's their responsibility. The tires and so on but it's their responsibility to enforce. For example the city ordinances that would forbid those kinds of things from happening. You know a thing that happened in the Chicago

land area. Areas that are being stripped right down. Go to another operator in Chicago. Concept where it may be another large city is to a Section 8 housing. In fact any housing can be poorly managed or well managed. I don't think there's anything inherent in the program necessarily inherent in absentee landlord. Communities that that necessarily leads to their degradation I think that management is possible but it it involves expense for the oversight for the regulation for forgetting there and having resources to fix things up because the point is one of the points that you make and that is that things sort of go downhill without

an attentive fully invested person. You're absolutely correct but there are ways that we as a community I think can compensate for that. Thank you very much. Let's go to another caller this is someone in Chicago on line 4. Hello. Oh yes. I'm wondering. Government. Seems to be playing a smaller and smaller role in the fairs and society in general and the larger role being taken by a private nonprofit companies that put together a package. In other words but you end up getting some kind of government subsidies or someone. I'm just wondering how this works out in the marketplace. Actually since the mid 1980s the federal government has become less and less involved in the development of housing that that would be

owned for example by a housing authority and they have changed their mode of operation to providing grants and loan tryst loans to nonprofit organizations and non nonprofit and for profit partnerships to develop housing and to manage that housing. Oh sure thing in effect better. That aspect is it increasing. Yes but the nonprofit private or organization. Yes they're their responsibility in terms of developing housing developing new housing has increased and continues to increase. I see. OK and I bet they considered generally across the board it is doing you know their job. Well I think we could it might be variation I don't need to make a blanket question on that. Well I think we could attack the issue of affordable housing from a hundred different directions and there would still be a need and I I always tell people that it

really needs to be lots of different people with lots of different ways of going about it in developing lots of housing because there is an increasing increasingly large need for affordable housing. Very interesting. Thank you for. Thanks. What do you think given the given the fact that there are some places where the cost of housing is so high. Is it unrealistic for us to be preoccupied with the idea that the goal is owner occupied housing. This is an issue very close to my heart. I think that it would be you know in an ideal world it would be great for everybody to own their own housing units. But I do think that there are people who don't want that responsibility. People who are not ready to take on that responsibility. And and then there are are people who really are but don't have the resources. So I think there's a broad range. And we've tended to focus in this country on a one size fits all designed solution

to housing so everybody should live in a single family detached house which is not possible at this point. We have you know attached housing townhouses as we get more and more dense condominiums and other solutions. But I think there are still and always will be a place for rental housing there. There's a as you know there's a segment of the population that in a certain time in people's life of course if you will where that's an appropriate solution. Right. Great picture. A picture of the city's a singles club and people young there and all renters and then when they get up they they move to the picket fence in the suburbs and own a single family house and then at some point that becomes too burdensome and as older people we sort of move in-between so we can watch our grandkids in the city and our children in the suburbs and and

the the place the community at that point I think means more than the actual financing and we have about 15 minutes left and maybe I should introduce Again our guest Bill Rose he's research architect with the UI building Research Council that's part of the school of architecture and also Lindy board Dearborn She is assistant professor of architecture. We're talking about designing and building affordable housing. Questions are certainly welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Next caller is in pain and that's on our line 1 have no answers in your architectural program and I just wanted to mention and out here in Christian County Christian care a housing authority appears to have been very successful. We have painted towers and eight story building with apartments we have Park Place about a three story little

more than. But man. They have taken down the well they were built for World War 2 veterans micro our houses one story row houses and replaced them all over and now in Washington court. This is really what I want to mention. They replaced him with individual houses of varying design one and two story homes and summer bungalows. Some of them are square top. And clear down to the siding. The Yards. Very beautiful area. They changed it from the east. Row Houses row apartments and that is an either or way out of them. I think meeting the needs of people. I know so mention Cherelle our county seat has

been to a large apartment buildings for the low income and I believe they're also building more over there. I'm also in pain you know. Just started a brac groundbreaking for up 47 unit. Assisted living area for the people. And all these are located right hand town where the people have. They they can be used they're transportation it's better they're all very well located. And I just want to mention that to add to your program. Thank you. I really appreciate the comments are because we we were directed early on in this show from talking about individual houses the talking about communities and the gentleman who just described painted spoke with a lot of pride in his community spoke

about affordable housing in terms of pride in the community and it seems to me that if the if the city can can generate programs and pride in those programs it's a it's a success it's sounds like. I haven't I'm not sure of the properties that he's describing but but to have a citizen describing it so so forcefully it makes it sound like a success to me. But he also points out the general drift from multi-family housing to single family housing and that has been adrift when to say Oh yeah and I think I need it. As as that affordability gap has gotten wider for more people. The the the dream of the single family house gets modified a little bit and so maybe if it ends up being a townhouse or something but people tend to still be striving for something of their own.

Somewhere along the way. Well if you're if you were looking at something like that townhouse condominium it's something other than the detached single family home that a lot of people think is the ideal. Does that help with the cost of construction. It is it is it is it cheaper to build that kind of a building. Yes. Yes. So so if you're if you're asking well what can we do to try to keep down the cost of putting up billing like that. Right the kind of billing we're talking about is going to determine and in fact as land becomes scarce the that option just drifts away. Right because that it's not only an issue of construction costs it's an issue of land cost and density. And so you can get you can get a greater density and with the sensitive design as appealing a neighborhood with attached housing there's a technical side to that too you have to have a really good wall that separates your unit from the

other unit in terms of noise and fire and odors for that matter. When if you're right I'm thinking I guess maybe I'm hung up on the single family house but if you're thinking about the challenge that one faces as an architect of this if you're going to design some housing like that and you you know we want to say we want to make sure that these houses are are attractive are efficient energy efficient are safe but also affordable. The I guess the first thing that I would think of as well that it can there size restrictions it's probably going to be a smaller house. And it's not going to have some of the amenities that people seem to think they have to have now in houses including luxurious master suites for 100 gallon soaking tubs and kitchens that are. Half the size of the house. You know things like that the places that really are people who have lots of money are putting the

money in. What what kind of a house are you going to get. I mean if we said what we want to try to build a house that somebody could buy for $70000. What's the what's that house going to look like and is it really possible to design something that's going to be attractive and function well. And yet be affordable. My hunch and Lynn you might check on this is that the sizes of the units has been going up. Oh yes it has been. I think I can't remember I think the average now is run twenty eight twenty eight hundred square feet for single family houses the average. I live in a thirteen hundred square foot house. Having moved from a 500 square foot house I find that it's quite roomy. But that number has been creeping up as have the required amenities. And you know our market today I think you'd be looking at probably a house of under two thousand

square feet one and a half baths. And not only have three bedrooms a living room basic kitchen and dining area and that's what you would be looking at. But perhaps with air conditioning. Yes it most likely. So we did and I guess though that again you know when you ask can you design something that's attractive if you have to ask well what exactly does that mean but I suppose that that's where the architect comes in. Well there's actually you can. So much of the housing in this country I guess somebody designed it but it's not exactly architect design. You know somebody builds it and they have floor plans and they say OK you can have your bedroom here you can have your bedroom over there. We can offer you this facade of the facade you can have two car garage you can have three car garage but it's it's not necessary. Maybe functional but it may not necessarily be beautiful I mean is it really possible to make something

affordable and functional and something that's attractive at the same time. I think so and I think that's the biggest challenge that goes to the architects can you put this whole thing together. Because it's true that architects are not involved deeply in all projects. Some of the projects really do arise by a process of incremental perfecting. If there's one model for something that works it tends to be replicated. We don't have to recreate these things time and time again. We don't have to come up with new ideas all the time because some of the ideas can prove to to do well and others don't. And architects often will have to have a wide view of history. But it's pretty hard for someone to

be aware of affordable housing markets in different areas and be able to draw on the best of those. Everybody has to get involved in their project. I think it's such a mix of that that the technology needs an understanding of what makes something affordable and where you give and take. Well where do we where do you add to the cost that will be most effective. And it means understanding all of the value engineering that goes into the other the other aspects of it too. To really understand where where am I going to get the most for you know making that addition and where can I back off and really do the minimal this. This is a point very much that's of concern to me. There's a presumption I think that our houses if there are if if they're there if we're building them the way building codes permit with building materials they'll be just fine as long

as they're maintained. But we've been value engineering for some time and I have several colleagues who are starting to ask the questions have we crossed the line. Is the is the way we are building now with oriented strand board. In particular as the sheathing material every crossed the line in to a building that that really can't make it for a hundred years no matter how hard we try. And if so that's a cost that really has to be worked into the equation I believe. Well I think that this is a very interesting question and probably worth another program to talk about. The way that we build houses now first of all the way that they're constructed and then you have to ask the question can you really imagine I have a little house too. And it's more than a hundred years old. And when I go around and I look at some of the houses are being built today and I say Can you imagine somebody living in that house 100 years from now I have to say no I don't think so partly because it's because of the way that it's constructed but partly also because of the

way that it's designed and you also wonder you know what happens when when we have on average much smaller family size is that a house you can grow old in. You have to look at all much of what we're building today and you have to say that's that's not going to and that's not going to work in the future. The only saving grace there I agree with you I'm pessimistic about it the only saving grace might be that we're having longer lifespans and there might be not just three but four generations of people who have to make it into one of these big units but I think I don't think you're by no means is the density supportable sustainable. And if you want to the only thing that I would add is that that in that discussion we should also be looking at other aspects not just not just materials but I think for example one thing that we find objectionable is that when you move when you go into a suburban development all you see are garage doors. Well that actually is a result of this a setback requirement where if you go into older neighborhoods you see that they put the garage at the

back of the lot because they didn't want that to be what was. But when when cost is the most important issue well the least driveway I have to pay the better so that the garage gets pulled to the front and that's what we see and how does that contribute to the whole sense of community in that area. Well we're going to have to stop. And I'm sure that we get back to some of these things probably the other day and in other ways but for them we want to say thanks very much to Bill rose from the building Research Council and also in Dearborn from the Department of Architecture. Thank you both very much. Thank you.