[quesera]

It's not like the wisdom is lost, it's just ignored in modern builds.

All architects think about siting and solar exposure. But the builders are in charge, and they optimize for what the market responds to -- which does not always include factors like these which contribute to long-term comfort and livability.

So I would say that consumers could learn a thing or two. That said, most buyers are not buying newly-built homes, so their ability to influence the inclusion of some of these features are limited.

The industry is downstream of market demands. If customers aren't aware enough to demand smart things, builders will skip them to save money, or to optimize for more visible features. Same old story.

[ericmay]

> So I would say that consumers could learn a thing or two. That said, most buyers are not buying newly-built homes, so their ability to influence the inclusion of some of these features are limited.

Even then I think Americans are not at all well-versed in what makes a house a good house in terms of design or aesthetic and there isn’t a marketplace that exists to help customers shop and compare.

Today, if you’re buying a new build your only option is McMansion style or just a smaller and equally distasteful version of the McMansion. And yes they are all distasteful - it’s a matter of fact, not opinion.

So most people buying new builds end up with the same cargo culled designs. And then “architects” design more and more different versions of these horrendous designs and plop in things like Sedona Avenue near the golf course and that’s how you get suburbia. There’s never a market signal, despite the fact that we can build homes much more nicely and with techniques to be a little more naturally energy efficient and kinder on the eyes.

There is also much less competition with neighborhood design though surprisingly there have been some inroads there that have fostered some competition, but it’s mostly for now for the wealthy. I live in a neighborhood designed before cars, a neighborhood that today is largely illegal to build. But the home prices are highest here because the market is demanding this type of neighborhood - single family detached homes mixed with apartments and coffee shops and small offices and restaurants. “Mixed-use development”. It’s incredibly scarce and in most American cities it has the most expensive average real estate and tends to be the most economically vibrant. Little pockets of Europe.

Neither home builders or zoning officials have taste and because as you in my view correctly acknowledge the builders are downstream of market demands, because the market doesn’t even understand what is actually good and possible, the entire industry and government regulation apparatus is downstream of the sewer.

[jimnotgym]

Or it is set out in building codes that they must design in a certain way.

In the UK that means adding lots of insulation. UK houses predominantly had a lot of thermal mass from the inner skin of the cavity wall being brick or later concrete blocks. The little wall insulation, if it even existed, was in the cavity. In a push for more insulation they switched to lightweight thermal blocks, and sometimes more insulation inside, or timber frames. All of which designed for insulation while reducing the thermal mass. No matter how much sun you put in during the day you only heat the air, which goes cold quickly. This is not the architects choice.

Architects can only design for orientation on a single house plot. In the UK they are trying to cram houses on at 50 to the acre or more due to the price of building land. They focus on best use of space, rather than orientation because of that

[Izkata]

> > It's not like the wisdom is lost, it's just ignored in modern builds.

> Or it is set out in building codes that they must design in a certain way.

An anecdote: Two decades ago in college in the US, I knew several people doing Architecture. One day in one of their dorm rooms, one of them went on this long rant about how modern codes ignore environmental factors and just require certain things no matter the climate.

I don't know how universal her experience was, but I can see these two lines I quoted as both happening, just in reverse - the building codes are causing loss of knowledge/wisdom.

[themaninthedark]

Even when the buyer is buying a newly built house, it's often already built or being built off of already existing plans that do not take these things into account.

[bombcar]

Exactly. You can’t have two houses on opposite sides of the street that are perfect copies without some compromise somewhere.