Material Innovations

“Though not billed as such, Designing Houses is a thing-maker’s dream book! Even if designing and building your own “big house” is not within your current reach, you cannot help being caught up in the enthusiasm generated within. Model-making is stressed throughout, starting with the setting up your own “architect’s office,” obtaining the instruments and tools of the trade and quite an ample course on cardboard construction. Best of all are the drawings: neat, simple, funky, their inevitable influence on your own sketches makes this handsome volume under priced.”

- Joe Eddy Brown (description of Designing Houses in the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG)

Image from Designing Houses

In Question: HOUSE DESIGN (under HOUSEHOLD in the Whole Earth Catalog)

Designing Houses

Les Walker and Jeff Milstein

1976; 153 pp.

Architectural Dress from Designing Houses

The book Designing Houses is a step-by-step, how-to-design-your-house guide for people who don’t want to hire an architect and simply want to have the pleasure of building and living in a home they have planned themselves. This book is essentially a “be your own architect” book. Published in 1976, this book was written well before the age of autocad and other architectural design programs that are widely used today.

Unfortunately is this is no longer in print, however there are of course copies out there to be had (Amazon, local libraries, etc.). There was a copy of this book that I checked out in my local library and it’s certainly a “user-friendly” type of book. Its primary goal is to provide helpful and useful information for the prospective home- builder to be successful in building their dream home without consulting an architect.

Image from Designing Houses

Because this book was published back in 1976, many of the techniques that are shown in Designing Houses may be seen as obsolete in today’s society. For instance, the use of drafting tools for construction documents is not considered to be a preferred method. Autocad has largely replaced hand drafting. The fact that autocad is fast and efficient is obviously advantageous to the architect however, in my opinion, that does not mean that this entire book is obsolete. There is still plenty of useful information to take note of.  For example there is an obvious hands-on quality to this book that stresses the benefits of model-making construction with paper and cardboard.  But I’m skeptical if people still consider consulting these types of books when designing their own home. It seems that more people would be drawn to home design software instead. Lord knows there are plenty of those out there!

After glancing through this book, I’ve come to the conclusion that this book carries an underlying notion of vernacular architecture. Many of the pictures presented in this book generally reflect traditional styles, and vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time depending upon the resources, time, environment, and culture in which it exists. Homeowners looking to develop their home take a considerable amount of time, effort, and care in order to accomplish what they desire. They are the ones who fully understand and know what they are looking to achieve. I believe at one point (before the age of autocad and home software programs) this book was probably more prevalent in the architecture and design world but due to evolving technologies, Les Walker’s Designing Houses is no longer a part of the mainstream.

***I would like to note that some of Les Walker’s other books, like Tiny Houses, and American Shelter are still fairly popular in today’s society. I think this is in part due to the fact that people are starting to become more aware of their carbon footprint and are deciding ditch the large homes for smaller, more economically and environmentally friendly abodes.