Building Patterns
Plan books go way back, as the exhibit Stock Options: Houses for Everyone,
which just opened at U. C. Berkeley, vividly demonstrates. Curator and College of Environmental Design Head Librarian Elizabeth Byrne traces the history of the western home through the profusion of pattern books and brochures published by building companies since the nineteenth century.
This is where most of the designs for the houses that shape our cities and towns come from.
The New York firm of Palliser & Palliser was one of the early plan companies. As the economy and the middle class expanded, home building grew apace, especially in the early 20th century, when
bungalows, promoted by builders and magazines alike, took the country by storm and became identified with California and the good life. Truly the model T of home design in that era, the bungalow — like the automobile — overran towns like Pasadena, California, where there’s even a neighborhood
called “Bungalow Heaven.” And by the way, garage plans suddenly became important. The pent-up demand for housing produced by the Depression and then World War II resulted in a huge building boom at mid century
when plan books flooded the market. For example, prominent Los Angeles architect Paul Williams published two books of plans in 1945 and 1946. Plans like “The Ulster” shown below, with its efficient central courtyard arrangement
appeared in The Book of Small Houses, also in 1946. (The books themselves are shown in a photo at the top of this post). Ranch houses became the post-war equivalent of the bungalow, only more open to the yard, as this Cliff May plan from Sunset Western Ranch Houses of 1946
shows. Note the headline, which rings even more true today, when scarce land for building makes every inch count. To continue the auto metaphor, you could say the ranch house became the Ford Mustang of home design in the 1960s, especially as it metamorphosed into Eichler tract houses and other contemporary designs. The exhibit brings us down to the present by showing recent prefab work by Michelle Kaufmann and online home plans like our very own Flexahouse. For an exhaustive scholarly history of the pattern book see Houses From Books: Treatises, Pattern Books, and Catalogs in American Architecture: 1738-1950: A History and Guide, by Daniel D. Reiff (Penn State Press, 2000).
Our Newest Exclusive
I’m excited to present work by our latest exclusive architect, Bud Dietrich. It vividly continues the stock plan story into the future.
This elegant house combines a traditional outline with modern indoor-outdoor living in a crisp orderly plan.
Spatial surprises abound, from the home office/den in its own window bay to the
barrel vault in the living room and the daylit basement
play room opening to a broad stair up to the garden. I like Bud’s design philosophy: “We should create right-sized homes that are gentle on us and our resources. Rather than getting distracted by questions of architectural style let’s use our own wisdom and common sense to create homes that are appropriate for their time and place.” His beautiful multifunctional design shows just how far the stock plan has come.
