Florida Homebuyer Design Challenge

Here is a link to a recently held design competition for Florida home designers. Its very developer oriented, and the house designs reflect that, but what is remarkable is that many of the designs shown as the best of the rest are overtly modern.

 

http://www.florida-homebuyer.com/Articles/Orlando/2008/11/2008-Florida-Homebuyer-Orlando-Home-Design-Challenge.asp

 

On one level I'm very gratified to see modern shouldering its way into this mainstream platform. At the same time I'm discouraged because the homes, while modern, seem to have the same issues as typical developer homes. They are dressed modern, and some I think look nice, but they are bloated and pseudo luxurious in a way that makes my skin crawl. Its not just look and feel, its statistical as well - there is an alarming bedroom count to square footage ratio in most of these homes. 3 bedrooms in 3,500 sqft? 

 

The discussion of modern on LiveModern all the way back to the Dwell messageboards always involved doing more with less, as a lifestyle, as a design dictum, not even driven by sustainability, but as a personal value and as an aesthetic. This stuff is really stepping on that for me.

 

What do you think? Please check out the link and comment.

I agree with you totally, Greg. That website is having problems today so I've only looked at about half of the "best of the rest" but from what I've seen so far, the extravagance of space is nauseating to me. I've given a lot of thought to this as we are in the process of designing a custom home. For only 2 humans, we seem to be needing a lot of spaces. We live and work in a rural area (20 miles to the nearest "commercial center") and like to limit our drives to town. For this reason we find ourselves needing an exercise room, 2 offices, and more storage than is found in a typical modernist plan. We expect to do that and more in about 2200 s/f. I keep thinking that this sounds terribly large for 2 humans and a few animals.

" The Alonenows, though fictional, are typical of many early baby-boomers who are now ready to downsize and settle into homes designed specifically to accommodate their evolving interests and changing needs."

 

Holy Cow!  I don't know what the definition of downsizing is, but if moving to a 4,000 s.f. home is downsizing, I would love to know what moving on up to the east side means........

 

This is a local design 'competition' here in Orlando. I have competed previously and the format is usually very strange. Fictional client, extravagant budget, etc. Not really what the average person needs to see when dreaming of building a house.

Yes, I get the same sense of wishful thinking here that had the auto industry cranking out big SUVs till they were on the brink of bankruptcy.