Too much - Letters: keep those cards, letters, and e-mails coming, folks - Letter to the Editor

Residential Architect, April, 2003 by Lloyd Alter

I found your editorial "Caught in the Middle Class" (November/ December 2002, page 13) interesting. In the fashion industry in the '50s, nobody but the very rich could afford the Chanels and Saint Laurents. Everyone was forced to buy knockoffs until the Calvin Kleins and Donna Karans came in and made high fashion available to the masses. The couturiers of Paris do not amount to much anymore.

I used to practice as an architect and then as a developer, but I became convinced that we had to do for housing what IKEA did for furniture--make good design not only available and affordable but desirable to the general public.

I recently joined Royal Homes, Canada's largest manufactured housing company. I'm currently talking with some of the best architects in Canada about designing houses for mass production in our factory, and making them available to the general public at a reasonable price in a reasonable time. While I admire Don Gardner for making his work accessible and available, I think the next step is to bring great architects into the mix. Michael Graves should not be designing teakettles for the masses. He should be designing houses.

Lloyd Alter

Royal Homes

Toronto