Panning out on plan man

Residential Architect, Nov-Dec, 2002

having read all Having the slam-dunks about Don Gardner in your April issue ("Letters," page 15), I feel compelled to respond to the hypocritical editorials against stock-plan designers. I wholeheartedly agree that each home built should be a personal, individual expression of the homeowner, as unique in character as the family or individual occupying it. However, being that we all live in the real world of "haves" and "have-nots," not everyone can afford to design, build, and live in a custom-design home.

Who are those elitist design professionals to deny them that right or force upon them what they clearly cannot afford? If those designers and architects were to have their way, every ugly house in the world would be bulldozed to make way for custom-design castles and mansions that they themselves designed, leaving no place for the less wealthy to live and no work for the stock plan designers.

Having seen much of Mr. Gardner's work, I think that he provides a high-quality product and displays a level of proficiency that is lacking in much of the professional world.

Steve Allen Shard, AIBD

Design Services Unlimited

Orlando, Fla.

reading yet another attack on Don Gardner in your July issue ("Letters," page 13), I feel compelled to respond with positive commentary regarding Mr. Gardner's practice. I think it is essential that your magazine continue to cover architectural practices that respond to the mainstream housing market, particularly affordable and moderate-priced housing. Custom homes featured in many of your issues are like "eye candy"--interesting, but with little application to the market-rate housing market in which most Americans participate.

For many residential architects, the challenge of a housing-based practice lies in the mass market--meeting the housing needs of our society in livable communities that are within the financial reach of average households. Practices such as Don Gardner's, which make design services available to smaller builders who are meeting the above challenge, are very much of interest the residential architects who are pursuing this practice goal.

Jim Wentling

James Wentling/Architects

Philadelphia