Lifestyle Trends Drive Home Design

Everything today in residential construction revolves around lifestyle.

And that has redefined a lot of jobs in the building industry.

"Architects have the opportunity to do more than just the housing stock within communities, because what people are coming for has more to do with lifestyle that's offered than with what kind of houses there are there," said Donald F. Evans of the Evans Group Inc. in Orlando, Fla.

As buildable land has become a premium, "The best product grows from the best land plan," Evans said at a seminar at the International Builders Show earlier this year.

"The easy pieces of ground are gone, and only the hardest ones remain, but they are the best because they provide the biggest challenges," he said.

What that means is architects are turning what used to be throwaway sites into interesting designs by making their plans react to such things as environmental concerns or highway intersections.

The reintroduction of parks into new communities has presented another opportunity to architects, said Doug Sharp of Bloodgood Sharp Buster, an architectural firm.

"Not only do we create premiums for developers by locating houses around these parks, but we also create a deep sense of nostalgia," he said.

Which brings us to neo-traditional vs. conventional design.

What is neo-traditionalism ? A