1995-03-12: Structural Reform: New Architecture for a New Age (part 2)

Transcription:

The American dream of a house in the suburbs is changing as our
economy changes from one based on a family in which Dad works and
Mom stays home with the kids. Now both parents may work. Mom or
Dad may telecommute. And long commutes make townhouses more
attractive. The telecommuting trend makes extra space for a home
office desirable.
Sanford Lopater is a psychology professor at Christopher Newport
University, and he's writing a book on these trends
Womack
Dr. Lopater, is the American dream of a house in the suburbs
changing?
Lopater
It's changing a lot, and the pressures of a commuter
lifestyle are playing a very big role in diminishing the appeal
of the American dream. That leads to many people wanting flextime,
coming in later, staying later, coming in earlier, leaving
earlier. And it's also leading to a desire to work at home, in
many cases, by modem when that's possible. Another aspect of the
American dream that's changing is the initial formulation that's
a product of the work of William Levitt and the establishment of
suburban communities outside of New York city. Most of us know
that as "Levittown". What William Levitt did with World War II
veterans was two offer two bedroom, single story ranch homes. A
living room, dining room area and a kitchen and a single bath for
about 7,000 or 7,500 dollars. For a veteran returning from World
War II this meant a monthly mortgage payment of forty dollars.
Womack
We think of Levittown as the birth of the suburbs. Was it a
curse or was it just an incredible advance in affordable housing?
Lopater
What one gained in convenience to the city and what one
gained in feeling of pride and home ownership, one lost in a
sense of conformity. And it is indeed almost a numbing
conformity.
Womack
I've seen a documentary in more recent years made on
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Levittown and a lot of those people put their own additions on
and personalized those houses. And what sort of effect has the
development of the suburb had on the way people live and the way
they work?
Lopater
Its made us more dependent than ever before on our cars, for
one thing. And I think it has also fostered the development of
the first, the strip shopping center. And then secondly the _
mall.
Womack
Let's talk about the interior of the house. How the design
is changing with different work needs. You've said before that
people, as they conunute more are looking, are working more within
the home. Looking to be able to bring.their work home.
Teleconunuting. How does that affect the insides of houses, the
layout?
Lopater
We're just beginning to study this issue. We've come to
learn that many women, either married or single parent female
heads of household, are exploring piecework, homework options via
personal computer and modem. In a sense, this decision is
encouraged by the belief that one can be at home, stay at home,
raise a family, and work too. Now what that has done to the
interior alignment of a dwelling is generally to take the main
sleeping area and to create a main sleeping area which also
includes an office.
Womack
So these women are in their bedrooms, they're having their
office, they can just never get away from the work and they're
also raising children.
Lopater
That's correct. They have difficulty getting away from
work, they have difficulty getting away from children. So this
is a woman who tends to have lots of role conflict here about
work, home management, home maintenance and participation in a
marital relationship. And it's very difficult to deal spatially
in your own home with role conflicts about work space and family
space.
Womack
How is the increased technology within the home changed
women's work at home? We tend to think that that makes our life
easier.
Lopater
It doesn't. There's a wonderful book that touches on this
subject, and the book is called, "Home, a Short History of an
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Idea", and it's by a man named Ribjinsky. And he makes a very
interesting point in this book. He says that as technology
becomes more available, as things get easier, as things become
far more automated and convenient, so to is there a commensurate
increase in our expectations and standards regarding cleanliness,
or rule, or order, or organization in the home.
Womack
That's like the computer was supposed to create the
paperless office and we now have more p~per than we ever did -
before. You're writing a book, in the advance that I've seen,
you talk about public space versus private space and why that's
important. Define what you mean by public space and private
space as regards to the home, and why is it so important?
Lopater
Generally we know pretty clearly when our privacy has been
intruded upon. But it's a bit more difficult to be very specific
about exactly how to create a private space within a home. Now
in the homes in the 1920's in this country, we saw typically
several small, single purpose rooms. But what we have seen,
beginning in the late 1940's, early 1950's, is an opening up of
the interior of the home. As the interior of the homes opened
up, we have found a blending of formerly single purpose spaces.
Now, that in and of itself isn't a problem, but what is becoming
problematic now is what I prefer to call the culture of
portability. Small, very affordable television sets, small
VCR's, small microwaves, small hairdryers mean that people can do
many things in many different places in the home, and that tends
to make traffic in the home far more unpredictable and far busier
than it ever was before.
Womack
And how are architects responding to that?
Lopater
I'm still not sure in the mind if architects in the midnineties
are being effectively pro-active in designing small,
secure, affordable spaces. For single parent female head of
households, for example, now comprising thirty percent of the
American population.
Womack
There was a study that was done recently at UVA in one of
their public policy centers and it said that with the decline of
the cities and people moving to the suburbs, one of the things
he's found and it's not necessarily the jobs and the income, but
also the availability of middle income housing in the cities that
we've placed so much emphasis on low income housing and that the
stock of middle income housing is declining.
Lopater
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These areas are becoming more popular but they still carry
some of the taint, some of the historical taint of public housing
adjacent to center cities with them.
Womack
Are there psychological reasons why large public housing
projects for low income people didn't work?
Lopater
One of the things that architects ~nd environmental
psychologists have recognized in virtually every city we've
examined is the desire to see gradual transition zones. From the
public arena, for example, the street. To the private domain,
that area behind your front door. When those transition zones
have explicit markings, people feel safer. People exercise more
surveillance over their property and spaces adjacent to their
property. And for those reasons, if you're dealing with long
corridor, with twenty-four or forty-eight identical doors,
there's almost no opportunity to exercise that surveillance
because there's virtually no transition between the public and
the private domain except your front door.
Womack
Double loaded corridors. Corridors in large apartment
buildings with apartments coming off either side of the corridor.
Why are those a factor in the lack of success of public housing?
Lopater
One of the more consistent problems we've noted here is the
drug dealing, muggings, sexual assaults, are all primarily within
the arena of areal off the long, double loaded corridor. But if
you have a "C" shaped corridor or a "T" shaped corridor, if you
have multiple avenues of progress or path within the apartment
building and if you have more elevators and fewer secluded
stairwells and fewer floors, then the problems I've just
mentioned are far less common.
Womack
People have more options of escape, basicly. Some, there's
a, some localities have experimented with giving the residence of
these public housings some ownership, some degree of ownerships
within these buildings. That seems to a big important factor in
how well these people take care of it because when they have some
investment in it suddenly they start painting the walls and
putting out those flower plants and flower pots.
Lopater
Painting the walls is not a small thing. One of the more
unpalatable aspects of public housing is people's lack of
flexibility in altering any aspect of the interior domestic
environment. And if you can't do something as simple as paint a
wall color other than the one that it's in, and you can't do
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something as simple as affix mirrors or pictures, or even
carpeting in places you'd like to put down, there's a feeling of
transience that's very,very, deeply experienced.
Womack
We talked a few moments ago about how people are leaving the
cities to go to the suburbs and now they're even leaving the
suburbs to go to the so-called "exurbs" Is this chasing of the
American dream for your own house with a little yard further ~ut
into the hinterland just going to completely gobble up all our
farmland and continue to run away from the cities or is it at
some point going to collapse back in?
Lopater
Ironically what we're seeing is that as people move further
and further from the central city into the suburbs and beyond the
suburbs, they are not moving away from centers of commerce, they
are indeed moving towards centers of commerce. And what you find
outside, or even in large suburban areas are not tall office
buildings, but two, three, four story incredibly spacious working
environments. So people who would like to work in a place like
that are doing the identical work that others are doing in center
city but very far removed from center city out in the suburbs.
Womack
Sanford Lopater, we're out of time. Thank you so much for
joining us on With Good Reason.
Lopater
Thank you.
My guest is Sanford Lopater. He's a psychology professor at
Christopher Newport University who's writing a book about the
ergonomics of living space.
On our next show, we'll talk about confederate general Nathan
Bedford Forrest, who was also the first imperial wizard of the KU
Klux Klan.
This is With Good Reason. The project coordinator is Michael
McDowell. Carolyn Elliott is the producer. John Wilkinson is
the assistant producer. We had production assistance from Julie
Boland. Kevin Puccini wrote the theme music. I'm Laura Womack.
With Good Reason is produced with the assistance of WCVE
Richmond. Thanks also to WHRV Norfolk and the University of
Virginia.
With Good Reason is produced for the Virginia Higher Education
Broadcasting Consortium by the State Council of Higher Education
and public radio stations serving Virginia. The views expressed
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are not necessarily those of the consortium or this station. To
comment on today's program or to receive tapes or transcripts,
call toll free, 1-800-245-2434.
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