[Jasoncw]

Because the units are designed according to ridiculous real estate/developer logic. The "higher end" (architect-designed but for the lowest common denominator rich people) ones have a similar but different set of requirements which are also ridiculous.

Living rooms need to have tvs in them and there needs to be walls to put the tvs against.

People spend huge amounts of time on computers and you need to provide a good place for this to happen.

TVs and computers are a big part of contemporary life, and they need to be given well designed solutions instead of just pretending that they don't exist.

If developers had their way every house would be a maze of foyers, walk in closets, and bathrooms (why even bother with bedrooms?). The "high end" modern versions of the houses would of course have an infinity pool or two.


When the internet happened there was the prediction that by now office buildings would be obsolete because we'd all be telecommuting. That's silly, but I do think that for urban areas some of the historical live-work typologies should be revived to some degree. In many cities around the world there have been live-work typologies. For a lot of history if you were a professional, you would own a building in the relevant part of town and that building was both your home and your business. I think it would be good to design urban housing in some areas to have the ground floor either be business space or additional living space.