Today's home owners are demanding more space for their homes. However, with the reduce supply of tract of land, builders and architects have to use their creativity to build new homes on less land. The new homes typically have more space than the older homes. We're talking about 3000+ square footage in a home with all the features to fit today's life style. For comparison, the average space of older homes typically is in the 2000-3000 sq. ft. range.
From Friday Wash Times Home Guide.
"Overall, I'd say urban planning has a lot to say about the trends of home designs today," says Bill Sutton, an architect and principal with Sutton Yantis Associates Architects. "What's fundamentally different is how a whole development is laid out, which dictates a whole different type of design."
In Maryland, many new communities are so-called traditional neighborhood designs, Mr. Sutton says, "along the lines of Kentlands and King Farm, so the homes we design there are usually narrow houses with rear garages."
Mr. Sutton points out that during the 1960s and 1970s, most homes being built in the Washington area were center-hall Colonial-style homes with about 2,400 finished square feet.
"Basically, those homes were a box with a garage which would end up about 65 feet wide," Mr. Sutton says. "The house would be 40 feet wide, and the garage was 24 feet wide. In the 1980s, we were starting to see narrower lots come into the picture, but the homes were getting a little bigger, averaging 3,000 to 3,500 square feet for a single-family home."
