由专筑网雷军，杨帆编译

在短短的十年间，AIA的家居设计趋势调查见证了这一切：大量豪华度假别墅的建立，惊人的房屋倒塌数量以及艰难的长期恢复。

但展望未来，AIA的家居设计趋势调查也显示了乐观态度持续的原因。房屋倒塌之前业务呈持续上升的水平，从账单来看，该部门已经连续13个季度呈上升状态，对大型住房的需求显然再次增加。

通过对约500个同类公司进行比林斯指数的季度调查，追踪重点区域的发展趋势，如尺寸布局，功能系统和社区方面，还有全国住宅建筑设计公司的经营状况。

“每个季度我们都会发现不同的特征。即使是现在，这些趋势不会改变很多，尤其是在过去的十年中已经衰退的那一块儿，”AIA首席经济学家贝克尔说。AIA领导的调查团队从2005年开始收集数据。“这个时期并没有很多创新或者是新的和令人兴奋的想法。这处于一个瓶颈阶段。”

Baker说，虽然创新可能在那动荡的10年停滞了下来，趋势已经改变不少，业主希望在额外的地方看到一些亮点。更华丽的专业空间，如家庭影院和健身房，经济衰退时代的小家庭规模模式已不适用。为重新建造，房主正在探索方便的室内外环境，他们希望在自己的家园中也是进入生命中的另一个章节，从而维持他们的生活方式。

Baker说：“我很肯定，老龄化将成为一个巨大的问题，因为我们有数量庞大的一代人正在步入他们的生活阶段，迎来了婴儿出生潮，经过去年的经济衰退，这也是一个现实问题。”

挖掘

目标是在底特律郊区成立，那里受经济衰退的打击极其严重。AIA工作室Z建在广州，业务水平几乎回到2005年，受访的密歇根尤伯说。她最近聘请了两位绘图者作为顾问，并安排查询了那些上了年纪或准备欢迎他们年迈的父母共住家中的潜在客户的号码。

从她家到办公室需要30到45分钟的车程。Zuber说绘图设计的趋势具有多变性。她的项目（其范围从小型厨房到改造500000美元）可能并不总是与调查的结果一致。例如，可持续发展作为一个新兴的趋势已经出现了好几年，她的客户得益于她在建立过程中对能源效率的成本节约，但他们还没有完全购买。

“从来都没有客户来咨询我有关可持续方面的问题，我很失望，毕竟这才是我最推崇的关键。”Zuber说。

三藩市的建筑公司董事杰姆斯说，虽然Zuber的反馈可能不符合许多其他住宅建筑师的报告，但它仍然是具有一定价值的。他用这一调查，对全国各地的客户进行了一次全面的研究。

在三藩市的实践是困难和昂贵的，他所称的“49平方英里周围的现实”——沃尔布里奇认为Zuber的调查结果不一定与其公司情况相符。

不同的一代，不同的偏好

而高端市场的第一反馈是反弹，主要包括婴儿潮一代人的住房危机，Tekton的客户对20年代末30年代初的不正式性，开放的平面图和世纪中叶的现代审美观更感兴趣。他们热衷于加利福尼亚严格的能源效率和低VOC健康家具设计，并不打算启动8千瓦的太阳能电池板阵列。而且，Walbridge说，制造商更看重文化发展的效力。

工艺的概念和对工艺的尊重已经很明显了，最重要的是我们的年轻客户，”他说。“我们觉得很有吸引力。因为对我们来说，作为建筑师和建筑商，这是一个很高的水平，有升值且客户愿意支付，这是一个非常独特的情况，可能很难在其他市场上发现。”

但随着海湾地区受到其他市场的潜在客户越来越多的欢迎，Walbridge说他仍会为日后的潜在客户的需要做调查，预测他们的欲望，以便更好地为他们服务，这是很重要的。

调查显示的信息对于建筑师来说是很难想象到的，Baker说。当设想家居设计趋势调查是一个成为AIA会员的工具，但它也会成为新闻记者的作品---主要集中在住房发展趋势的一个有价值的工具。作为一个推论，这项调查已经刊登在华尔街日报的神圣的页面上和美联社电讯上了。它甚至使Baker在成二月市场计划CNBC，Squawk Box上也成为热点。

“这从公共关系角度来说是试图获得AIA和建筑师宣传的一个了不起的工具，”媒体经理Matthew说，“在数据方面，真的是无可比拟的了。”

当记者打电话来想讨论家庭的动态变化时，Matthew说，调查可以提供准确的数据支持，信息的确认，许多家庭与建筑师的工作都是会接受调查的。在2008年经济衰退的时候，媒体很快就可以发现房子减少的数量，他指出，调查是可以量化的信息，证明了家庭规模已经变得越来越小。

“从媒体的角度来看，市场中所发生的事真的都不是巨大的惊喜，“Matthew解释道，“但我们有数据，恰巧它很逢时。”

In a mere decade, the AIA’s Home Design Trends Survey has seen it all: a glut of luxury and vacation homes, a staggering housing collapse, and a protracted recovery.
But looking forward, the AIA’s Home Design Trends Survey shows continued reason for optimism. Business continues its rise to levels not seen since before the housing collapse, the sector has enjoyed 13 straight quarters with billings and inquiries on the uptick, and the demand for larger homes is growing once again.
A sibling of the monthly Architecture Billings Index, the survey, conducted quarterly among a panel of about 500 firms, tracks broad trends in key areas such as size and layout, features and systems, and communities, while touching on business conditions among residential architecture design firms across the country.
“Each quarter we’re looking at a different set of features. Even now we’ve found that, annually, many of these trends don’t change a lot, particularly since a good chunk of those years we’ve looked at over the last decade have been recessionary,” says AIA chief economist Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, who has steered the survey since it began collecting data in 2005. “Those are not times you see a lot of innovation or a lot of new and exciting ideas. It’s a period of entrenchment.”
While innovation may have stalled in those tumultuous 10 years, trends have shifted quite a bit when it comes to what features homeowners want in the extra square footage they seek. More opulent specialty spaces like home theaters and gyms, doomed by smaller home sizes resulting from the recession era, have fallen by the wayside, says Baker. As remodeling continues to greatly outpace new construction, homeowners are looking for accessible environments—indoors and out—as they hope to enter the next chapter of their lives in their homes and maintain the lifestyle they’ve cultivated.
“I’m quite sure aging in place will become a big deal because we’ve got a huge generation of folks that are moving into that stage of their life with the money to make it happen,” Baker says. “Baby Boomers did come through this last housing downturn in pretty good shape.”
Digging In
The desire to age in place is holding true in the Detroit suburbs, hit particularly hard by the recession, says sole practitioner Dawn Zuber, AIA, of Studio Z Architecture in Canton, Mich. Zuber, who is a regular survey respondent, reports that business is nearly back to 2005 levels. She recently engaged two draftspeople as consultants, and is fielding an increased number of inquiries from potential clients who are getting on in years or preparing to welcome their elderly parents into their homes.
But as a one-person operation whose work is mostly completed within a 30- to 45-minute drive from her home and office, Zuber says plotting design trends can be a fickle matter. Her projects (which have ranged from small kitchen remodels to $500,000 additions) may not always align with the survey’s findings. For instance, while sustainability has appeared as an emerging trend for several years, and her clients enjoy the cost savings of energy efficiency built into her process, they’ve yet to buy in completely.
“I’ve never really had clients ask for sustainable features,” Zuber says. “It’s something that I push, but it’s not something I have people coming and asking me for—which is disappointing.”
While Zuber’s feedback may not fall in line with what many other residential architects are reporting, it’s still valuable input, according to James Walbridge, AIA, president of the San Francisco–based design/build firm Tekton Architecture. He says he uses the survey to get a holistic view of what’s important to clients across the country.
Practicing in difficult and expensive San Francisco—what he calls “49 square miles surrounded by reality”—Walbridge is in a situation similar to Zuber’s since the results of the survey aren’t necessarily commensurate with what his firm experiences.
Different Generation, Different Preferences
While the upper end of the market was the first to bounce back, and largely included the Baby Boomers with the equity to weather the housing crisis, Tekton’s clients skew toward the late 20s and 30s and are more interested in less formal, open floor plans and a midcentury modern aesthetic. While they’re keen on California’s stringent energy efficiency requirements and low-VOC healthy home components, they might not be ready to pull the trigger on an 8-kilowatt solar panel array. And, Walbridge adds, as a consequence of the rise of maker culture, his clients have an eye for craftsmanship.
“The notion of and respect toward craft has really surfaced, most importantly with our younger clientele,” he says. “We find that very appealing. Because for us, as both architects and builders, to be able to execute at a high level, have appreciation for it, and have clients that are willing to pay for that is a highly unique situation that is probably not present in a lot of other markets.”
But as the Bay Area welcomes so many potential clients who move there from other markets, Walbridge says it’s important for him to keep the survey in his back pocket in order to better anticipate their desires.
The value of that information presented in the survey extends beyond architects, too, says the AIA’s Baker. When it was envisioned, the Home Design Trends Survey was meant to be a tool for AIA members, but it’s become a valuable tool for journalists whose pieces primarily focus on housing trends. The survey—and, as a corollary, architects—have been featured in the hallowed pages of The Wall Street Journal and in Associated Press dispatches. It even landed Baker a spot as a talking head on CNBC’s morning market program Squawk Box in February.
“It’s an amazing tool for a public relations professional who is trying to get publicity for the AIA and architects,” says Matthew Tinder, the AIA’s senior manager of media relations. “There’s really nothing else quite like it out there in terms of data.”
When reporters call and want to discuss the changing dynamic of the family home, Tinder says, the survey allows him to provide accurate, data-backed information that confirms that many families working with an architect are indeed investigating multigenerational accommodations. When the recession hit in 2008, the media was quick to pick up on the decrease in the square footage of homes, he notes, but the survey was the only place with quantifiable information that proved that home sizes were getting smaller.
“From a media perspective, what’s going on in the market is really never a huge surprise,” Tinder notes, “but we have the data that coincides with it and really backs it.”

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