Traditional Construction Patterns Design & Detail Rules of Thumb

By Stephen A. Mouzon with Susan M. Henderson McGraw-Hill and New Urban Guild, 2004, 294 pp., paperback $39.95. “It would be absolutely tragic if a society so big and smart and strong and rich were to settle for architecture that is inferior to most of what has come before. Yet that is exactly what has happened for nearly a century.” So says Stephen A. Mouzon, the Miami-based architect and town planner, in the introduction to this magnificent guide. Like untold numbers of people, Mouzon has at times complained about badly designed and poorly detailed traditional buildings. But unlike nearly everyone else, this energetic organizer of a firm known as PlaceMakers has devised his own comprehensive remedy for the national epidemic of ignorant or sloppy work: He has put together an expertly detailed guide to the dos and don’ts of constructing traditional buildings — mainly houses. Mouzon certainly has the photos for such an enterprise. He has shot, and is continuing to shoot, the photographic Catalog of Most-Loved Places, which contains more than 25,000 digital images. The 294 oversize pages of Traditional Construction Patterns carefully yet pithily explain the right and wrong ways of handling 108 construction and design issues, from use of the classical orders, to massing and proportion, to walls, doors, windows, porches, balconies, eaves, roofs, and dormers, to attachments and site work. The guidebook is impressively thorough. It is also well organized. For each of the 108 patterns there is a two-page spread containing just enough text — about “brick coursing at wall openings,” “window muntins,” “door and window style versus building style,” and the other 105 topics — to explain relevant principles, identify common problems, and lay out solutions. In most cases, the do’s and don’ts are made clear through line drawings as well as black-and-white photos. raising the standards In a foreword, architect Andres Duany writes that “the true enemy of traditional architecture is not modernist architecture. The vulnerability of today’s architecture is its own poor quality.” Duany is on the mark, and Mouzon’s book will be an indispensable aid for those committed to getting things right. One of the most difficult questions for builders and designers today is when to use modern synthetic materials and when to resist them. Mouzon offers what I think are two reasonable rules for determining when imitations are acceptable. One is the Arm’s Length Rule: “Substitute materials may be used…but their appearance must be indistinguishable from the original at arm’s length or less, and their performance must exceed that of the original if they are to be used below the second floor.” The other is the Eyes Only Rule: “Substitute materials used at or above the second floor must be indistinguishable from the original at a distance of 10 feet.” With these two precepts Mouzon goes a long way toward overcoming widespread confusion about when, and whether, things should be done the old way. Mouzon recognizes that how close a person comes to a building part makes a big difference in whether the building will satisfy that person visually and spiritually. He prescribes an architecture of order and regularity because, he says, “humans tend to take disorder in their worlds and try to order it. … the average person usually turns away from the new styles of architecture that look more like train wrecks than buildings.” The human body is symmetrical, Mouzon observes, and people instinctively want symmetry, or at least regularity, in buildings. He exhibits a keen sense of the psychology of visual and tactile perception, and he has a sometimes wicked way with words. Here, for example, is Mouzon wrestling with whether masonry veneer ought to be avoided when it doesn’t look as if it’s a genuine masonry wall, capable of supporting the house’s weight: “Stone veneer that does not appear structural may give the viewer a vague sense of unease. If the person wants something akin to wallpaper, it is much less expensive to hang a roll or two of stone-patterned linoleum on the outside of the building.” May every building contractor in America find this lucid guide to traditional construction in his stocking on Christmas morning.