A lot of American buildings today are overfit for their initial purpose and hard to remodel / adapt later. In the past most buildings were simple rectangles wit

A lot of American buildings today are overfit for their initial purpose and hard to remodel / adapt later. In the past most buildings were simple rectangles with basements or pier and beam foundations and simple roofs which all help make a building easy to reconfigure. Today’s buildings are fast-fashion, and look and feel quite dated after 20-30 years. Ironically this is partially explained by the increasing stringency of zoning and building codes which leads to the increasing professionalization of building design. It used to be much more common for a person to basically just build a brick box on their own or with a little bit of contractor help. Professional designers need to do “design” to build their portfolio and attract business.