The architect at Evergreen 9 dislikes most of the architecture of housing in Phoenix. Houses and apartments seem too chopped up and complicated. The number of rooms and bathrooms is more advertised than the quality of the space or light. The typical reaction he has to most housing on the market is that it would be better to buy the unit in an unfinished form with just the structural walls and raw space, and redesign the interior without so many partitions and doors and fussy little closets. In preliminary discussions with the developer of Evergreen 9 the architect and developer found it hard to know what future buyers would want—how many bedrooms?, which space should be the living room?, will the ground floor room be a family room or a work shop? So the houses are designed as lofts, a series of rooms without predetermined uses. The buyer’s creativity is required to customize and domesticate the house. Fewer partitions and doors and closets maintains flexibility while partially offsetting the additional cost of high-end finishes, top quality oversized windows, and masonry and steel construction. This approach can be a win-win for buyers who want to be creative, as the developer doesn’t have to guess what owners want and can offer a higher quality home.

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