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So what do we do with the Transect? A lot. It tells us what to do about streets, sidewalks, building locations, building height, etc. But how about the style of the architecture? Until recently, most people thought that there was no connection. Which style would you ban in the countryside, for example? Probably none. So style is not a robust enough tool to calibrate architecture to the Transect. If not, then what is robust enough?

Let's go back to the question about banning styles. While we might not ban a particular style entirely, we would certainly know enough not to put a very crude example of the style in a city center. Land is too valuable there to not refine the architecture. At the other end of the spectrum, it makes no sense to most farmers to spend a lot of effort refining the architecture of a barn on a simple farmstead. The shapes and materials there are much more organic. There are names for each of these conditions.

The most refined architecture is classical architecture. Classical architecture must be executed by the highly trained hand guided by a high level of conscious thought. The classical living tradition is held today by a small group of highly talented architects. The most classical building in any state is probably the state capital building or the state supreme court building.

The opposite, then, must be a type of architecture that anyone can do, and that can be done without really thinking about it (once you know some simple rules of thumb.) In other words, it should simply "come naturally." It should be natural, and organic. Organic architecture is vernacular architecture. The most vernacular buildings are usually farmhouses and barns. Everyone was able to build vernacular architecture until about a century ago. Does anyone seriously believe that teams of highly talented architects (or Disney set designers) built all of the buildings in the great English villages, or the Italian hill-towns, or America's great early towns? Of course not. Architects might have done the most significant buildings, but not all of the everyday buildings lining the streets. Regular people designed and built most of those until early in the 20th century.

Vernacular living traditions, therefore, are held by everyone in town, not just the architects. Unfortunately, the living vernacular traditions died throughout America in the early part of the 20th century. But now, we're doing everything we can to bring them back... even things as simple as putting this chapter in a plan book explaining why we're doing what we're doing, rather than just selling plans. Because a living vernacular tradition depends on everyone being able to say "We do this because..." If we all succeed, then vernacular traditions may soon live again, just as the classical tradition does.

Together, classical and vernacular architecture form the great spectrum of traditional architecture, which is called the Classical/Vernacular Spectrum. Here is the basic diagram of the Spectrum. Note that while three example buildings are shown, the Spectrum is actually a smooth gradation end to end.

Because the Classical/Vernacular Spectrum is bigger than any single style, encompassing the entire breadth of traditional architecture, it is capable of being calibrated to the Transect. How does calibration work?

If you look closely at architecture in the country, architecture in the city, and the architecture in between, you'll notice several things: [1] Extremely vernacular, organic buildings are most often found in the country but are rarely found on Main Street and almost never in the urban core. [2] Median buildings, which are somewhat refined, but still organic, are found in greatest numbers somewhere between the city center and the countryside. [3] The most refined buildings are found in greater numbers in the city center, but there are also occasional highly refined estate homes in the country. But, in the places between city center and countryside, the level of refinement drops off. Here's what the full Transect/Architecture Matrix looks like:

Look carefully at the diagram, and you'll notice several things: [1] T1 is not coded, except for a slight spill-over next to T2. This is because there should be no buildings in state parks and preserves, other than an occasional forest ranger's cabin. [2] The gradations between architectural settings are all smooth. In other words, there's no rigid break when you go from Vernacular to Median. There's a bit more of a distinction between the architectural character between one Transect zone and the next, but even that blurs a bit at the edges. [3] The only place that a character of architecture disappears entirely is the Vernacular in T6. Other than that, there's at least a little bit of every character in every zone; it's just that there ought to be a lot more of one character than another in most zones. In other words, architecture on the Spectrum is controlled with dials, not with switches... there are settings in between the absolutes.

Now that we've looked at the entire Transect/Architecture Matrix, there's one adjustment that needs to be made for this book, which contains only free-standing cottages. Free-standing buildings are appropriate in some Transect zones, but not others. Specifically, a free-standing cottage on Main Street would look quite silly, and a free-standing cottage in an urban core would look downright stupid. Think of a cottage in Times Square; get the picture? The much higher real estate values of T5 and T6 do as much as any single factor to prohibit such a thing. The only place in either T5 or T6 that free-standing cottages could occasionally be built would be in the less urban areas of T5, like on a side street adjacent to a row of townhouses. Removing the most urban areas from the Matrix results in this diagram, which is used throughout the rest of this book.

How is the Transect/Architecture Matrix used to select house plans? Each plan's location is charted on the Classical/Vernacular Spectrum of the Matrix as shown here: In the example shown here, the house is roughly 80% of the way to the Vernacular end of the spectrum. If your lot is located in T2 (the rural countryside,) then this plan would be great for your lot. But if your lot is in a compact T4 neighborhood or especially on the outskirts of T5 near Main Street, you need to think twice about using this plan.

Put another way, if the Katrina Cottage plan you fall in love with is a Median plan, it doesn't mean that you absolutely shouldn't build it in T2, but rather that you ought to strongly consider getting someone (like the original architect, who has the plans on their computer or in their file drawer) to dial the design down to something a bit more vernacular.