Dwelling on Ain

As an apartment dweller, reading “Civic Blueprints” (by Nicolai Ouroussoff, Aug. 29) gave me a hoot and a moan in its focus on Gregory Ain’s alleged adaptable designs in single dwellings.

I wonder about those Mar Vista real estate buyers stripping the owner-modified stark Ain designs back to their original shoebox appearance and claustrophobic dimensions. Are they seeking to create hospitable living spaces and a friendly neighborhood, or marketable objects of art for upscale, single or childless Westsiders?

A truly worthy goal of architects and government regulators, which would bring great benefits in peace of mind and reduced disputes, would be to make apartment walls both more flexible within and more soundproof between. For wheelchair-users like me, it would be good if such flexibility would extend to lowerable upper kitchen cabinets and usable closets.

Oh, and let us not forget an even more fundamental issue: the ability to afford any housing at all. These may not be the fine points of Futurist architecture lovers but they are the real problems of the present and future.

BILL BOLT, Santa Monica