That would be easier if the past generations hadn't built a regulatory morass that makes that kind of thing effectively illegal. When I worked as a draftsman ca. 2005-2009, we had two major problems: McMansion Syndrome from clients and city/county code compliance. Our designs weren't unsafe, they were just unapproved. And getting approval is a time-consuming and expensive pain in the ass to keep people employed in pointless jobs.
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It was already that way when i worked as an engineer and architect back in the 90s.
Minimum house sizes are actually the worst idea.
If anyone looked forward in time they would see, that there would be no starter homes. But, the desire to keep property values was high, especially among the rich... the ones who were on the county boards.
Mike Oehler designed a great system for building underground houses.
And although it puts standard construction to shame in almost every measurable way, it is "illegal" in most counties.
And, the pain of going through plan check.
These people who are supposed to make sure that everything is up to code
... asks, "Where are the truss calculations?"
"Those are the papers there, stapled to the front of the plans"
Yeah... they were "checking" the plan.
We are going through a minor remodel of our library workspace, and it involved building two non-structural partition walls. There are no doors. The traffic path meets ADA requirements. I worked with our maintenance manager to design and draw the plans. We still needed city (ha, small-town self-importance much?) approvals and inspections. I totally see 3rd-party verification for electricity, plumbing, and structural calculations, but why does it need to be a government bureaucracy? We got by with my hand-drawn plans on a copy of the original blueprints and avoided the expense of hiring an architect, so there's that at least.