I like it when you go by gut feeling here. That's what I'm looking for! I already know all the differences between the two, their advantages over each other, etc.
They are both very good choices -they are the 2 finalists from a long process of design. It is very hard to choose between 2 equally good things!
The Ad Quadratum design does have the advantage of being Ad Quadratum. Let me explain. Almost everybody today who knows about geometric design knows about the daisy wheel, and that's it. There's nothing wrong with the daisy wheel, but in reality it is only a very small part of medieval geometry. The daisy wheel is Ad Triangulum, but Ad Triangulum can be so much more than just the daisy wheel. Examine my triangulum design -you won't find the arcs of the daisy wheel, but you will see the hexagram. (I actually intentionally made my drawing without showing the circles and arcs) If youy look closer, you will see there is more to it than the daisy wheel, such as the doubled hexagram, and the system of extending lines to create new points off in space rather than only using the points available on the original diagram.
I would term my method here as extensible geometry rather than plotted geometry. Allow me to explain. Plotted geometry is where you take a figure like the daisy wheel or some circular system, and you use only those points within the plotted diagram to get your design. To 'extend' the geometry you just surround your original daisy wheel with more daisy wheel. Extensible geometry is really a much more simplified system, but perhaps more difficult to use. You have to have a pretty keen understanding of geometric relationships to make it work, and have the knowledge of how to create relationships and divide spaces if the figures you want aren't there. My form of extensible geometry is to use the core Hexagram and its divisions to design a certain aspect of the building. This should generally be the part that is the most complex and most in need of sound geometry, so it is almost always going to be the roof. So here my roof is centered on the core diagram. After I make a suitable roof, I derive the rest of my building from a combination of the roof's geometry and the points of the core diagram.
This system has the notable disadvantage of being much harder to use and requiring a lot of knowledge of geometry. It has the notable advantage, however, of being a lot more free and flexible.
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dbaily, I am not aware of any Swiss type buildings in the US. There are certainly buildings built in the German style, but Swiss house architecture doesn't seem to have made it here. Actually I should back up a little bit, The house architecture of Appenzell and Saint Gallen may have had a significant influence on the design of the common American house, but this is far different from the Bernese style.
Most of the Germans, and by extension their buildings, in this country are not low German. Most of the Germans who came here are from the regions now encompassed by the states of Rheinland-Pfalz, Baden-Württemburg, Bayern, (in other words South Germany) as well as Switzerland, and Austria. Take for example the Penssylvania Dutch language, once the common language of Pennsylvania and not limited to Amish and Mennonites. It is nearly identical in many ways to the current dialect spoken in the Pfalz region of Germany, but with a lot of influence in Grammar and vocab from Swiss. That's because most Germans in America are palatinate German. O hei, Ich kann au Deitsch schwetze..
The framing style exists in such places as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana (In the wonderful city of Berne), Minnesota, Chicago, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, and Texas. In all of these regions, however, it was eventually overtaken by the surrounding building styles.
