9 ms·
What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture? (2016)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Blackthorn 8y agoHonestly, I think the examples she gave of bad looks, look great. But I love bizarre and ugly architecture, so what do I know.
- throwbacktictac 8y agoYeah, I agree. IMO the house's that she showcased as good looked quite boring to me.
- whitepoplar 8y agoThe only* thing that matters in architecture is whether you feel happy and alive in it. Nobody can tell you how a place makes you feel. That being said, I think one of the greatest tricks the devil ever played was making modern architecture and (some) McMansions extremely photogenic. I think people gravitate toward imagery rather than their own true senses. *not at all true, but true for this statement ;)
- m3rc 8y agoTo each their own I suppose. I definitely think they look almost physically repulsive.
- tjr225 8y agoI remember this being posted years ago. Anyway, I think it's a great write-up. It's one of those things where I don't know why it looks so awful, but I can tell it does- nice to read about why.
- jordache 8y agomostly subjective. architectural beauty is mostly in the eye of the beholder.
- beebmam 8y agoim very sympathetic to this blog and the writer, especially because she's a socialist. there are many interesting and entertaining ideas presented that i'd never considered before. but i agree with you here. in the end, when it comes to aesthetics: beauty really is in the eye of the beholder
- m3rc 8y agoI mean sure, the same way literally all art is. That's usually just something people say to dismiss art criticism.
- dragonwriter 8y agoRe: the subjective nature of aesthetic quality. > That's usually just something people say to dismiss art criticism. Art criticism that is about good and bad art more than what effect art has (or what it communicates) and why/how it does so mostly should be dismissed. For exactly that reason. So, while the fact that the subjectivity of aesthetic quality is frequently used to dismiss art criticism is frequently used to dismiss the dismissal of art criticism that it concerns, it's a legitimate reason for dismissing much art criticism, specifically, that criticism which is simply elaborate verbal camouflage for naked subjective preference.
- m3rc 8y agoThat's a lot of words that don't really mean anything. Art being subjective means that you absolutely can critique "bad" art, not that you never should. I mean your word salad about "the effect art has on people" is literally saying that, just instead of talking about the art itself you're now talking about it's 'effect' (as if you would ever be talking about something else?) McMansions are bad art because they have bad effects on the people who live in them and view them. People divide the things that cause good effects into rules and guidelines. This post then talks about those rules and guidelines.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoI would add for the inside of the house, a poor or illogical use of space. I remember one house where the stairway to the upper floor bisected the main floor, causing there to be a hallway on one side, then a strange sort of "bumpout" under the stairway (once it had risen past 8 feet in height) on the other side. If you didn't use the hallway you had to walk through a sort of small sitting room before then entering the farthest part of the dining room.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- windows_tips 8y agoMaybe a servant's hallway?
- patrickg_zill 8y agoWell it was recently constructed in the 2000s so I doubt that was the reason :-)
- nerdponx 8y agoHappy to see this is back online and that Zillow backed off [0]. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/29/15896146/zillow-will-not-sue-mcmansion-hell-blog https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/29/15896146/zillow-will-not-...
- thatswrong0 8y agoI’m not a fan of the examples given simply because it feels like they are comparing bigger McMansion houses to smaller, simpler houses. I’d rather have the comparisons be of “proper” mansions to McMansions, because abiding by the stated principals is obviously going to be easier in smaller houses. Like the primary / secondary mass bit is obviously going to be harder to deal with the bigger the house gets.
- jimktrains2 8y agohttp://mcmansionhell.com/post/149284377161/mansionvsmcmansion http://mcmansionhell.com/post/149284377161/mansionvsmcmansio...
- spc476 8y agoWell, when I hear "mansions" I tend to think along the lines of Biltmore [1], but that's a house with 178,926 square feet (16,622.8 m2) of floor space. [1] https://www.biltmore.com/visit/photo-gallery https://www.biltmore.com/visit/photo-gallery
- igravious 8y agoBeing from this side of the Atlantic I would describe something like Biltmore – never heard of it before, thanks for the ref – as a very large European-type manor. Biltmore for me is bordering on palatial in size if not explicitly in feature. Honestly you'd need an architect or someone who properly knows the language of architecture to accurately relay Biltmore's style and type. Fwiw Wikipedia agrees with me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manor_house#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manor_house#United_States “The only manor house in the United States (or North America for that matter) that resembled the form and function of a European-style estate and manor is the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina (which is still owned by descendents of the original builder, a member of the Vanderbilt family).”
- mixmastamyk 8y agoWas under the impression a mcmansion was a giant suburban tract home on a very small lot. Apparently it means a unique poorly designed one with more space.
- omegaham 8y agoI classify your description as "Subdivision Hell" rather than McMansion Hell, but I've definitely seen some doozies in Subdivision Hell, too.
- valuearb 8y agoIt’s so awful to provide people with more living space.
- watt 8y agoBut it is! https://www.curbed.com/2018/7/11/17536876/great-room-house-size-design-square-footage https://www.curbed.com/2018/7/11/17536876/great-room-house-s...
- Silhouette 8y agoYour point is well taken, though it's worth noting that the article you linked isn't criticising having plenty of space per se, but rather having lots of space just to show off instead of because you actually have a good use for it. We do entertain groups of friends often at home, and while we're not particularly interested in big formal rooms for much the same reasons as given in that article, we certainly would like more space and more furniture in a configuration that would work better when friends and family are over than the "normal" room we use today.
- strstr 8y agoAt first I gave these houses the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they look tacky so the interior could be logical. Then I cracked up looking at the turret in [0]. [0] http://mcmansionhell.com/post/149472892236/houston-tx http://mcmansionhell.com/post/149472892236/houston-tx
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoI think that may be the ugliest house I have ever seen, inside and out. With such a ridiculously small garden.
- AndrewKemendo 8y agoLet me introduce you to this Indianapolis home: https://www.curbed.com/2013/12/12/10164870/indiana-house-4923-kessler-boulevard-indianapolis https://www.curbed.com/2013/12/12/10164870/indiana-house-492...
- joejerryronnie 8y agoYou monster! I can never unsee this.
- s_kilk 8y agoIt looks like a video game level with shitty textures
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoDisturbingly you win. :)
- walrus01 8y agoIn a Houston climate that thing probably costs $750/month in electrical bills for the central air conditioning.
- Animats 8y agoNow go look at Edinburgh Castle, Scotland's iconic castle. No symmetry. Multiple competing masses. Fallingwater - no symmetry, no main mass, way too many voids. English Tudor houses have many of the features the author complains about. They're usually asymmetrical and have multiple competing masses. What this guy likes is a big square house with a centered entrance and two wings. Like the White House, antebellum plantation mansions, and most US governors mansions.
- chrsstrm 8y ago1. You chose a castle and the work of "the greatest American architect of all time" for your comparisons when the author clearly states in the disclaimer: "These principles are for the classical or traditional architecture most residential homes are modeled after." 2. "What this guy likes..." The author is a woman.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoguy 1 |ɡʌɪ| noun 1 informal a man: he's a nice guy. • (guys) people of either sex: you guys want some coffee? It's almost there though. Guys plural is gender nonspecific.
- vinceguidry 8y agoI would like to formally declare my support for the acceptance of the non-gender-specific usage of 'guy'. We can do it, folks. With just a little bit of effort, we can finally have a serious option for reducing the effort required to write socially-appropriate Internet commentary. We need your help to save us from the hell of verbose non-gender specificity.
- galfarragem 8y agoAs an experienced dev you certainly look at any codebase and you'll easily know if it's well done or not. Somebody that can't code or is unexperienced can't see the difference despite being provided with a bunch of rules, rules that they might even frivolously question. Here is the same or even more difficult because these rules are subjective and not easy to verbalize - that's why you can't find them written anywhere - and I, with a background as an architect, welcome the author for that. Don't underestimate people that spend all their life thinking about any subject.
- walrus01 8y agoIf you ever see one under construction, another thing that makes a mcmansion what it is , the cheap wood. Chipboard, particleboard and medium density fiberboard all over the place. God help you if you ever have a roof leak. Or a siding leak. Or it sits out in the rain while under construction before completion. Contractors save thousands per tract home using this shit instead of proper plywood. Also, staple gun and nailed construction where there should be high quality wood screws.
- Bromskloss 8y ago> proper plywood Plywood in an actual mansion?! No, thanks.
- walrus01 8y agoWell, i'm referring more to building ordinary suburban tract houses that don't meet the definition of "mansion", and reasonably sized wood framed single family houses. If you can afford to build an actual mansion I'm sure there will be very little plywood anywhere.
- chrisseaton 8y agoWhy don't homebuilders in the US use brick and stone? Plywood and screws still seems like cutting corners.
- walrus01 8y agoIt's a lot more costly. Look at the market labor rates and availability in any major metro area for masons.
- chrisseaton 8y agoHow come they afford it in Europe then? All four walls in every room in my house here are a foot of solid brick, and it's not an abnormally expensive house.
- angel_j 8y agoMcMansions are nothing but large track houses. The small house examples here are the track house. There are way bigger problems than articulated, like ecology, economics, egonomics, and more, but calling these houses architectural is pretending like architecture is actually a factor, when in reality, for McMansions and track houses alike, that's just not the case: it's all toothpicks and gypsum, stamped out of a design factory. There is no "architecture", because the buyers don't know shit, can't afford real design, and probably care less about the style than they do the suburb, neighborhood, policing, schools, etc. One thing this article does give away tho, is how much these houses are showcased exactly like hamburgers in commercials vis a vis what you get at the fast food chain: everything in the commercial is pushed forward and jutting out the front: windows, awnings, decks, etc. That's why they call them McMansions.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 8y ago> track houses...track houses... track houses “tract houses” is the phrase you are looking for.
- kylegordon 8y agoThank you. Seeing 'track houses' gave me the shivers.
- okket 8y ago(2016) See also previous discussion from 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286724 (519 comments)
- mattkevan 8y agoThe McMansions featured here look like they’ve been generated by some deep learning algorithm - building features blobbed randomly together with no rhyme or reason.
- madeofpalk 8y agoLike some sort of dungeon generator on a gamedev blog.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- marsrover 8y agoSo many houses like this in suburban Atlanta.
- Multicomp 8y agoVery true, in Atlanta, if a given property is not a ranch or split level, it will likely be one of these! I wonder what it is about the ATL metro area that proliferates them so?
- kasey_junk 8y agoATL has grown a lot in the time frame when the technology & economics for these houses make sense. These houses would be unlivable without AC in Atlanta and cooling them would be prohibitively expensive any time but the last 30 years or so.
- galfarragem 8y agoThinking about stuff is time intensive and as such not compatible with a society that overestimates quantity.
- OnlyRepliesToBS 8y agoyou're a deep learning algorithm
- candiodari 8y agoWe all know what "makes it bad". It's a symbol of wealth that isn't nearly as expensive as it looks. That's what offends people here. Everything else is the best excuse they can come up with. The issue is that with things that are truly expensive are equally bullshit. Art, for instance, is first of all, mostly not even made by the artist that signed it, secondly, it doesn't have a deeper meaning, thirdly, the difference between absurdly celebrated art (say Gogh, or Michelangelo) and the (many) works of unknown masters is ... tenuous at best. Same with diamonds and gold, as pointed out many times in the economic discussions. Symbols of wealth that don't prove wealth ... people feel this is how they "prove" their own value, how they get respect, and so on. And if a symbol of wealth gets reliably faked ... people are very upset. In reality we should celebrate that this is possible, of course, but in practice people who have paid a lot fear it will destroy their self-worth.
- dsr_ 8y agoI think McMansions are bad because for the same money, a much better* house could have been made in the same location. *better: more affordances for the way people actually live; easier to move around in; easier to clean; stronger construction; more suited to the local climate; more efficient to heat and/or cool; and on and on in that vein.
- throwaway080383 8y agoMost of the criticism in the article seems to be external, though. No mention of such practicalities as mobility within the house or ease of maintenance, just the aesthetics of the exterior.
- dsr_ 8y agoThis particular article is meant for people who have read some large fraction of the entire series, not as an introduction. A typical McMansion Hell post covers either a single architectural topic (four-square houses, or columns, or windows) or a single house in more depth, with most of the attention being paid to the interior. Yes, I'm a fan.
- ape4 8y agoCheap materials, no heart, excessive useless space
- dia80 8y agoI am always amazed by Americans love of 'period' style architecture in preference to a more modernist style. Especially when I see friends in my age group (30s) pack there homes with dark wooden furniture that looks like it would be more at home in Versailles. To me it is just visually exhausting and I crave the relative calm of some minimalist sleek lines.
- fiblye 8y agoTo a huge number of people, we're tired of minimalism because it's been around for quite a long time and feels quite dated, and isn't as sleek or comfortable as it should be. This extends to the flat design movement. I hated it 10 years ago when it first started to appear and I don't hate it any less now. I'd take some mild skeuomorphism any day. I just wish it'd go away and fast. It felt positively ancient and overdone 5 years ago--these days it's feeling like a disease that I can't get rid of.
- geon 8y agoThe Material Design idea was a step in that direction. It's based in flat design, but takes advantage of drop shadows to create depth where it makes sense for creating a hierarchy. Apple has taken some baby steps in that direction too, with ios 11, and the focus on translucency and blur to create layers of depth.
- rmwaite 8y agoI’m pretty sure the iOS 7/OS X Yosemite redesign was specifically intended to do what you say iOS 11 is taking “baby steps” in. This both predates Material Design and if anything the iterations after 7/Yosemite have toned down the translucency stuff. Source: any media released around the time iOS 7 was announced.
- geon 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_period_styles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_period_styles ?
- 8y ago
- crispyambulance 8y ago... and they always go for 2 sinks in the bathroom. What's up with that? I mean, the last thing my wife would want is me in the bathroom with her in the morning, brushing my teeth at the exact same time-- as if it's totally normal for folks to use the bathroom together. These places have so much wasted space, they feel the need to fill it up unnecessary stuff. If there was actually a valid purpose for dual sinks in the bathroom other than filling space, there would also be two toilets, for competition?
- harshaw 8y agoKids bathrooms with two sinks. Its called critical for bedtime. In my room we have one sink in the bathroom and a sink in a recessed area next to the bathroom but really in the master bedroom. I live in a 80's era colonial which when built might have been called a fancy or big home, but now is quite average for the town.
- massysett 8y ago2 sinks is very helpful in my house, we can both get ready for work or bed at the same time without bumping elbows. But hey, to each his own
- throwaway080383 8y agoMy significant other and I frequently brush our teeth at the same time, and we have just one sink. Is that uncommon?
- GatorD42 8y agoI’m not sure I agree with these examples and I’m not big on architecture criticism like this. I think it’s important not to overvalue a building based on how it looks - 99.9% of your time will be spent inside the building, .1% or less will be spent outside looking at it. Modern houses can be much nicer inside: larger open areas, larger kitchens, larger bathrooms and (usually) less lead paint and asbestos. The same goes for office buildings, where I think the conservation movement overvalues the small amount of time people spend looking at a building vs the huge amount of time people work inside it. I’ve been in old beautiful office buildings in NYC and modern ugly office buildings and the modern buildings usually have a much better working environment and layout. Example 1 looks fine to me, I would be happy to live in this house. It’s not beautiful but it’s not ugly. Example 2 is ugly, the windows on the front are weird and the side has too few windows. My main issues with McMansions is they look cheaper than older houses because of the materials and sometimes facades have no windows or few windows, while old houses tend to have more windows and they are evenly balanced. Example 3 looks fine, it’s almost pretty. Example 4 would be better if the dark brick part on the house’s left had a window, and the white brick with random dark bricks is kind of ugly. Not terrible though. Example 5 looks fine and I like red brick houses. Example 6 is okay too. I’d be happy with most of these houses if they had a nice interior and nice yard.
- tomxor 8y ago> I’ve been in old beautiful office buildings in NYC and modern ugly office buildings and the modern buildings usually have a much better working environment and layout. I'm not literate in architecture, but there is one dimension that seems prominently easy to identify to me: with the singular "brutalism" at one end; and an open ended array of ornate at the other. I think the "modern" functional office building architecture you refer to are close to the brutalism end (but not at it), and therefor not a fair comparison. These mansions are quite far form it, whoever is designing them cares about the aesthetic, but regardless of your taste they seem to lack something... cohesion and thoughtfulness perhaps, they want to be something but they don't seem to know what - it makes them feel fake.
- kasey_junk 8y agoOne thing that is not pointed out in the article as it is mostly about aesthetics is that most of the traditional houses that McMansions are based on, have regional variants that were developed for the climates and conditions they were built in. For instance, the top windows in example 2 provide important airflow to a part of the house that will normally get very hot. McMansions are rarely (if ever) designed with their climate and locality in mind and are therefore very inefficient. They would not be at all livable without AC and are frequently monstrous to heat and cool. Contrast that with the houses they are modeled on, even in places where AC is a huge boon. That gets to the heart of why I hate McMansions.
- pasta 8y agoIt is a little abstract, but I believe "what you put in comes out". You will notice that, when love and attention are put in, most of the people will say that the result is beautifull. All things like balance, form and color will follow. I believe the above can be seen in everything people make (even software). A "I want 10 rooms and 5 bathrooms house" is just that. A big house with a lot of rooms.
- Pete_D 8y agoThis feels like the architectural equivalent of linguistic prescriptivism. If "basic architectural concepts" declare buildings to be "especially hideous", but people are seemingly happy to buy and live in them, what grounds do we have to decide that the people are wrong and not the concepts?
- dqv 8y agoI think the linguistic equivalent would be a verbose sentence with gratuitous use of adjectives, several inane parenthetical interjections, and punctuation misuse. It's okay if I'm reading a letter from a friend or family; otherwise, I want to read something that has good linguistic flow. It's not a judgement against people who like McMansions. It's a guide for people like me: I see a house, find it offputting, but I can't figure out why and what to look for to get a house that isn't. She gives me, a layperson, the information I need to pick a house I'll like. Her blog actually has articles that go into detail about different architectural periods and the elements of architecture. There's nothing wrong with liking McMansions, but I want a cute house, not too big, that I love on the outside and the inside.
- theoh 8y agoYou're right that this is about judgements of value. But part of the problem is that architecture can't be reduced to bite-sized principles and quick-reference rules of thumb. Architecture is so much more complex and nuanced than that. Even "A Pattern Language" falls into the trap of providing reductive prescriptions. Ask literally any architect what they think of Christopher Alexander's actual built work, and they will either dismiss it or (more likely) won't even have heard of it.
- dqv 8y agoI wouldn't say Wagner is really reducing it so much as teaching the layperson to explore their own conception of a house and why a house design doesn't quite coalesce. She didn't teach me to identify that a Frankfurt house must have a wingdar, a gongle, and a shivbopped roof. It just taught me to look closer at all the different elements that make my brain say "that's a house" vs "that's a weird house"
- kapauldo 8y agoI don't like mcmansions either, but it's hard to follow these made-up ideals.
- mrfusion 8y agoIs it wierd that none of this stuff bothers me? I’d never have noticed a problem with any of those houses.
- RickJWagner 8y agoI don't see the point in criticising other people's houses. If they have the money, and if that's what they want, more power to them. I wish I could afford to build whatever I wanted.
- coldtea 8y ago"Bad" implies an aesthetics system. A taste system implies a shared culture and an hierarchy of taste. The US, especially the modern US, lacks that. So, in the US nothing can be deemed "bad archicteure" with any objectivity - it's only so a few experts who are rooted in architectural history, and to a slightly larger number (but still small) of people who mimic their opinion.
- treya 8y agoI'd agree part of the problem is the widespread "buy the most house for the lowest price" phenomenon, which infects many other aspects of our society beyond shopping for homes, but far and away the primary problem here has little to do with architectural issues. The problem is with builders who are trying to maximize their profit - the key being build the biggest house possible on a lot of a given size (or per FAR restrictions). And the same group of builders who go this route tend to have little awareness or real concern for aesthetics - to them architecture is better when you have many rooms, higher foyers, more complicated floor plans and roof planes, and a larger number of different types of building/cladding materials. The appeal of these things has slowly creeped into the general public because tract house builders have adopted lesser versions of this crap for decades.