things are really going to roll, when Ikea opens it's first 'architecture' outlet, and offer downloadable Ikea build software with which public can 'customise' the design (ofcourse the curser will only move ikea ways) home depot is a contender too..
5,10 years?
don't forget, sears successfully built great craftsmans in south central for the working families. and that was with a lot less technology.
- i am an Ikea certified architect. we provide comlete services for the homeowners and have certified ikea builders. great benefits. we are called associates..2 months vacation. we have 750 ikea certified architects in so. cal.. and 100 expediters for the local building depts.. company also recently bought century 21 real estate.. so everything is streamlined. even though we loose money on some projects, it is just a drop in the bucket. most finished products are furnished by Ikea as well, with special discounts.
I've been pondering the suburbs for close to 20 years now, and the real McMansion paradigm has matured in that time period. I have never worked on housing of this type, but I wonder, whenever I drive past these identical communities of plump identical houses, if the problem isn;t so much with the houses as it is with the site planning.
Granted, real McMansions are far too large to be sustainable (in terms of materials, cost to operate, and quality of construction) for long. Especially with gas prices climbing, and obesity on the rise, the big problem with these suburban developments eems to be that they provide zero opportunity for a walking lifestyle.
If the same housing developments - the same number and quality and "style" of houses were arranged in a site plan that provided walkable streets and retail integrated into the fabric, would the detached-large-single-family-3-car-garage-French-Colonial McMansion still be so despised by architects and simultaneously so popular with the masses?
I honestly believe mcMansions are the gift of those pull-down and drop menu designers - I dub them glorified draftsmen or imitation architects, who use standard details, and are uncaring what those "icons" and trim mean pyschologically as well as professionally. It is cookie cutter and simplistic! They are typically poisonous, and will invariably be the source of SBS in the near future - truth. its bad, and tacky. These buildings need alot of maintenance - dont kid yourself, and usually not built well, usually by what us, those that emerge from a uk system of practice, refer to as labours skilled or otherwise. The construction details have been soooooooooooooo standardised as to erode the artististry of architecture, as well misplace there intention. What use are crows feet if you have no crows? Or fluted columns if your entablature weighs nothing because it is made from foam or DryVit. This is the horror that was encouraged by the PoMos - curse those bastards. It is choking the creativity that one emerged from the US, very much like the highways choked the western plains. And lay off the socialists - doesn't make sense to criticize bad politics without even a nod at the achievements created by such (think social housing) - anyhow enough of my rant.
to be fear (yes I'm back), there are similar awful products in other places, usually done by design insensitive governments and developers for low-income housing. Concrete boxes, that instead of choking, just boil the occupants - forcing them into regimented cores of prop-mounted structures that are 99% engineering and 1% of "an economic descision"
We as architects have to be conscious of what we allow within our environment - the blame lies with the "education" of the public but not entirely we need to take up mantle and not settle for loss of opportunities to not just created beautiful homes but attempt to enriche the livelihoods of communities. This must be the mandate of the architect primarily, and those cookie cutter, branded, book sheet disasters are the furtherest from it
jam, you are right - no amount of sensitive urban site planning could make a good architect respect a cut-and-paste clutter of misapplied trim details. It makes my teeth grind to see fake shutters and fypon entablatures staple gunned over dryvit.
I'm going to a party tonight to a gated community house, the most dense McMansioned neighborhood around here. The owner, my friend, is a commercial realtor who has a vast interest in architecture. Of what he thinks architecture is, that is. The realtors drive the public's perception of good taste in architecture. Look at that picutre window!
I was thinking about where the contractors, constuction engineers and architects in my town live. Most of them actually live in McMansions, the architects live in the smaller ones that they can afford. I wonder why this is, if they just came to terms with the whole idea and joined the masses or what? McMansions are all that are available unless you want to purchase an older home or spend massive money. Who can blame them? I still prefer the older home, but others have a fear of "outdated stuff" and consider McMansions modern clean contemporary living in whichever style you choose.
While we don't design very many houses, we do maybe one a year, and they have been so ugly. I was asked to critique one designed by one of our architects (well, the lady who was having it built really designed it, we just drew it. Her precious "floor plan!") and in my naivety I pointed out all the ghastly things wrong with it. It sat on 10 feet of fill to get the walk-out basement to sit (un)naturally on the site, the windows were too large, the massing was attrocious - it looked like a duplex, and the hipped roof was really really huge and steep, the porch was a faint reminder of what a porch could be, there was only one window in each of the kids bedrooms, in short it was atrocious and the architect knew it, but we did it anyways and let it go.
One thing we all overlooking is that floor plans change. The aesthetics of the Mc's and size is what we really criticize, but the plans are generally very contemporary. This is what really helps to sell them. The 'open' floor plan, that is now (finally) starting to eliminate the formal dining room of older homes (I wouldn't buy a home that has things segregated like that, and others won't either, so you buy what is available).
good point trace. i bought a 1920's craftsman. well built and great floor plan. the dining room sat empty for the longest time. well not empty, but unsure of what it should be. i tried to make it into other things, but it nevered worked. finally, my wife's fam was coming for christmas. all 8 of them. where the hell are we going to eat? finally went out and bought a dining room table. the room has purpose now, but it is a transitional space that doens't get used that much. on most days the table becomes a dumping ground. it's good to sketch at and lay all my work out on since it's nice and big. i still like it though.
wordspy.com sais:
McMansion noun: A large, opulent house, especially a new house that has a size and style that doesn't fit in with the surrounding houses.
google image search gave me a good idea of what they are like...
Could you describe the mcM as: someone's dreamhouse, other people's nightmare? Help me out please.
A McMansion is a thematic architype borrowing from traditional styles but without the character of what its imitating. Typicaly they are made to maximize height and volume to sell more square footage. This typically means cheaper hardware, windows, brick, etc. They essentially are giant tract homes - the scale of the house usually is grossly oversized for the land they sit on leading to funny looking streets of giant faux country farm houses with georgian dentition and new england looking siding, vinyl of course, stacked up next to each other.
this picture is a testament to our architecture education: learn how to repackage the same floor plan many ways = more cost effective and dull living enviroments : real AMERICAN BEAUTY
The McMansion is the American Dream because Americans simply don't know of anything else. Right now (good) architects do not tailor to a broad range of clients. (A)rchitecture with a capitol A is for a small niche of the community. The rest of the population is mostly oblivious to real residential design. All they have is the builder/developer filling their head with the glorifed track home crap. They just don't know any better.
What needs to happen is design needs to become affordable, good design doesn't have to have a buget of 1million+. Once it is affordable and is made know (marketing, advertisements...speaking of which, i have never in my life seen a commercial for an architecture firm...and Americans watch a whole hell of a lot of TV....hmm...) people may start to take interest in what it is to have a space which was really designed to fit their life, not the cookie cutter space everyone retrofits their lives into.
UK volume house builders see design inovation as a risk and an unessasary flourish, there is no incentive to develop sustainable quality as the market has higher priorities such as affordablility. Rest assured that the Developer's can gamble with a 20% profit risk factor (contingency) within the total buiding project costing at the moment.
£50m total (construction+ marketing+ proffessional fees+ statutory undertakings)
I'm constantly wondering about all this as well, and after doing design/build for a couple of years I have concluded:
- Americans want square footage, new, low maintenance
- Americans want 'value for their dollar' - even if they like 'modern' or 'minimal' design, they want it at a low cost (hence the success of IKEA)
- In order to buy new for a good price, you're looking for the most part at huge developments.
- Developers build what they can make the most money on. At this point, it's stucco boxes with pitched roofs, granite countertops, the floorplans that reflect people's lifestyles and materials that are inexpensive and easy to work with. Styles vary with region, out here it's usually 'spanish style', occasionally 'loft' where there is enough density and the real-estate market is good, but in any case it's cheaply built.
- The labor force is largely unskilled, and they don't read drawings. Complicated floorplans and details that require precision will add more money to the cost.
- Americans don't have much experience with architecture other than large public buildings, office towers, big box stores or whatever kind of house they grew up in (likely a ranch-style tract home, stucco apartment or old wooden bungalow).
This all makes sense - what doesn't quite make sense is why some people are willing to spend a lot on a new car that is finely engineered and customized, but don't give a shit about their house. I believe it's because 1) cars are a better design value than houses, because they are engineered to include the latest technology and are mass-produced. They are also relatively speaking much less of an investment (though not such a good one at this point), 2) you can take a car with you - everyone sees it (or at least those you want to), and your house may not be seen by anyone except close friends and family, 3) they are customizable with after-market products.
People have tried to apply these unique characteristics to architecture (such as with the modern pre-fab, sort of), but I don't think it will work. Local building codes are one reason, size, scale and structural requirements another. Especially if the trend for more sqaure footage increases (and I think that is based more on resale value than status for most people, and all the shit we accumulate these days - think what kind of cars people would have if they had to carry even a portion of all their belongings around with them at all times).
In Los Angeles, well-designed modern spec houses will sell, but shittily designed and poorly built houses sell just as well, and will make you a lot more money. There just aren't that many developers out there willing to reduce their profit margin to build good architecture - and where they surface is usually in urban areas where the market will bear it, or from non-profits who sometimes pull off decent affordable housing.
Ponder this - The charming 19th and early 20th century all American streetscape, white picket fence, main st. was built and lived in by the butchers, bakers, carpenters of the country. That same town is either a gohst town now or inhabited by the superwealthy out bidding each other to avoid any place for the McMansioned common folks. How did it happen? How could the picturesque anytown for everyone become unattainable and unbuildable in this advanced age? I know the babyboom and auto ramped up demand and price for the inner burbs with tree-lined streets in old rail towns but how did the majority get relocted to the tract-wastelands? Have we lost the ability to make anything nice by losing control of how it gets built? By whom? With what? Why is it a carpenter today cant live in a house in a town that expresses talented, creative carpentry?
that's not really true - i think in fact almost the opposite is true - the only people that live in well-designed or restored houses in the city who aren't rich are architects, designers, contractors, carpenters (and the occasional set builder, furniture maker, etc.). I've noticed lately that all the smaller houses you see in Dwell, Sunset, etc. are architects or designers own houses. It's just not affordable (or a priority) to people who aren't in the field.
I don't think we'll be seeing good design for the masses unless: the real-estate market drops drastically and the price of materials and labor also drops, and the sustainable 'movement' actually enters american mass consciousness and people start to feel guilty about huge houses - do you see it happening?
It will be adapted into existing products - I find it odd that green houses all tend to be a modernist looking hybrid. What I meant before was say for example, a 4 bed queen ann with wrap around front proch near a comuter rail in large urban area was once a dwelling for an average family in many regions. Its now a 1.5 million doller home because of its craftsmanship - irreproducable, a relic once enjoyed by common folks. What worries me more is the hidden lessons and engineering that was used to create these has been lost on what is now concidered a carpenter. But then again they had better wood that could do much more. Check out a book on 19th century framing called "carpentry masterpieces" by the modern cabinate joiner series. Wood that lasts 200 years in same structure is more conservation friendly than fast grow farms no?
evilp- in chicago the housing type that really bothers is me, is the 3+1's that have filled in every freakin lot in the city. and some of these run 400k per unit with really nothing in them. horrible light no details maybe a granite kitchen counter and a jacuzzi tub. just awful.
i heard a story of a woman who bought one of those new developer condos. after she had lived there for several months, she decided to rip up the carpet. she was utterly shocked to find no hardwood floors underneath the carpet. how naive can a person be?
long live capatalism, and the right to earn all the money you can so you can build whatever you want without commi/socialist regulators tellin you what you can and can't do with your land. maybe here ou twest we resent people tellin us that we can't make money on our land and have to preserve it for the "good of society." i personally don't agree with the chewing up of the western american landscape, but understand it is a necessary evil to maintain a pure, individualist capatalist society. i am not an architect that is out to change the face of the american lifestyle, i am an architect that is out to get good clients, good projects, so i can design some kick ass shit and get it built. mcmansions are shit when they are composed of recycled historical formal gestures, but if a client gave me 6 mil to design a modern house how i see fit, i would friggin love it and not feel any remorse, even if it was on a 2 acre plot in the suburbs. the thing we architects must remember is that we rely on the money to maintain the profession. we build things for people that have money, that is the plain and simple truth. but i do agree that mcmansions are shit.
abra: this john henry aia guy is pretty much a total douche. he "caught the architecture bug" looking through home plan books in shop class and decided to spring his brand of mediocrity on the world thereafter, unlike those "avant-garde" architects who dish up -isms on the world. douche...
ants: omigod... amazing doesn't cover it. i didn't know whether to laugh or cry when i saw that. i have to go uninstall flash from my computer to make up for that guy's sins.
on the john henry site: read his response to the not-so-big lady. the more i read, the more it hurts. who would actually want to live in that kind of shit? 7000SF of awful design would be overwhelming. (and since when did 4000SF qualify as smaller houses?
Speaking of the worldwide reach of McMansions- I work at a Master Planning/Landscape Architecture office. We are completing designs for "communities" of Mcmansions in China, Egypt, and Russia. In China they have developments called Orange County, Napa Valley, and now, Hawaii. You can pick from English, French or Italian styles. The desire to adopt features of Western Civilization is not suprising to me, we all are adopting each others' cultures, but must they take the worst?
The reason for the lack of taste in this country is the lack of education in this country. There is no exposure to architectural history in High school, or Art History for that matter. People just don;t know what it means and what it can do. If architecture is an expression of a culture than Mcmansions represent a significant part of our population's lack of individualism, fear of the other, opting to play it safe in someting that can be found anywhere, like a Mcdonalds.
I stumbled across this old thread that a-techno started back when he was still jam-arch.
What are all your thoughts on McMansions today? Anyone here willing to admit a secret love for traditional style? Or has everyone here just decided to march to the beat of the modernist/contemporary/clean-line drum?
i love great architecture - be it whatever style someone wants to call it.
mcmansions exist, really, because of appraisers. and loan officers that rely on the appraisers. if you've ever really had to deal with the economics of building homes, you know what i'm talking about. try to get a loan for smaller, higher quality and see where you end up most of the time.
the sad fact is, architects are involved with these homes. some are getting by just fine doing them. a lot of wanna-be architects are doing more and doing even better. the market can quantify their value. they're going to get built.
find someone who can put down the clams for an alternative vision, where they can finance the homebuyers themselves, and you'll see the start of something. otherwise, all we'll get as alternatives are one-offs and bad imitations. win the banks over, win the war...
there is some middle ground, rfuller. 'marching to the beat', etc, is obviously meant as a pejorative. it also ignores that fact that someone can love historic homes, appreciate local traditions, and work toward an architecture of craft and consideration but still get the heebie-jeebies at homearamas.
mcmansions don't have that name by accident: many/most(?) are crap. when design is reduced to an inventory of things, to be checked off by a real estate agent or appraiser, then what you get is lowest common denominator stuff. why should a home-builder bother with nice carpentry details if what matters is how many tray ceilings and hidden televisions there are?
mcmansions and the american architect
things are really going to roll, when Ikea opens it's first 'architecture' outlet, and offer downloadable Ikea build software with which public can 'customise' the design (ofcourse the curser will only move ikea ways) home depot is a contender too..
5,10 years?
don't forget, sears successfully built great craftsmans in south central for the working families. and that was with a lot less technology.
- What do you do?
- i am an Ikea certified architect. we provide comlete services for the homeowners and have certified ikea builders. great benefits. we are called associates..2 months vacation. we have 750 ikea certified architects in so. cal.. and 100 expediters for the local building depts.. company also recently bought century 21 real estate.. so everything is streamlined. even though we loose money on some projects, it is just a drop in the bucket. most finished products are furnished by Ikea as well, with special discounts.
- i always wanted to be an architect too..
'There's really only one trend, and that's planned obsolescence.'
rita novel
I've been pondering the suburbs for close to 20 years now, and the real McMansion paradigm has matured in that time period. I have never worked on housing of this type, but I wonder, whenever I drive past these identical communities of plump identical houses, if the problem isn;t so much with the houses as it is with the site planning.
Granted, real McMansions are far too large to be sustainable (in terms of materials, cost to operate, and quality of construction) for long. Especially with gas prices climbing, and obesity on the rise, the big problem with these suburban developments eems to be that they provide zero opportunity for a walking lifestyle.
If the same housing developments - the same number and quality and "style" of houses were arranged in a site plan that provided walkable streets and retail integrated into the fabric, would the detached-large-single-family-3-car-garage-French-Colonial McMansion still be so despised by architects and simultaneously so popular with the masses?
I honestly believe mcMansions are the gift of those pull-down and drop menu designers - I dub them glorified draftsmen or imitation architects, who use standard details, and are uncaring what those "icons" and trim mean pyschologically as well as professionally. It is cookie cutter and simplistic! They are typically poisonous, and will invariably be the source of SBS in the near future - truth. its bad, and tacky. These buildings need alot of maintenance - dont kid yourself, and usually not built well, usually by what us, those that emerge from a uk system of practice, refer to as labours skilled or otherwise. The construction details have been soooooooooooooo standardised as to erode the artististry of architecture, as well misplace there intention. What use are crows feet if you have no crows? Or fluted columns if your entablature weighs nothing because it is made from foam or DryVit. This is the horror that was encouraged by the PoMos - curse those bastards. It is choking the creativity that one emerged from the US, very much like the highways choked the western plains. And lay off the socialists - doesn't make sense to criticize bad politics without even a nod at the achievements created by such (think social housing) - anyhow enough of my rant.
to be fear (yes I'm back), there are similar awful products in other places, usually done by design insensitive governments and developers for low-income housing. Concrete boxes, that instead of choking, just boil the occupants - forcing them into regimented cores of prop-mounted structures that are 99% engineering and 1% of "an economic descision"
We as architects have to be conscious of what we allow within our environment - the blame lies with the "education" of the public but not entirely we need to take up mantle and not settle for loss of opportunities to not just created beautiful homes but attempt to enriche the livelihoods of communities. This must be the mandate of the architect primarily, and those cookie cutter, branded, book sheet disasters are the furtherest from it
jam, you are right - no amount of sensitive urban site planning could make a good architect respect a cut-and-paste clutter of misapplied trim details. It makes my teeth grind to see fake shutters and fypon entablatures staple gunned over dryvit.
I'm going to a party tonight to a gated community house, the most dense McMansioned neighborhood around here. The owner, my friend, is a commercial realtor who has a vast interest in architecture. Of what he thinks architecture is, that is. The realtors drive the public's perception of good taste in architecture. Look at that picutre window!
I was thinking about where the contractors, constuction engineers and architects in my town live. Most of them actually live in McMansions, the architects live in the smaller ones that they can afford. I wonder why this is, if they just came to terms with the whole idea and joined the masses or what? McMansions are all that are available unless you want to purchase an older home or spend massive money. Who can blame them? I still prefer the older home, but others have a fear of "outdated stuff" and consider McMansions modern clean contemporary living in whichever style you choose.
While we don't design very many houses, we do maybe one a year, and they have been so ugly. I was asked to critique one designed by one of our architects (well, the lady who was having it built really designed it, we just drew it. Her precious "floor plan!") and in my naivety I pointed out all the ghastly things wrong with it. It sat on 10 feet of fill to get the walk-out basement to sit (un)naturally on the site, the windows were too large, the massing was attrocious - it looked like a duplex, and the hipped roof was really really huge and steep, the porch was a faint reminder of what a porch could be, there was only one window in each of the kids bedrooms, in short it was atrocious and the architect knew it, but we did it anyways and let it go.
One thing we all overlooking is that floor plans change. The aesthetics of the Mc's and size is what we really criticize, but the plans are generally very contemporary. This is what really helps to sell them. The 'open' floor plan, that is now (finally) starting to eliminate the formal dining room of older homes (I wouldn't buy a home that has things segregated like that, and others won't either, so you buy what is available).
good point trace. i bought a 1920's craftsman. well built and great floor plan. the dining room sat empty for the longest time. well not empty, but unsure of what it should be. i tried to make it into other things, but it nevered worked. finally, my wife's fam was coming for christmas. all 8 of them. where the hell are we going to eat? finally went out and bought a dining room table. the room has purpose now, but it is a transitional space that doens't get used that much. on most days the table becomes a dumping ground. it's good to sketch at and lay all my work out on since it's nice and big. i still like it though.
Stupid question: What exactly is a mcMansion?
The word sais a lot and i can kinda get an idea, but i would like more explanation...
wordspy.com sais:
McMansion noun: A large, opulent house, especially a new house that has a size and style that doesn't fit in with the surrounding houses.
google image search gave me a good idea of what they are like...
Could you describe the mcM as: someone's dreamhouse, other people's nightmare? Help me out please.
A McMansion is a thematic architype borrowing from traditional styles but without the character of what its imitating. Typicaly they are made to maximize height and volume to sell more square footage. This typically means cheaper hardware, windows, brick, etc. They essentially are giant tract homes - the scale of the house usually is grossly oversized for the land they sit on leading to funny looking streets of giant faux country farm houses with georgian dentition and new england looking siding, vinyl of course, stacked up next to each other.
Thanks evilplatypus.
This horror is also spreading rapidly in Europe, the capital of the eu-mcMansion is Belgium, where it is called fermette.
Ottopia
ARTICLE - link
That one at least is on a large lot and is well proportioned. Thats a decent looking one. Got any truly horrific?
[img]http://www.john-daly.com/TwistedPhotos/albums/album19030305051515085707/suburbia.jpg[/img
DOPE
this picture is a testament to our architecture education: learn how to repackage the same floor plan many ways = more cost effective and dull living enviroments : real AMERICAN BEAUTY
there is a truly horrific thing in our Dry-vit literature. Have you guys seen it?
The McMansion is the American Dream because Americans simply don't know of anything else. Right now (good) architects do not tailor to a broad range of clients. (A)rchitecture with a capitol A is for a small niche of the community. The rest of the population is mostly oblivious to real residential design. All they have is the builder/developer filling their head with the glorifed track home crap. They just don't know any better.
What needs to happen is design needs to become affordable, good design doesn't have to have a buget of 1million+. Once it is affordable and is made know (marketing, advertisements...speaking of which, i have never in my life seen a commercial for an architecture firm...and Americans watch a whole hell of a lot of TV....hmm...) people may start to take interest in what it is to have a space which was really designed to fit their life, not the cookie cutter space everyone retrofits their lives into.
UK volume house builders see design inovation as a risk and an unessasary flourish, there is no incentive to develop sustainable quality as the market has higher priorities such as affordablility. Rest assured that the Developer's can gamble with a 20% profit risk factor (contingency) within the total buiding project costing at the moment.
£50m total (construction+ marketing+ proffessional fees+ statutory undertakings)
£10m proffit
Easy money.
prefab light gage metal construction
I'm constantly wondering about all this as well, and after doing design/build for a couple of years I have concluded:
- Americans want square footage, new, low maintenance
- Americans want 'value for their dollar' - even if they like 'modern' or 'minimal' design, they want it at a low cost (hence the success of IKEA)
- In order to buy new for a good price, you're looking for the most part at huge developments.
- Developers build what they can make the most money on. At this point, it's stucco boxes with pitched roofs, granite countertops, the floorplans that reflect people's lifestyles and materials that are inexpensive and easy to work with. Styles vary with region, out here it's usually 'spanish style', occasionally 'loft' where there is enough density and the real-estate market is good, but in any case it's cheaply built.
- The labor force is largely unskilled, and they don't read drawings. Complicated floorplans and details that require precision will add more money to the cost.
- Americans don't have much experience with architecture other than large public buildings, office towers, big box stores or whatever kind of house they grew up in (likely a ranch-style tract home, stucco apartment or old wooden bungalow).
This all makes sense - what doesn't quite make sense is why some people are willing to spend a lot on a new car that is finely engineered and customized, but don't give a shit about their house. I believe it's because 1) cars are a better design value than houses, because they are engineered to include the latest technology and are mass-produced. They are also relatively speaking much less of an investment (though not such a good one at this point), 2) you can take a car with you - everyone sees it (or at least those you want to), and your house may not be seen by anyone except close friends and family, 3) they are customizable with after-market products.
People have tried to apply these unique characteristics to architecture (such as with the modern pre-fab, sort of), but I don't think it will work. Local building codes are one reason, size, scale and structural requirements another. Especially if the trend for more sqaure footage increases (and I think that is based more on resale value than status for most people, and all the shit we accumulate these days - think what kind of cars people would have if they had to carry even a portion of all their belongings around with them at all times).
In Los Angeles, well-designed modern spec houses will sell, but shittily designed and poorly built houses sell just as well, and will make you a lot more money. There just aren't that many developers out there willing to reduce their profit margin to build good architecture - and where they surface is usually in urban areas where the market will bear it, or from non-profits who sometimes pull off decent affordable housing.
Ponder this - The charming 19th and early 20th century all American streetscape, white picket fence, main st. was built and lived in by the butchers, bakers, carpenters of the country. That same town is either a gohst town now or inhabited by the superwealthy out bidding each other to avoid any place for the McMansioned common folks. How did it happen? How could the picturesque anytown for everyone become unattainable and unbuildable in this advanced age? I know the babyboom and auto ramped up demand and price for the inner burbs with tree-lined streets in old rail towns but how did the majority get relocted to the tract-wastelands? Have we lost the ability to make anything nice by losing control of how it gets built? By whom? With what? Why is it a carpenter today cant live in a house in a town that expresses talented, creative carpentry?
that's not really true - i think in fact almost the opposite is true - the only people that live in well-designed or restored houses in the city who aren't rich are architects, designers, contractors, carpenters (and the occasional set builder, furniture maker, etc.). I've noticed lately that all the smaller houses you see in Dwell, Sunset, etc. are architects or designers own houses. It's just not affordable (or a priority) to people who aren't in the field.
I don't think we'll be seeing good design for the masses unless: the real-estate market drops drastically and the price of materials and labor also drops, and the sustainable 'movement' actually enters american mass consciousness and people start to feel guilty about huge houses - do you see it happening?
It will be adapted into existing products - I find it odd that green houses all tend to be a modernist looking hybrid. What I meant before was say for example, a 4 bed queen ann with wrap around front proch near a comuter rail in large urban area was once a dwelling for an average family in many regions. Its now a 1.5 million doller home because of its craftsmanship - irreproducable, a relic once enjoyed by common folks. What worries me more is the hidden lessons and engineering that was used to create these has been lost on what is now concidered a carpenter. But then again they had better wood that could do much more. Check out a book on 19th century framing called "carpentry masterpieces" by the modern cabinate joiner series. Wood that lasts 200 years in same structure is more conservation friendly than fast grow farms no?
evilp- in chicago the housing type that really bothers is me, is the 3+1's that have filled in every freakin lot in the city. and some of these run 400k per unit with really nothing in them. horrible light no details maybe a granite kitchen counter and a jacuzzi tub. just awful.
Yeah - but whats sad is those are still better than most urban housing types around the country.
my favorite story about the new 3+1's vado is:
i heard a story of a woman who bought one of those new developer condos. after she had lived there for several months, she decided to rip up the carpet. she was utterly shocked to find no hardwood floors underneath the carpet. how naive can a person be?
everything you want or don't want to know about
mc mansions. all styles covered, including modern, ultramodern and decon.
god speed..
long live capatalism, and the right to earn all the money you can so you can build whatever you want without commi/socialist regulators tellin you what you can and can't do with your land. maybe here ou twest we resent people tellin us that we can't make money on our land and have to preserve it for the "good of society." i personally don't agree with the chewing up of the western american landscape, but understand it is a necessary evil to maintain a pure, individualist capatalist society. i am not an architect that is out to change the face of the american lifestyle, i am an architect that is out to get good clients, good projects, so i can design some kick ass shit and get it built. mcmansions are shit when they are composed of recycled historical formal gestures, but if a client gave me 6 mil to design a modern house how i see fit, i would friggin love it and not feel any remorse, even if it was on a 2 acre plot in the suburbs. the thing we architects must remember is that we rely on the money to maintain the profession. we build things for people that have money, that is the plain and simple truth. but i do agree that mcmansions are shit.
abra: this john henry aia guy is pretty much a total douche. he "caught the architecture bug" looking through home plan books in shop class and decided to spring his brand of mediocrity on the world thereafter, unlike those "avant-garde" architects who dish up -isms on the world. douche...
he calls it "ultra-contemporary". i have no words that are appropriate for it.
also... posted a while ago the website is amazing.
ants: omigod... amazing doesn't cover it. i didn't know whether to laugh or cry when i saw that. i have to go uninstall flash from my computer to make up for that guy's sins.
on the john henry site: read his response to the not-so-big lady. the more i read, the more it hurts. who would actually want to live in that kind of shit? 7000SF of awful design would be overwhelming. (and since when did 4000SF qualify as smaller houses?
that site made my stomach hurt
haha, did anyone watch the flash movie on that website?
i felt like i was approaching bowser's castle in Super Mario...
it was scaaaary
Speaking of the worldwide reach of McMansions- I work at a Master Planning/Landscape Architecture office. We are completing designs for "communities" of Mcmansions in China, Egypt, and Russia. In China they have developments called Orange County, Napa Valley, and now, Hawaii. You can pick from English, French or Italian styles. The desire to adopt features of Western Civilization is not suprising to me, we all are adopting each others' cultures, but must they take the worst?
The reason for the lack of taste in this country is the lack of education in this country. There is no exposure to architectural history in High school, or Art History for that matter. People just don;t know what it means and what it can do. If architecture is an expression of a culture than Mcmansions represent a significant part of our population's lack of individualism, fear of the other, opting to play it safe in someting that can be found anywhere, like a Mcdonalds.
*Bump*
I stumbled across this old thread that a-techno started back when he was still jam-arch.
What are all your thoughts on McMansions today? Anyone here willing to admit a secret love for traditional style? Or has everyone here just decided to march to the beat of the modernist/contemporary/clean-line drum?
it's not that i just decided to march to the modernist/etc drum beat.
i get really freaked out in traditional houses, probably owing to the 18th c. alabama plantation house i lived in.
the clean lines make everything calmer for me, and the emphasis falls into the space, views, light, etc. which is where i tend to dwell anyway.
rfuller -
i love great architecture - be it whatever style someone wants to call it.
mcmansions exist, really, because of appraisers. and loan officers that rely on the appraisers. if you've ever really had to deal with the economics of building homes, you know what i'm talking about. try to get a loan for smaller, higher quality and see where you end up most of the time.
the sad fact is, architects are involved with these homes. some are getting by just fine doing them. a lot of wanna-be architects are doing more and doing even better. the market can quantify their value. they're going to get built.
find someone who can put down the clams for an alternative vision, where they can finance the homebuyers themselves, and you'll see the start of something. otherwise, all we'll get as alternatives are one-offs and bad imitations. win the banks over, win the war...
there is some middle ground, rfuller. 'marching to the beat', etc, is obviously meant as a pejorative. it also ignores that fact that someone can love historic homes, appreciate local traditions, and work toward an architecture of craft and consideration but still get the heebie-jeebies at homearamas.
mcmansions don't have that name by accident: many/most(?) are crap. when design is reduced to an inventory of things, to be checked off by a real estate agent or appraiser, then what you get is lowest common denominator stuff. why should a home-builder bother with nice carpentry details if what matters is how many tray ceilings and hidden televisions there are?
Hmmmmmmm
It seems I need to readjust my definition of McMansion. Thanks for a clearer definition SW.
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