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According to its satirical official website, BLUE CHECK HOMES offers clients a verified blue badge on their homes. "The blue verified badge on your house lets people outside know that you're an authentic public figure. To receive the blue check crest, there must be someone authentic and... View full entry
Need some troll-ish ideas for designing your next staircase? From vertigo-inducing carpet to confusing angles to optical illusions no one asked for, this Twitter thread — aptly titled "Stairs designed by a serial killer" — might spark some inspiration, if not a chuckle or a... View full entry
A Berlin-based artist who put up billboards advertising fake real estate projects in protest against runaway property development received more than 200 calls from would-be investors who didn’t get the joke. [...]
At a distance, the adverts look plausible but closer inspection of the images visualising what the new properties would look like reveals odd details.
— The Guardian
Treptown Visions, billboard in public space, Treptow, Berlin, 2019 by Dorothea Nold. Image: Dorothea Nold/aussenwelt "Citizens are not being asked for their permission when investors make such drastic changes in their city, that’s why I thought it is okay to put them without permission up to... View full entry
The architects behind the Flying Pigs on Parade project—which planned to install four golden pig-shaped balloons in front of the infamous Trump Tower Chicago sign—are back with another anti-Trump parody, this time mocking the President's proposed border wall. New World Projects, the... View full entry
Two weeks ago, somebody untied Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s $40 million yacht from its mooring. It got me thinking about another opulent display of wealth owned by DeVos: her 22,000-square-foot nautical-themed summer mansion, located in Holland, Michigan. Just a few more years of climate change and it’ll be floating too. — vox.com
Kate Wagner critiques Betsy DeVos’s Michigan summer mansion on her humor blog McMansion Hell. Wagner unpacks not only the architectural design but also the greater social implications of why the education secretary's McMansion is so horrendous. The essay is dedicated to "all of the public... View full entry
I’ve been poisoning my brain the last couple of weeks narrowing down 2000 prospective McMansions to 16. Please give me a round of applause for this immense personal sacrifice. Instead of ranking them myself like I usually do, I will be doing a bracket at the end of the next post where you can vote for the Most Terrible in Texas! (After all, everything’s bigger in Texas!) — mcmansionhell.com
McMansion Hell, a bi-weekly blog delighting in architectural education through ridicule, now brings us a Texas bracket. The top 8 worst McMansions of Texas suburbia have been chosen and properly mocked. Now it's your turn to choose which belongs at the innermost circle of hell. Here are a few of... View full entry
Homelessness in America has reached crisis levels and I am determined to do everything in my power to fix the problem as long as it doesn’t involve changing zoning laws or my ability to drive alone to work or, well, changing anything, really. I’m more than happy to give a hungry man a sandwich once a year and then brag to my friends about it as long as he doesn’t sit down anywhere in my line of sight to eat it. Same goes for hungry women because I’m also a feminist. — mcsweeneys.net
A superb piece satirizing the homelessness and housing crises by McSweeney's writer Homa Mojtabai. From a privileged and entitled point of view, Mojtabai highlights extreme issues on how problems are being "solved". This is of course an exaggeration—but by how much? View full entry
It’s happened again. A public vote to name four trains running between the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg has resulted in one of the four being called Trainy McTrainface in an echo of the name chosen by the British public for the new polar research vessel. — The Guardian
Last year, the British public voted to name its new polar research vessel "Boaty McBoatface"—a decision that the British government quickly overturned in favor of the less comical name "RRS Sir David Attenborough." Hopefully, Boaty McBoatface's legacy will live on in Sweden, where the public... View full entry
On this week's episode we’re joined with Kate Wagner, the author of McMansion Hell, a blog that balances serious essays on architecture and urbanism, with brilliantly funny analysis of the absurd trends in American suburban architecture. Kate has recently emerged, triumphantly, from a widely... View full entry
Although certain architects have attempted to inject humor into the profession, architecture is generally not known for its slapstick and wry timing, which makes the pairing of interviewer Michael Ian Black (formerly of classic comedy show The State) and Yale Dean of Architecture Deborah Berke... View full entry
Rejecting self-serious notions in favor of playful, experimental, and bold architecture, Slovenian architects Sadar + Vuga have made a name themselves in the twenty-one years since they founded their practice.Sadar+Vuga’s Air Traffic Control Center (ATCC) in SloveniaOne of the few firms to... View full entry
Architects around the globe got to show some Internet meme-worthy snark in Reality Cues' latest installment, the “Good Walls Make Good Neighbors, Mr. Trump” ideas competition. Based on Donald Trump's xenophobic plans to make the historically controversial U.S./Mexico border wall into a reality, the charrette invited architects to do one thing: Design a wall that separates Mr. Trump from the rest of the U.S. — Bustler
Here are a few of the top entries:First Runner Up: Taco Truck Block Party by Rajiv FernandezSecond Runner Up: The Future is Bleak by Rob AndersonHonorable Mention: Cleansing the Earth by Aly PerezHonorable Mention: Shhhh, Don't Tell Richard by Daniel Rogers(cover image) Best Overall Image... View full entry
Movie star Leonardo DiCaprio's Malibu dream house hit the market on Friday, listing for $10.95 million. Leo purchased the midcentury California bungalow... back in 1998, and the three bed, two bath home is a beaut. It's on star-studded Carbon Beach, the views are killer, and the interiors are gorgeous.
But the truth is, life is probably meaningless and there is a strong chance that we all die alone. Could buying this house change any of that?
— LAist
LAist: Hi! Love the house!! Just a few questions. Albert Camus once said "At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman." This house is obviously super beautiful—do you think there is anything inhuman about that beauty?Redfin: Um, wow, that wasn't the question I was expecting. I think with... View full entry
The Onion has once again skewered an architectural trend, this time honing in on the 'pro's and con's' of tiny houses, aka 'micro-houses'. Pro's include: "paints inability to afford a real home as positive life choice"; "allows you to live the simple life your ancestors did everything in their... View full entry
If Donald Trump were a building, he’d be Baroque-a-cola: It’s bombastic, pretentious, clumsy, tacky and absolutely over the top, just like he is. Most Baroque-a-cola structures are in the form of showy townhouses or McMansions, but downtown Denver has been unlucky enough to have witnessed the erection of several high-rises of the type... — Westword
Denver does have its historic architectural gems, but several recent developments in the city have been dull, if not straight-up hideous (What's with all the random patches of brick?). Writer Michael Paglia dives into Denver's “sea of awful architecture” and lists the city's “Hateful... View full entry
