
What Style Is That House? Visual Guides to Domestic Architectural Designs - misnamed
http://99percentinvisible.org/article/style-house-visual-guides-domestic-architectural-designs/
======
skypanther
As a lover of old houses, it's nice to see this sort of thing discussed. A few
minor quibbles:

The article (though fortunately not the poster/infographic) mentions the
"Victorian" style. Victorian is an era during which multiple housing styles
were popular -- Queen Anne, Stick, Shingle, etc.

The stylized drawings, especially in the infographic, really obscure the
characteristics of some of the styles. The Italianate drawing, for example,
barely resembles the real thing.

Finally, the article and sources fail to mention that few houses truly
represent one specific style. Typically, only architect-designed homes (built
by the rich-n-famous) or kit homes
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_houses_in_North_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_houses_in_North_America))
would really fit a specific style. Lots of homes of that era are best
described as "vernacular" and combine elements of multiple styles. You then
end up classifying it based on the predominant features. For example, I live
in a home built in the 1890s that has a mix of Queen Anne, shingle, and stick
elements. Though, my last home was a spot-on American Foursquare.

Nicely, the article references the McAlester book. It is the best resource
I've found for classifying old houses. I have the older edition, authored by
Virginia and Lee so I can't speak to the contents of the new edition. If you
want some "old house porn" check out the Painted Lady series of books, too.

~~~
randcraw
Yeah 'italianate' seems to describe the presence of individual design elements
more than full blown motifs. But I think that's a typical concession in
'affordable homes'.

I too reccommend the McAlesters' Field Guide. Her 850 page successor text (w/
styles after 1940) is on my short list of 'to buy' books.

------
ProfessorLayton
This is so neat!

I'm in what I can best describe as a single story "National gable + front
wing" tract house from the 40s, and feel that the design is very pragmatic and
boring. These types of houses are very common in the Bay Area suburbs,
particularly in the East Bay. Those were built en masse during during the war
and have a surprising degree of craftsmanship and material quality.

I muse about one day owning one of those ordinate Victorian houses, but at the
same time dread all work and red tape that can come with them (Which goes
against my idea of homeownership). A buddy of mine has one and says it would
cost ~35k to replace the drafty windows because the city requires an approved
type/style/installer (it's a historic home).

~~~
hkmurakami
I like old things and old houses too. But a friend in real estate advised me
against buying and living in 100 year old houses because of the high cost of
maintenance, very high cost of remodeling, and various things you wouldn't
expect right away, like the water tasting funny due to old pipes, there house
creaking and making sounds all the time as it shrinks and expands, the general
lack of insulation, etc.

I'm still fond of the Tudor style, but alas it does seem impractical.

~~~
skypanther
You have to be prepared to deal with an old home's quirks. It is not going to
have all the amenities and features of a modern house. Yep, it will wiggle and
squeak and probably will need to have its electrical and plumbing checked out
by a competent contractor.

It will have been "maintained" by people of varying skills, desires, tastes,
budgets, etc over its lifetime. Many of the repairs I've had to do in my old
house have involved undoing or fixing the previous owner's poor work.

The flip side, our house is over 100 years old and has most of its original
windows. Other than some painting, glazing, and caulking they're fine & pretty
weathertight. It has 12" wide floor joists ... I could park a car in the
living room. And it has glorious architectural details not found in (or poorly
imitated in) modern homes.

The inventory of old homes will never be larger than what we have now. Every
year, old homes are lost to fire, flood, tear down, and insensitive
remuddlings. If you're not willing to live in and love an old house for what
it is, please, buy a new home.

~~~
NegativeLatency
Poorly done reproductions of wood work make my skin crawl. You touch a railing
or some mounding and realize it's mdf that's coated in some plastic.

Just knowing all the skill that went into making the old features out of wood
has been lost is sad/ disappointing.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Then there's the fake columns made out of, strangely, foam(!)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAT2-H8NESQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAT2-H8NESQ)

Since they are fake and have no purpose other than being ornamental they are
prone to being the wrong size and just look really, really off. If you're
going to make them ornamental they should look like they could be functional.

Fake shutters that are the wrong size/location really grind my gears as well.

~~~
tsomctl
I feel obligated to to point out the blog McMansion Hell
([http://www.mcmansionhell.com](http://www.mcmansionhell.com)) which ridicules
and explains why these details are ugly.

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matt4077
Never noticed that art nouveau apparently didn't make it to the US. Or is that
because the chart only focuses on the single-family home? It's probably the
most characteristic style of most cities from Brussels to Russia.

Examples: [http://www.rhein-ruhr-region.de/info/wp-
content/uploads/wett...](http://www.rhein-ruhr-region.de/info/wp-
content/uploads/wetter-villa-boennhoff.jpg) or
[https://birgitrehse.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/planufer-1.j...](https://birgitrehse.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/planufer-1.jpg)

~~~
tikhonj
For whatever reason, I think Art Deco ended up supplanting Art Nouveau in US
cities. Art Deco didn't have much of an influence on single-family homes
either, but it certainly left its mark on everything from small apartments to
skyscrapers.

It's a shame: while I certainly enjoy Art Deco, I miss the incredible design
and ambiance of the Art Nouvea neighborhoods in St. Petersburg and Barcelona.
I've never found anything with quite that feel in other cities, especially in
the US...

~~~
matt4077
It's beautiful and unlike the periods before it they are quite spacious on the
inside. If you go further back in time, it sometimes gets a bit cramped (i. e.
stairs half a meter wide, half the depth of your foot and at an 120 degree
angle – basically a ladder).

It's interesting to see that everyone wants to life in them here, but nobody
would attempt to build like it again. Even the most luxurious new apartments
may have floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides, but the ceilings are at 3m
instead of 4.5m+.

May be the costs of the solid walls and increased heat loss, or it'd just feel
tacky to have ornaments of ivy and topless women on the front of a new
building.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Even the most luxurious new apartments may have floor-to-ceiling windows on
> all sides, but the ceilings are at 3m instead of 4.5m+._

Having friends living in apartments in such high ceilings (in my city, Kraków,
there's _lots_ of those old buildings, so even poorest students often get to
live in them), the number one complaint is heating - warm air rises and
accumulates under the ceiling, so you have to heat _a lot_ to even feel it at
floor level.

~~~
galfarragem
When that buildings are properly renovated (e.g. new insulation on external
facade) the thermal problem is solved and you remain with the sensation of
living in a "palace". Living in an old _kamienica_ with a ceiling on 3,50m+ is
an "order of magnitude" better than living in a Soviet style building with
ceilings on 2,40m or less. It's liberating.

~~~
tgb
Man I grew up with seven foot cielings (under 2.2m) and saw no problems with
it. The house is super cozy. Now I've got roughly ten foot cielings and just
changing a light bulb or replacing smoke detector batteries is a real pain.

~~~
hx87
Chandeliers, sconces, pendants, and wall-mounted smoke detectors take care of
that problem.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Or, I don't know, _ladders_?

~~~
logfromblammo
Create plenum space with drop ceiling 3-ft below actual ceiling?

~~~
hx87
I wished every Texas contractor who builds great rooms with 20 foot ceilings
but still puts HVAC ducts in hot unconditioned attics did this.

------
sfRattan
Their graphical representation of a McMansion is perhaps overly generous:

\- some of the windows actually match (and are even symmetrically aligned)

\- the garage takes up less that half of the house's front face

\- the columns next to the door are neither too tall nor too skinny

McMansion on the lower left:
[http://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2016/08/american-v...](http://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2016/08/american-
vernacular-houses-guide.png)

~~~
ykl
An excellent time to link to McMansion Hell's various guides on McMansions.
Two good starting points are "What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture" [0] and
"The 10 Circles of McMansion Hell" [1].

[0]
[http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/148605513816/mcmansions-10...](http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/148605513816/mcmansions-101-what-
makes-a-mcmansion-bad)

[1]
[http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/151896249151/the-10-circle...](http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/151896249151/the-10-circles-
of-mcmansionhell-the-mcmansion)

~~~
freehunter
I guess I'm not getting it. They say "The secondary masses should never
compete with the primary mass" but never says why. Why is having six masses
combined by a primary mass to fill in the gaps a bad thing? At least with "too
many voids" they say "looks like swiss cheese". Same thing with symmetry, why
is a poorly balanced house bad? Why does a house have to follow the "rule of
thirds"? That's never explained in the article.

Something makes me think that the author has never seen a Tuscan villa,
because that "six secondary masses" house is clearly a villa-inspired home.
And villas are often non-symmetrical, out of proportion, full of secondary
masses, and certainly do not follow the rule of thirds. Part of their entire
appeal is that they appear to be several small buildings connected together
after they were built.

I don't have anything either for or against McMansions, but after reading that
first link I'm not convinced that the author knows what makes McMansions "bad"
either. In the second link some of the houses in "the 10s" look exactly like
German manors. Compare the second "10" picture with this one:
[http://www.castlesandmanorhouses.com/photos/bodelschwingh..j...](http://www.castlesandmanorhouses.com/photos/bodelschwingh..jpg)

Is that 13th century German manor a "McMansion" too?

~~~
imgabe
It doesn't _have_ to. These are just general rules that usually make things
look good. You can make good-looking things that don't follow the rules if
it's done thoughtfully and with a design purpose in mind.

McMansion builders are not doing thoughtful design with some sort of aesthetic
vision, though. They're slapping together the cheapest materials they can
find, as quickly as possible to make the highest profit. That's why it ends up
looking bad. They didn't use 5 different kind of windows because they had some
design vision that requires it. They used 5 different kinds of windows because
the contractor said "Hey, I've got a bunch of different windows left over from
other jobs, let's use them here so we don't have to buy new ones."

~~~
freehunter
Thank you, that's what I kept expecting the article to say. I was waiting for
them to say "this looks bad because they cheaped out", "this looks bad because
it was designed around spare parts", "this feature is a sign that they were
cutting costs", etc. But they didn't. They just said "this is bad, moving on,
this one's bad too, next one..."

As it stands, it's a McMansion of an article. A lot of things thrown together
without any rhyme or reason, sold to people who don't know any better, and
marketed as the epitome of high culture. It did nothing to further my
understanding of what is a good house and what is a bad house except "if you
cut it in half, you have two identical halves... most of the time... but not
always".

I understand why McMansions suck, and I can use the same reasons to say the
same thing about the McMansion Hell articles. They're full of "this is bad"
without any "this is why" attached. And a lot of the "this is bad" stuff
appears on houses that are definitively _not_ McMansions (like villas and 13th
century manors).

~~~
nommm-nommm
The post is part of a blog. If you read other posts in this blog all those
things are expanded on and explained more.

I guess each individual post is disjointed. they aren't meant to stand alone
but be part of a collective.

~~~
Jean-Philipe
I totally agree with you. It's generally a good idea to actually read
something before commenting.

------
dirktheman
Somewhat unrelated, but I'm always surprised by the fact that most american
homes have the front door open directly to the living room. In most European
houses there's usually a hallway behind the front door. It acts as a thermal
buffer and you have space for a coat rack and shoe cabinet.

~~~
dsr_
A lot of American single-family houses have three doors (or more): the "front
door", which may never be used; the side door, which leads to a "mud room" for
taking off boots and hanging up coats, which is used all the time, and the
rear door, used for access to the back yard.

In the South the front door is used much more often, because it gets hot, not
so much cold.

~~~
vinay427
Personal anecdote: growing up, the only time I used the front door was to
speak to visitors and guests who rang the doorbell. My family and I never came
home and used it to enter the house.

------
taitems
A very interesting read. In what way does a "Craftsman Home" differ from what
we internationally regard as a California Bungalow (or cal bung)?

~~~
Inconel
I'm not positive in this but I believe a California Bungalow features a number
of shared design elements that you will also find in Craftsman homes such as
low sloping roofs, asymmetrical exterior proportions, open floor plans, roof
overhangs, small porches along with a front stoop, but don't necessarily have
to be in the traditional Craftsman/Arts & Crafts style.

What we call California Bungalows can share all of those general elements
while being in different aesthetic styles such as Tudor or Spanish Mission.
Basically, Craftsman would be a subset of the larger California Bungalow
style.

------
sdiepend
Time to create a house style classifier! Anybody trained a neural net yet?

------
CodeSheikh
Any builders/newly constructed home owners out here?

I am thinking of building a new house instead of buying a used one. This is
most likely going to be my biggest investment ever. I am looking at lands in
upstate New York/New Jersey region, basically a region with 3 months of frost
weather. I am not really a big fan of wooden houses. I have read all sorts of
material online how wood is cheap, suitable of expansion/contraction weather,
and contractors are cheap who build wood frames. But part of me just wants a
durable concrete house.

I was thinking of getting a slab or raised slab concrete foundation with
concrete pillars (non cylindrical) protruding upwards that would make up
entire foundations of the house. Instead of wooden frames I can go for steel
frames (new kid on the block). Then for the rest of the stuff, I can use wood
and combination of other materials.

It would be nice hear someone else' similar experience and/or suggestions.

~~~
imgabe
If you have the money it's entirely possible. Steel / Concrete is dramatically
more expensive than wood framing though, like, an order of magnitude or close
to it. You'll also have a harder time finding a contractor. Most residential
contractors are not going to be able to build a steel / concrete structure and
the job is going to be too small to interest one of the larger commercial
contractors unless you're paying a hefty premium.

~~~
hx87
Depending on the region, insulated concrete form houses are 5-20% premium over
an equivalent wood-framed house. Foundations and basements are almost always
made of concrete anyways, so it's not that difficult to find a contractor that
is comfortable with an expanded role for concrete.

------
lpolovets
I love side-by-side visualizations like this. I think it would be very neat to
have this presented via a Chrome extension that provides design context for
Trulia and Zillow listings. When I see a listing description like "this is a
lovely Tudor-style home," I often wonder which elements showcase the named
style.

------
Rynant
When applying for insurance for our house built in the 1780's, my wife and I
couldn't find a style/year combo that the online form would accept. We thought
it was a Colonial, but maybe it is Georgian? The farmstead stabled the
original Morgan horse sire, and is pictured on page 12 here:
[https://www.morganhorse.com/upload/photos/905TMH_Jan2015_Jus...](https://www.morganhorse.com/upload/photos/905TMH_Jan2015_JustinMorgan.pdf)

~~~
Declanomous
I have the _Field Guide to American Houses_. I'll take a look through it
tonight and let you know, but given the era it's probably Georgian. It's not
Federal, or Dutch/French/Spanish colonial. It might be what is considered a
"folk" house, but those are generally what might be considered a shack.

------
arca_vorago
My first house is the only one like it in the area, (one of the reasons I
selected it, as I hate cookie cutter homes) but I always wondered about its
origins. The neighbors said it was built by an architect in the 70's, so it
was really cool to realize he had blended postmodern with deconstructionist to
form it. Awesome read!

------
dfc
The Craftsman is listed as originating in Southern California? This was news
to me and is unsupported by anything that I have read. I always thought "The
Craftsman" was a subset of "Arts and Crafts" with the "bungalow" variety being
associated with california.

------
kozak
Let's discuss the UX of the article: how is the user supposed to zoom the
image it to actually see the house designs on the chart? I have a 4k monitor,
and it's not enough at all. The site's built-in UI doesn't allow zooming.
Certainly, I can open the image in a new tab and zoom it using the browser's
UI, but come on: this is too advanced for the layperson.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Click on the image to get the image in a modal. Right click on the image. View
Image. Then it will be in a new tab and your cursor will turn into zoom.

At least in Firefox that's what I did.

------
dfar1
I can finally understand my wife every time she points out a different house
style :)

------
nommm-nommm
Where would a Cape Cod style fit into this? I didn't see it.

~~~
MrFoof
Cape Cod is the 2nd home in the infographic following the photo of the poster.
It is a Minimal Traditional (along with the "Gable & Wing Roof").

~~~
nommm-nommm
Thanks. I thought the poster was the entire article, I didn't notice that
there was more content below it. Whoops.

It doesn't seem to be on the poster though, which is odd.

~~~
MrFoof
It was on the poster, again, grouped with the "Gable & Wing Roof"

------
DoodleBuggy
Probably "McMansion"

------
Fibre2Fashion
Very nice article

