
What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture? (2016) - cgoecknerwald
http://mcmansionhell.com/post/148605513816/mcmansions-101-what-makes-a-mcmansion-bad
======
strstr
At 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
I think that may be the ugliest house I have ever seen, inside _and_ out. With
such a ridiculously small garden.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Let me introduce you to this Indianapolis home:

[https://www.curbed.com/2013/12/12/10164870/indiana-
house-492...](https://www.curbed.com/2013/12/12/10164870/indiana-
house-4923-kessler-boulevard-indianapolis)

~~~
s_kilk
It looks like a video game level with shitty textures

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nerdponx
Happy to see this is back online and that Zillow backed off [0].

[0]: [https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/29/15896146/zillow-will-
not-...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/29/15896146/zillow-will-not-sue-
mcmansion-hell-blog)

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mattkevan
The McMansions featured here look like they’ve been generated by some deep
learning algorithm - building features blobbed randomly together with no rhyme
or reason.

~~~
marsrover
So many houses like this in suburban Atlanta.

~~~
Multicomp
Very 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
ATL 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.

------
dia80
I 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
To 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
The 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
I’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.

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thatswrong0
I’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.

~~~
spc476
Well, 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
Being 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).”

------
Pete_D
This 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
I 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
You'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
I 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"

~~~
theoh
Even to think that it's a matter of a shopping list of elements is reductive.
Architecture is holistic. While it's obviously great to be made aware of and
be able to analyse various standard components and their relationships,
components/patterns are not the story. It's not engineering.

------
patrickg_zill
I 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.

~~~
windows_tips
Maybe a servant's hallway?

~~~
patrickg_zill
Well it was recently constructed in the 2000s so I doubt that was the reason
:-)

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walrus01
If 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.

~~~
chrisseaton
Why don't homebuilders in the US use brick and stone? Plywood and screws still
seems like cutting corners.

~~~
walrus01
It's a lot more costly. Look at the market labor rates and availability in any
major metro area for masons.

~~~
chrisseaton
How 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.

~~~
randysavage
Any idea of the cost per sqft (or square meter) to build your block house? I
build wood-frame homes in the US for ~ $95/sqft. These are nice homes with
decent finishes, proper insulation, etc but we benefit from low labor costs in
my area.

~~~
chrisseaton
No I've no idea and maybe it's much more expensive.

But they're not blocks by the way if you're thinking of large cement or cinder
blocks - all the houses round here are made structurally from proper red
bricks.

------
Blackthorn
Honestly, I think the examples she gave of bad looks, look great. But I love
bizarre and ugly architecture, so what do I know.

~~~
m3rc
To each their own I suppose. I definitely think they look almost physically
repulsive.

------
tjr225
I 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.

------
GatorD42
I’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.

~~~
kasey_junk
One 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.

------
angel_j
McMansions 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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> track houses...track houses... track houses

“tract houses” is the phrase you are looking for.

~~~
kylegordon
Thank you. Seeing 'track houses' gave me the shivers.

------
treya
I'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.

------
Animats
Now 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
1\. 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.

~~~
vinceguidry
I 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.

------
mixmastamyk
Was 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
I classify your description as "Subdivision Hell" rather than McMansion Hell,
but I've definitely seen some doozies in Subdivision Hell, too.

------
pasta
It 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.

------
coldtea
"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.

------
ape4
Cheap materials, no heart, excessive useless space

------
RickJWagner
I 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.

------
okket
(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)

------
jordache
mostly subjective. architectural beauty is mostly in the eye of the beholder.

~~~
m3rc
I mean sure, the same way literally all art is. That's usually just something
people say to dismiss art criticism.

~~~
dragonwriter
Re: 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
That'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.

------
mrfusion
Is it wierd that none of this stuff bothers me? I’d never have noticed a
problem with any of those houses.

------
crispyambulance
... 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
Kids 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.

------
valuearb
It’s so awful to provide people with more living space.

~~~
watt
But it is! [https://www.curbed.com/2018/7/11/17536876/great-room-
house-s...](https://www.curbed.com/2018/7/11/17536876/great-room-house-size-
design-square-footage)

~~~
Silhouette
Your 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.

------
candiodari
We 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_
I 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
Most 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_
This 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.

