
What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture? - jseliger
http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/148605513816/mcmansions-101-what-makes-a-mcmansion-bad
======
carsongross
The lack of balance, proportion, controlling lines[1] and symmetry are all bad
aspects of nearly _all_ modern (in the chronological sense) architecture, not
simply McMansions.

My primary issue with McMansions specifically (beyond the fact that they lost
the thread on western architecture, which should be blamed on the academy[2])
is that the materials and workmanship are terrible: ugly gaps, quick to stain
stuccos and metals, slapdash construction and very little craftsmanship. The
flip culture that the mortgage-debt bubble of the last 15 years created has
exacerbated this issue to almost comical levels.

[1] - [https://www.amazon.com/Old-Way-Seeing-Architecture-
Magic/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Old-Way-Seeing-Architecture-
Magic/dp/039574010X)

[2] - [https://www.amazon.com/Bauhaus-Our-House-Tom-
Wolfe/dp/031242...](https://www.amazon.com/Bauhaus-Our-House-Tom-
Wolfe/dp/0312429142/ref=sr_1_1)

EDIT: After reading another post[a] of his, it is worth mentioning another
chronic problem with modern (again chronological, not stylistic) building: the
buildings often look like they are about to fall over. A particular pet peeve
of mine is the flashing gap found at the base of many houses and buildings,
which introduces a disconcerting negative gap _right where a soothing, wide
foundation should be_. Visual insanity.

[a] -
[http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/148935246684/mcmansions...](http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/148935246684/mcmansions-101-columns)

~~~
monk_e_boy
I'd never heard of the tern McMansion before reading the article (I'm from the
UK.) These poorly designed houses seem to have huge, vast amounts of land
around them. In the UK plots are much smaller. Do you think cheap houses
filling large plots is the issue?

~~~
wnmurphy
In my mind, a McMansion's defining characteristic has always been that it's
far too much house on far too small of a plot.

It has pretenses of elegance that are betrayed by a gaudy claustrophobia. It's
like loudly proclaiming "LOOK HOW MUCH HOUSE I HAVE," while generally sticking
out like a sore thumb from the other houses in the neighborhood.

~~~
ghostly_s
They are far too much house on far too small a budget. They are about
maximizing those wealth-connotating features of a home which are
comprehensible to the upper-middle-class laypeople who buy them: raw square
footage, bed/bath count, "classical" architectural features (poorly executed,
because the intent is to check "expensive-looking" boxes, not actually to
execute a quality building).

This same style is very consistently-expressed at differing scales in
different housing markets across the U.S.; the lot size varies with land
prices but the ethos is the same.

------
laretluval
I conjecture that the entirety of architectural design theory is just an
attempt to create a formal system such that the styles preferred by people
that architects don't like are "bad", and the styles preferred by people that
architects do like are "good".

The class of people who own McMansions are not very popular among the class of
people who write about architectural design on tumblr.

If the conjecture is true then it should be possible to find cases of houses
that clearly defy these principles of "mass", "balance" etc., but which are
deemed "good" through a series of ad-hoc exceptions and explanations. Those
houses will probably not be suburban.

De gustibus non est disputandum. This is equally true when you can create a
low-dimensional approximation to your taste in terms of abstract principles
such as "mass" and "balance".

~~~
beefield
I am no architect, but based on the definitions of the article this building
has no symmetry or balance whatsoever, and secondary masses dominate the
primary masses:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House#/media/File...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House#/media/File:The_Sydney_Opera_House_at_dusk.jpg)

Or then I just misunderstood the article completely.

~~~
mcphage
I think you misunderstood the article completely.

~~~
beefield
Yes. I just noted following sentence:

"These same principles do not always apply to Modernist or even canonically
Postmodern architecture. These principles are for the classical or traditional
architecture most residential homes are modeled after."

~~~
mcphage
Oh, good. I would have pasted it in but I'm on my phone and it's a pain in the
butt :-)

------
toast0
In my mind, Bad Architecture means the form doesn't function. This critique is
entirely aesthetic. I agree, they don't look nice, but I've seen plenty of
buildings that look nice, and are terrible to be in (hello commercial bathroom
with tons of afternoon sun, poor ventilation, and the toilet paper dispenser
glued to the window; it was pretty though). Moreover, if it's my house, I
don't care too much what it looks like on the outside, cause I'll be inside
for much more time than i spend looking at the outside.

~~~
criddell
> Bad Architecture means the form doesn't function

Well said. This person who wrote this must despise Stewart Brand and his work
on _How Buildings Learn_. Primary vs secondary mass? Voids on the facade?
Symmetry? Ha! Brand sees somebody who adds on a new room on the side of their
house because they want a workshop as a wonderful thing. I don't think he ever
scolded anybody about maintaining symmetry or mass.

~~~
Jtsummers
In these types of houses, these things aren't added after the fact (like a
workshop) or designed to be used as on offshoot space (like a workshop) in the
original development.

The homes are unbalanced, you enter on one side, and then you go down long,
strangely winding halls to find the bedrooms. They have weird angles for the
walls (why does this bedroom have 7 walls? Why does it have 4 ceiling
planes?). They have poor functioning practical spaces (same angle issues in
bathrooms and kitchens, which inhibit the use of functional elements like
drawers that don't open all the way, if at all).

Those external visual artifacts are like cabinetry that pretends it has
drawers or doors but really just has the hardware for the knobs or handles.

------
ascendantlogic
The issue isn't so much the design, but the cultural attitudes towards the
upper middle class. Looked down upon by the truly wealthy, and viewed with
suspicion and derision by the middle and lower classes. There's a lot of
emotional hostility towards the people that buy these houses that spills over
into the critiques of the structures themselves.

That said, this person isn't necessarily wrong. Having a lot of visual
interest in your home isn't a bad thing, but you have to have visual interest
surrounding the home as well. The issue I have with McMansions personally is
having a 4000 square foot house on a postage stamp lot looks ridiculous.

I was once told many years ago the following quote: "Rich people have big
houses, but wealthy people have land".

4k sq/ft home on 1 acre? Probably not the best looking neighborhood. 4k sq/ft
home on 5 acres? Probably a very wealthy, upscale area.

~~~
20yrs_no_equity
Put another way, it's not upper middle class people designing these houses.
They are merely out to get a house that's "their house" and possibly "finally
a house of our own".

The real estate industry, architects and agents and developers who are
designing these terrible houses to fit checklists rather than deliver a better
value are at least part of the problem.

I am upper middle class and a fan of good architecture (all I knew was I liked
modern) but I didn't realize a lot of what this blog points out. I have seen
McMansions before and thought they were ugly in some vague way that I couldn't
identify... but now I understand why.

Having attempted to get "my" house, I concluded that the only way I would get
something up to my standards was to go custom and find an architect who would
do things right. Which is a whole other level of expense, requires lower upper
class levels of funds.

~~~
ryandrake
What the heck is upper middle class and lower upper class?? What's next? Upper
lower middle class? How many bands of affluence do we need to construct in
order to properly classify the same rich people?

~~~
pc86
Most people stratify economic class into three or four bands (sometimes using
different names):

1\. Upper class/Wealthy/Elite

2\. Middle Class

3\. Lower Class/Working Class

4\. Poor/Working Poor (some people lump this in with #3 above)

The problem is there are huge gradients of affluence even in these individual
bands (and obviously more-so the higher you get). Poor would include most
unemployed and part-time workers. Working poor would include people in debt
living paycheck to paycheck, typically paid hourly, who depend on OT or
multiple jobs to pay their bills. Working class is generally more of the same,
but able to pay one's bills with a single job, maybe without overtime. Middle
class can include everyone from the brand new teacher making $30k a year to
the physician making $90k a year but paying $4k/mo in student loans. Upper
class typically means people who don't _have_ to work in order to put food on
the table but it can also mean people who just have extremely high incomes
(think the Fortune 5 EVP or other corporate big shot making $600k but may
spend 98% of that every year)

The difference between "upper middle" (90% of the people reading this,
excluding students) and "lower upper" (maybe 9% of the people reading this,
excluding students) can be hundreds of thousands of dollars in income or
millions in total net worth so I think it's a valid distinction.

------
jasode
I also dislike McMansions but I disagree with his pseudo-scientific criteria
of "voids" and "secondary mass" that he applied to the various houses.

The bungalow home and the colonial homes that he praised, I didn't find the
aesthetics to be pleasing.

To me, the photo from wikipedia is more like the McMansions I think of as
ugly:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMansion#/media/File:McMansio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMansion#/media/File:McMansion,_Munster,_Indiana.JPG)

The wiki example has the siding that covers the entire side combined with the
Greek columns in the front entry. It's a weird mismash of gaudiness. The
garage also overwhelms of rest of the house.

Like another poster mentioned, some of the awkward boxiness is due to
homeowners wanting 3500+ sq ft homes on small lots that are 1/3 and 1/2 acre.
An architect no matter how talented is too constrained by the lot dimensions
to avoid designing an oversized out-of-proportion box.

~~~
omginternets
>I disagree with his pseudo-scientific criteria of "voids" and "mass" that he
applied to the various houses.

Having domain-specific vocabulary doesn't imply something is scientific, much
less pretentiously pseudo-scientific.

It's hard to talk about the specifics of a problem if you don't have names for
things, don't you agree?

~~~
jasode
To clarify, I wasn't criticizing the "names" he calls things. It was the
_criteria_. For example, he has this rule:

    
    
      The secondary masses should never compete with the primary mass. 
    

Whether he wrote it as _" secondary outlines should never compete with primary
outlines"_ or _" secondary shapes should never compete with primary shapes"_
... it doesn't matter what the _labels_ are. I disagree with the _rule_ as of
the _defining_ features of what makes a house a "McMansion". It's an
inconsistent guideline.

~~~
blatherard
Architecture has been using rule-based language since long before the advent
of modern science. See, e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius)

~~~
jasode
I'm not against using a rule-based language. I disagree with _his_ particular
rules.

We are bikeshedding on the word "science" so I regret using that phrase
because it diverted the replies from my point. Perhaps it would have been
better to say I disagree with his opinion on house design presented as some
kind of universal aesthetic. His condescending tone[1] used throughout the
article in an attempt to sound "authoritative" seems strange considering many
professionally trained architects _deliberately_ design houses with the
"voids" and "masses" he dislikes.

In another example he writes, _" another issue with McMansions and mass is the
use of too many voids"_. For some reason, the author doesn't acknowledge that
many classically trained architects will deliberately put in "too many voids"
so it _brightens_ the interior of the house with light. The other reason for
extensive windows/voids is to provide an expansive view of an outdoor feature
such as a lake from inside the house. Smaller windows or no windows as the
author advises detracts from these desirable design goals.

[1] e.g. _" it means that they are simply not educated in basic architectural
concepts."_

~~~
omginternets
>For some reason, the author doesn't acknowledge that many classically trained
architects will deliberately put in "too many voids" so it brightens the
interior of the house with light.

This strikes me as a reasonable argument, but then the issue isn't the
author's vocabulary; it's the contents of his analysis!

------
VLM
Could summarize the design choices to malignancy, fakeness, and excess. Those
are best avoided in programming BTW, its not just a house architecture
problem. Also bad always crowds out good.

The design pattern of mcmansions is malignant. Oh you still have money, lets
slap on an asymmetric ugly random whatever, any old place till you run out of
money. The design scheme is tumor like. Ah the underlying tissue must have had
a good blood supply in that direction as the tumor expanded in that direction.
They're almost organically gross as opposed to simply random.

The fakeness isn't properly explored in the blog. There is an uncanny valley
effect where anyone who knows anything about Georgians, for example, can
trivially identify a Georgian-inspired fake Georgian. I mean, you blew a
million bucks and got all the hundred bucks parts wrong... how silly. Also
there's the fast food cookie cutter nature of McMansions where even if a
single Big Mac isn't repulsive, an entire subdivision of identical ones is
repellent, endless roads of ticky tacky. A semi-competent architect could make
a nice looking Georgian pretty easily, but it doesn't flow to have dozens of
CCR enforced utterly identical ones packed into a small area. Shotgun shack
townhouse from Boston, yeah those look right when packed together like books
on a shelf. If you must have lot spacing of 3 feet between houses, at least
select matching appropriate styles, shotgun shack instead of southern
plantation on LSD.

The excess is very much fast food like. Well, yeah, it sucks, and it sucks
just like everyone elses, and you have no choice in some areas of the country,
but the excess is very 128 oz big gulp or super size frys like. Oh you still
got money, well, lets put more columns and weird dormers and rooflines until
you run out of money. Sure it'll be ugly but the point is to show off how big
of a subprime balloon payment adjustable rate mortgage you can take out, and
ugly does get noticed...

The offensiveness of a mcmansion is bad always crowds out good. If you don't
have land, why "must" you have an ugly mcmansion instead of a nice looking row
of boston style townhouses? If you do have land, why "must" you have an ugly
mcmansion instead of a nice plantation era with luxurious porches and stuff?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _The fakeness isn 't properly explored in the blog. There is an uncanny
> valley effect where anyone who knows anything about Georgians, for example,
> can trivially identify a Georgian-inspired fake Georgian. I mean, you blew a
> million bucks and got all the hundred bucks parts wrong... how silly._

Class signalling. It's important to keep the new money in their place.

~~~
jschwartzi
Calling it class signaling strikes me as an effective way to silence debate of
architectural principles which you disagree with.

~~~
Fordrus
Insinuating that it's merely a tactic to silence debate of architectural
principles strikes me as an effective way to curtail discussion of the use of
architecture to signal class.

I wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes?! :D

For my part, I've lived in a lot of houses where the exteriors looked like
that those of the houses lauded in the OP, and a few whose design more closely
mimicked the "awful" McMansion styles.

I absolutely detested the interior spaces of the "good" houses, and the
placement of "voids" on the house's frontal exterior had primary blame for
that. I STRONGLY preferred the interior spaces of the McMansion-type homes,
looking at the exteriors on the blog there, I abhor the "good" ones and
actually kind of like most of the McMansions.

I assert that while the criticisms appear to be valid at first glance, that
virtually ALL of the derision for McMansions comes because of class
differences and their reputation for shoddy workmanship, and almost NONE of it
is due to actual, objective architectural issues. There's no accounting for
taste, taste accounts for 99% of the derision towards McMansions, and this
particular taste is associated by most with the upwardly mobile yuppies who
tend to buy them, which marks it for nigh-universal hate - as strongly as I
feel about the "good" house photos on the blog, exteriors of houses I great up
in and around that were nearly unusable inside, people feel that way about
McMansions, and this is just a (noble) attempt at explaining that subtle,
almost unconscious derision for this type of home.

------
jasonkester
I know, right? Look at [Other Group] with their [Thing They Like]. Can't they
_see_ how it goes against [Thing Our Group Wants To Signal]?

If only they had cultivated [Subjective Taste We've Cultivated] they would be
ashamed.

It's almost like they watch Television. Or _Sports_ on Television. Or eat Fast
Food and enjoy it. Or prefer sandwich bread to crusty artisanal bread.

Or drive Big Flashy Cars. Or drive pedestrian affordable cars. Or support
Obama. Or support Trump. Or drink instant coffee or take public
transportation.

There's no end to the list of things that the Other People do that Our People
can look down on and laugh. If only they knew better.

~~~
willis77
Upvoted from my sensibly balanced Craftsman home while eating crusty artisanal
bread and drinking pour-over Blue Bottle coffee before I head to work in my
2012 Volvo XC90 while listening to NPR.

~~~
heptathorp
I hate to be the one to tell you this but Blue Bottle is the McDonalds of
third wave coffee.

------
dsr_
My objection -- visible in nearly every one of the listed McMansions, but also
a few of the 'classic' buildings -- is that a roof is a functional object, and
every time you create a valley between two neighboring rooflines, you increase
the likelihood of failure.

Housing should be built for the climate of the area where it is placed. A
SoCal-style flat roof built around a central courtyard and pool is perfectly
reasonable there... and a really bad idea in Minnesota or Maine. There's no
reason to put a two-story barn pseudo-conversion in a place where they never
had that style of barn and will never need to shed snow quickly.

First function, then play around with form.

~~~
sliverstorm
The beauty of harsh weather is bullshit design doesn't survive.

Though, I'm a form follows function guy.

------
cleandreams
Useful! I live in a neighborhood of mixed age houses and it is interesting how
many of newer houses make me wince. This article helps me understand why. They
lack harmony with themselves and their surroundings because of these failings.
But here's another thing. I think these criteria (which are based in couple
thousand years of western design principles) all fundamentally rely on the
restraint of self-expression in favor of impersonal principles. Lots of the
asymmetry and weird bulkiness I see around me seems to come with an attitude
of 'Hey ma, I'm expressing myself!' Asymmetry is like loud, brash rock music.
As I've gotten older I'm bored with a lot of the crudeness that is passed off
as self expression and I wish for more restraint. Fat chance, I know.

~~~
Gibbon1
I'll tack onto this, I think one of the issues with the McMansion 'style' is
taking it in creates a large cognitive load. As in doesn't blend in with the
surroundings and doesn't actually blend it with itself. So processing it to
make a short term mental map is hard.

------
jpalomaki
Need to throw in the mandatory pointer to Christopher Alexanders "Timeless way
of building" [1]. The text is also available at Archive.org, see [2]. I
originally bought his books because they were mentioned to be behind the
software design patterns "movement" that was quite popular some years ago.

Reading his books changed the way I'm looking at houses and apartments. Not
from outside, but the layout. I guess (some of) the patterns are quite
obvious, but as usual, it helps when somebody points them out. Two example
things that stuck to me:

1) Intimacy gradient: Public areas where you host guests, meet people and
closer to the front door. The deeper you go, the more private it gets.

2) Parents and children's realms: Separate areas for parents and kids, common
area that connect them.

When shopping for apartment and browsing through many different layouts, this
kind of simple things help rule out many of them.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-
Ale...](https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-
Alexander/dp/0195024028) [2]
[https://archive.org/stream/APatternLanguage/A_Pattern_Langua...](https://archive.org/stream/APatternLanguage/A_Pattern_Language_djvu.txt)

------
Animats
After reading this author's criteria, look at Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd
Wright's most famous house. Secondary masses all over the place, dominating
the structure. No center of symmetry. So much window area that it's more voids
than structure.

The problem with McMansions is usually too much house on too little land, with
no visual relationship with neighboring houses. On a bigger lot with more
trees and space around the house, most of them wouldn't look bad.

~~~
rayiner
I was just thinking--this guy would hate Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park
bungalows: [http://www.thecraftsmanbungalow.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/...](http://www.thecraftsmanbungalow.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/02/IMG_4592a.jpg).

~~~
humbledrone
FTA:

> Disclaimer: These same principles do not always apply to Modernist or even
> canonically Postmodern architecture. These principles are for the classical
> or traditional architecture most residential homes are modeled after.

Those bungalows were definitely not modeled after classical or traditional
architecture, so the principles in the article wouldn't apply. I'm sure the
author has different opinions about modern architecture (i.e. the style that
FLW defined).

The difference is that McMansions are (poorly) aping traditional architecture,
whereas FLW was creating his own style.

------
lnanek2
I don't really agree that most of what he says is a bad thing. E.g.: " Another
issue with McMansions and mass is the use of too many voids. Some McMansions
are so guilty of this they resemble swiss cheese in appearance. In the below
example, the masses are so pockmarked with voids, they give the façade an
overall appearance of emptiness. " So what? Personally, I'd prefer the 26
voids example he gives because it looks like a nice place to sit in a chair
reading a book by sunlight. He's recommending making a much worse lighted set
of rooms just to change the outside appearance, which I couldn't care less
about.

Similarly his complaints about secondary masses. His example photo shows a big
offshoot of a house sticking forward, but I'd rather have the extra room than
cut it off and have less space, or make it a separate garage I have to put my
shoes on a trek out to instead of just being able to walk over there inside.

The whole thing sounds like what programmers and designers get up to if we
don't have usability studies with users showing us how stupid we are, thinking
the huge buttons we make are titles and never pressing them, or not finding
actions we think are obvious in our apps. Sounds like he's just going on
without caring about the people who live in the house.

~~~
robotresearcher
The whole thing is an aesthetic argument. You aren't obliged to agree or
defend yourself if you disagree.

Similarly, some people get value from the simplicity and symmetry of the
MacBook Pro/Air design, while others don't care at all what the bottom of a
laptop looks like if the tech specs and price are good.

[https://tektype.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/laptop-
bottom.jp...](https://tektype.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/laptop-bottom.jpg)

[http://www.ishootshows.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/02/apple-...](http://www.ishootshows.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/02/apple-macbook-air-11-inch-0811.jpg)

The principles the author describes are not telling you what you should think,
but rather they are patterns that predict the reactions people have had
historically.

As other commenters describe, some well-regarded designs have come about by
people deliberately acting against the accepted principles. But it doesn't
hurt to know what they are.

~~~
cstejerean
Tastes in design change over time. I have seen plenty very ugly houses, but
some of those examples actually look great to me. Not everyone wants to live
in a symmetrical box without a garage.

~~~
jessaustin
People like garages, but at least with the parcels of land discussed in TFA,
it ought to be possible not to make the garage the focus of the house. That is
probably my biggest complaint about contemporary residential architecture.

------
jonahx
McMansions _look_ cheap -- this is their defining quality imo, more so than
any of the more abstract qualities the article discusses.

Even people without much formal knowledge of architecture (like myself) have
an intuitive sense of what cheap wood or ersatz brick look like. You can just
immediately sense the economy of the construction.

~~~
tbihl
There's an urbanist podcast/nonprofit that releases really good, approachable
content, and I recently saw a video they did where they went into a typical
subdivision and just looked at the houses. In particular, he singled out the
complete lack of any porches, saying "these are people who can't afford their
houses. If you live out in this countryside place, the absolute highest-
returning space is the deck/porch. It wouldn't take more than maybe 10k to
construct really good porches (less than 10% even in this cheap area), and not
a single house has one. That means they built a huge house and ran out of
money before they could build the most important part."

I guess that's just a different way of saying what you're saying. I think
buyers choose mcmansions for a couple reasons. The first are the ones sucked
into it by the school or proximity to work (where proximity is VERY
subjective.) The others actually want those houses, either because it's a
cheap structure in which they can imitate the many nice interiors they've
collected in their heads, or because they want to build their walls to
encompass a maximum volume, hoping that their house will insulate them from
all the shit in their work and commute while they're in it.

------
bitwize
To me a McMansion is built like a suburban tract house, but has façade
features that make it look vaguely mansion-like. The architectural equivalent
of Imari Stevenson's "Lamborghini", which is a fiberglass shell on a Pontiac
Fiero chassis and powertrain.

~~~
rdtsc
True. Visually they might look the same but one is built from cheap wood,
cardboard and gypsum with some faux brick panels glued on the front, while
other would be built with brick for example.

But just like people who can't afford a Lamborghini would buy a car that has a
similar shape and look, so someone who can't afford a $10M mansion would be
buy a $2M McMansion just feel like they live in a mansion.

No amount of architects of HN-ers guilting them with practicalities of
construction materials, or aesthetic debates is going to change that market.

~~~
bitwize
My point was that _construction_ is what makes the McMansion, not masses and
voids. Though the two are related in that solid construction lends itself well
to some designs and layouts, and poorly to others.

------
alricb
From a purely functional perspective, complex roof lines and the
multiplication of volumes suck for durability and energy use. The more complex
the roof, the more vulnerable areas it contains. The more edges and
transitions you have, the harder it is to properly flash and air seal the
enclosure.

And huge voids suck too: windows have poor thermal resistance and large glazed
areas mean overheating due to the sun's radiation.

Add cheap material and poor construction practices (the famed "ductopus" is
often found in million dollar homes) and you get crap housing, even without
taking aesthetics into account.

------
Spooky23
McMansions are striver homes, and they throw too many prestige elements at the
house. It's like when you look at a home with an over the top 80s kitchen --
they don't age well.

The other thing is that they really aren't architected. Builders drive the
design vs clients, and the bling is there to hide the lousy construction
material and craftsmanship. The insides of these things are an even bigger
shitshow -- all cheap Home Depot fixtures and millwork.

------
acbabis
I'm not an architect, and I probably wouldn't have even noticed how ugly these
houses are if I spotted them in the wild, but having read this article, it
seems mind-boggling that someone would spend the money it takes to make a
house and not adhere to basic architectural principles. Can someone explain
how this happens?

~~~
karma_vaccum123
These homes tend to be pre-built in bulk by developers, or offered as purchase
options in developed communities.

The builder is simply trying to deliver the most product for the lowest cost:
a giant inoffensive box. To this day, buyers believe more square footage is
better, even if it is mostly garage. The "grand foyer" implies fewer rooms to
spec, support, plumb, and wire.

I've never understood single-family buyers who look at 5000sq ft and up...you
end up with empty rooms or ridiculously underutilized rooms ("gift wrapping
room" etc)

My wife and I once looked at homes in a Portland development that were 6500 sq
feet and up. I could afford them....but WHY? We wanted a house, not a mall.

~~~
erichocean
> _To this day, buyers believe more square footage is better, even if it is
> mostly garage._

Which part of the US counts the garage as "square footage"?

~~~
karma_vaccum123
Nowhere, but from the curb it gives the impression of mass

------
skybrian
This is basically an article of the form "I believe the status of X should be
lowered," giving some reasons why.

I'm sure they believe it. Everyone always thinks their own culture has better
taste. That's pretty much what culture _is_ , a loose agreement on what the
best X is for a wide variety of X.

The best way out is not to play. Why have any opinion at all about
"mcmansions?" Also, why a special term? Why not just call them mansions?

~~~
blatherard
Your comment is a comment of the form "this is an article that has form X "and
gives reasons why.

I'm sure you believe it. Everyone always thinks articles that agree with their
opinions are superior.

The best way out is not to play. Why have any opinion at all about "articles?"

~~~
skybrian
Yes, better not to post at all about stuff that doesn't interest you. But
apparently I'm not entirely immune to being interested in status-claims.

------
Lazare
My issue with the article is that it is:

1) Making purely aesthetic arguments

2) In several cases I feel that the "bad" architecture is aesthetically more
appealing than the "good architecture.

For example, when the author discusses how "secondary masses should never
compete with the primary mass"; what that seems to mean in practice is "ugly,
squat, lumpen buildings are good; interesting, attractive silhouettes are
bad". No doubt the author would disagree with my characterisation, but then,
that's sort of the point. It feels very subjective.

Of all the examples given, the one I unambiguously agreed with was the one
where none of the windows styles matched.

------
mrcsparker
This whole article reeks of magical thinking (as do many of the comments
here).

I have been looking for information on what constitutes a McMansion vs a non-
McMansion and the arguments parallel the same sort of stuff that made Feng
Shui so popular: there are magical rules that make things right or wrong.

Would love so see a real test done on these assumptions. If there are real
rules that are being violated with these homes, then an unbiased test should
be easy to put together.

~~~
ghaff
I suspect you're looking for a more absolutist set of principles than exist
when, in fact, these things exist on a continuum and opinions vary. I think
there are certain overall factors that trigger the broad McMansion dislike but
they're not universal.

(From an architectural perspective) a lot of mishmashing of architectural
styles and features without any sort of unifying aesthetic. Yes, that's a
matter of taste, and there are ugly buildings with unified modernist
aesthetics but we can probably agree that architecture should be more than
pich two from column A, one from column B, and one from column C.

In many cases, McMansions are in large developments with big houses on small
property lots with, often, minimal landscaping both for reasons of space and
because they're fairly new, which accentuates all that there is to not like
about the houses themselves.

I suspect that the McMansion style gets wrapped up in a lot of cultural biases
and attitudes such as you see here.

[ADDED: The OP did make an effort to offer some tests. My untrained paraphrase
would be that McMansions tend to be sort of a jumble of often seemingly random
design elements.]

------
galfarragem
Bad architecture and good architecture are like good software and bad
software. For non-IT folks it doesn't matter once the software _works_ , for
IT folks, it matters, they can 'see' things that the others can't. With
architecture is the same.

Disclaimer: I'm an architect.

edit: this is the best blog I (didn't) know explaining what makes architecture
good. There is a lack of short articles on this subject. Thanks for posting
this.

~~~
johnnyhillbilly
Having had several visits to Italy recently, I value their sense of what is
beautiful. Firstly, it feels great to be there. Secondly, the lot of them look
really cool no matter what they do.

My take on this is that these McMansions are an in-between step. They look
like a Picasso - and not in a good way - because they are not designed as a
whole.

Once complex manual labour (most importantly: masonry) can be automated, and
once one figures out how to combine a modern, relaxed lifestyle with
architecture, these "mansions" will come to be seen as barbarous
monstrosities.

~~~
galfarragem
This is the main reason why I will always stay in Europe.

------
ryanmarsh
People don't buy these for curb appeal. They buy them because of interior
features. Also, the exterior appeal only matters in relation to the
architecture around it. My wife knows the difference between good architecture
and bad, we just haven't seen a new neighborhood that resembles the old rich
parts of town. So as long as we keep buying vaulted ceilings, open lofts, big
kitchens, and game rooms ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Source: I own one and I did mortgages for a while. Was product manager for a
company that sold some tech to home builders.

~~~
johnloeber
> They buy them because of interior features.

This seems incorrect. If it were true, then there would be no reason for the
exteriors to be so god-awful. If all you care about is a lot of good interior
space, then why pay for misplaced Roman columns? In fact, some McMansions can
be identified by their poor handling of interior space, mostly due to having
too many disjoint or poorly connected masses.

~~~
ryanmarsh
Interesting layout is a feature during the sales process.

------
Houshalter
This is entirely subjective preferences for the appearance and aesthetic.
Personally I liked the "McMansion" examples better and found the arguments for
why they were bad unconvincing. The rules seem arbitrary and made up.

~~~
jernfrost
They are not. As someone who does GUI design, I recognized many of the rules.
If you look at GUIs that don't follow rules for balance e.g. they clearly
looks worse than balanced ones.

The McMansions look cool in a theme park way. But there is nothing timeless
about them. It is like the things we thought looked cool in the 80s like big
shiny metal fonts. It was cool then, but today we are like "oh my, how did we
ever think this was good!"

~~~
Houshalter
Your second paragraph kind of contradicts the first. If you admit that
aesthetics can change over time, then they aren't objectively true. Aesthetic
preference is all about what associations you have, not the features
themselves.

Personally I don't think the examples looked good. And while some of these
features might work well for GUIs, forcing them on houses can cause problems.
E.g. limiting the number of windows to fit the style. Windows and natural
lighting have been shown to have a huge beneficial effect on mental health. Or
forcing the house to be symmetrical could make the room layouts suboptimal.
Form should follow function, and these rules oppose function.

------
PhasmaFelis
I should have known what was coming when the article kicked off with,
essentially, "If your tastes differ from mine, don't worry! You're not
_stupid,_ just _uneducated._ "

But even then I was expecting him to list things like shoddy construction, or
dull featurelessness, or cookie-cutter tract construction. No, his #1 issue is
houses that are (gasp) not perfectly rectangular. #2 is houses that are are
asymmetrical, but not in a cool way. He actually calls out one house
specifically for having too many windows. I thought windows were for letting
sunlight in, but apparently they're actually intended for class signalling.

And class signalling is all this is. He gives the game away when he specifies
that these rules are very important _unless_ you're using a cool, [m/M]odern
style where rule-breaking is socially approved. This is no different than the
byzantine fashion codes manufactured by society matrons around the turn of the
last century to exclude the vulgar nouveau riche. Never wear white after Labor
Day; never have too many windows on your house.

------
bootload
Shallow article, it's like it had all the _engineering_ in the
design/construction has been sucked out. I would have expected something on
the lack of:

* energy efficiency/re-cycling of building materials used

* integration of passive/active energy saving power

* poor design in creating buildings capable of whole life existence

* improved use of natural light and air flow

* use of factory built, prefabricated frames (ie: Holland)

If you watch or catch Kevin McCloud's, Grand Designs (BBC) would appreciate
this. [0] Any others you can think of?

[0] Though even best intentions have problems: cf "Grand Designs presenter
Kevin McCloud's eco-development 'riddled with building errors"
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/conservati...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/conservation/11773530/Grand-
Designs-presenter-Kevin-McClouds-eco-development-riddled-with-building-
errors.html)

------
karma_vaccum123
Most of these homes have awful interior features like oversized entryways that
feature giant voids. The heat flows to the ceiling, which is a terrible waste.
Similarly, the "great rooms" of these homes tend to have too-high ceilings
which once again is wasteful as furnaces must work even harder.

These homes tend to also have ridiculously oversized garages that are
fashioned to make the home look much larger than it is.

~~~
WalterBright
My garage is too small, it's hard to maneuver tools around the car. Worse, the
ceiling isn't high enough to have a lift installed. I regret that every time I
have to work under the car.

~~~
gluggymug
Dig a pit perhaps?

~~~
WalterBright
Garage pits are illegal. I would have put one in otherwise.

~~~
jessaustin
How many transmissions do you rebuild in the average year? If this is to
change the oil, just use a couple of small ramps like a normal person. I once
changed the oil on my old Integra by driving one tire up on a regular red
brick. b^)

~~~
WalterBright
When I was a kid, the biggest barrier to working on my car was I had no money
for proper tools, and was always making do. Having good tools makes things
much more fun, and I get better results, too. A lift falls into that category,
it makes working under the car fun rather than a painful bitch. It's
especially bad as I get older and I am not able to move my head back and forth
to get what I'm looking at in focus :-) And I am tired of setting my hair on
fire with the lamp (fortunately, that at least isn't a problem anymore as my
hair has decamped for the fjords).

Getting the car up on jack stands takes about 10 minutes, off is another 10
minutes. It just takes away from the fun, whereas a lift is boom! it's up.

So it doesn't really matter how much I'd use it, a used one isn't that
expensive and I am willing to spend the bucks on it.

A piece of advice - never ever support your car on brick. It can crush
unexpectedly and then the car falls on you, you die. I once used cinder blocks
to hold the car up (making do), and they suddenly turned to dust and the car
fell, fortunately before I got under it.

Now I use two sets of jackstands (the extra set as backup), and I give the car
good shoves before getting under it.

------
ourmandave
Definition of "McMansion": a large modern house that is considered
ostentatious and _lacking in architectural integrity._

The architectural integrity I guess is the problem. The house can be sprawling
(no well defined center) or has to many windows (that may be of different
sizes).

It sounds like designers hating on Comic Sans or programmers arguing over tabs
vs spaces.

But worry not...

 _This rounds up post #1 of McMansions 101 - but don’t worry, there are many
more factors that make an otherwise normal suburban house a McMansion, and
each will be covered in their own special posts._

~~~
justratsinacoat
>It sounds like designers hating on Comic Sans or programmers arguing over
tabs vs spaces

This, basically. I find it darkly humourous that HN's commentariat, in this
thread and indeed whenever confronted with domain-specific jargon from non-
computron fields [0], analyzes said field and finds 'obvious' problems. Have
you ever tried to explain, say, 'tabs vs spaces' to some mundane? Its history,
from makefiles to Python, seems uninteresting to someone peering over their
iPhone N+1; "why don't you guys just decide on one? Why is this a big deal?"
They can say this because 'tabs vs spaces' is a triviality -- _to those who
don 't have to deal with the consequences of the argument_.

Inasmuch as HN is explicitly _for_ interesting tidbits of info that don't
necessarily have to do with hacker-style nerdery, I'd expect that we who
ostensibly know so much would be able to appreciate that there are aspects of
the world, and of other intellectual professions, that we don't necessarily
wot of.

I mean, unless, of course, one's own buzzsaw-mind is capable of intuiting and
then dismissing the well-cited terms of an artisanal field that has been
around for many centuries longer than has the _idea_ of computers, but
cognitive empathy is a useful practice for everyone.

[0] With the exception of economics, because bike-shedding, because everyone
knows about money; they spend it every day!

------
codeonfire
Every article about apartment buildings complains that new buildings are
simple, ugly boxes and should be more artistic flowing examples of the
character of the neighborhood. In private homes everything is too complex,
unbalanced and disproportionate. Homes should be simple proportionate boxes
where all the windows are the same size and line up. Architects think
individuals should live in their designated worker eat-sleep unit pods while
large classes of people as a whole deserve unique and inspiring works of art.
To break it down even further, I will just guess that commercial architecture
pays better than residential and this is manifesting as a hatred of
"McMansions". There are always going to be both ugly and beautiful homes.

------
zeko
While McMansions do seem kitschy and aesthetically unappealing to me, that is
my subjective feeling.

I find it inappropriate and offensive that this author decides to be the sole
authority on aesthetics of PRIVATE properties, appealing to some sort of an
unassailable, celestial authority that mainstream architecture is and
promoting boring, utilitarian designs. Just how far down the slippery slope of
the rabbit hole do you want to go? Why not box people in grey Soviet apartment
buildings?

All of this sounds to me like arrogant ramblings of people who like
authoritarianism and can't grasp the concept of personal freedom and that
people like homes that are wacky and extension of their own egos and sense of
pride in their financial success.

~~~
alecdbrooks
>I find it inappropriate and offensive that this author decides to be the sole
authority on aesthetics of PRIVATE properties, appealing to some sort of an
unassailable, celestial authority that mainstream architecture is and
promoting boring, utilitarian designs. Just how far down the slippery slope of
the rabbit hole do you want to go? Why not box people in grey Soviet apartment
buildings?

This is a straw man. The author isn't against interesting designs, just
careless ones. And interpreting this article as a advocating authoritarianism
is reading a lot into it.

~~~
zeko
Exploring the wider picture and integrating the issues at hand isn't a straw
man argument, it's called thinking as well as not being naive to the ominous
specter of slowly creeping authoritarianism.

People find "careless" designs interesting. Who is he to dictate how private
property should look? He is utterly intolerant of personal freedom and
promotes sterile, totalitarian looking architecture.

~~~
alecdbrooks
In another post, the author states outright that she likes many styles [0], so
the idea she promotes "sterile, totalitarian looking architecture" is off the
mark. The original post itself includes a diversity of good examples, so I'm
not sure where that came from.

I guess I find it hard to take your claims seriously until you explain why
you've concluded the author wants to enact her tastes into law rather than
just discuss them.

>People find "careless" designs interesting.

I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It just that in some (many?) cases,
careless designs are less likely to be widely appealing or stand up to
scrutiny.

[0]: [http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/148836824926/man-i-
love...](http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/148836824926/man-i-love-this-
blog-you-have-a-great-sense-of)

------
snicker7
The author explains _what_ good design principles are, but not _why_ they are
important. So what if a house had too many 'secondary masses'? Why exactly is
that such a bad thing? The author fails to answer such basic questions.

~~~
ranger207
In architecture and most other forms of art, the principles are not based on
objective truths. Instead, they are the result of centuries of what is
subjectively pleasing. It's survival of the fittest, but "fittest" is
determined by subjective values.

------
brownbat
There are better ways to critique McMansions.

The article's approach is to list a series of hard aesthetic rules, then show
how some McMansions break them.

That would be a valid critique, but the article never fully establishes that
those aesthetic rules are universally desirable. In aesthetics, rules are made
to be broken.

If standards are broken haphazardly or unintentionally, that may be a sign of
poor aesthetics. But I'm convinced McMansions intentionally break several of
those rules.

Breaking those rules is the only way to convey something that the author
somehow completely fails to notice.

A better aesthetic test of McMansions would only involve two questions:

1) Are McMansions effectively conveying some idea, and,

2) Is that idea is worth conveying?

Setting (2) aside for the moment, I think McMansions meet (1) very well,
primarily by breaking the author's "rules."

Think about who buys these. The architects and the purchasers are not ultra-
rich, but are still in a class that wants to display wealth.

When purchasers in this group compare several homes, they are most likely to
buy the one that makes them feel like they're displaying the most wealth and
power for their price point.

Wait, why would a tangled mess of asymmetrical nonsense achieve that?

Because the aesthetic McMansions are shooting for is "this is more than one
house."

Bits crop up all over the place and the masses are obscured so that the
building gives the appearance of multiple dwellings.

What does it look most like? Villages that have cropped up around a central
castle, organically growing in different heights and orientations without much
central planning. (Maybe more from fairy tales than real world villages.)

The image the McMansion tries to convey is one of dominion over a territory or
a population. I think McMansions succeed, primarily through the subversion of
the author's favored aesthetic tropes.

But even if McMansions successfully evoke small villages, part (2) is the more
important question.

Is mimicry of an order of magnitude of wealth and power beyond one's reach
aesthetically appealing, or desperate and ostentatious?

I'd find a critique along those lines far more compelling. The fact that some
buildings fail to satisfy some arbitrary checklist is not the more important
thing, what the building says about the owner's character and insecurity is
far more interesting.

------
elgoog1212
Go to any blog about "good" modern architecture. As it turns out "good"
architecture these days is roof-less bauhaus with windows that take the entire
front wall, including the bedroom. Looks good on Tumblr, impossible to live
in, expensive to build, and insane heating bll. No, thanks.

Case in point: [http://designhomes.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/mid-
centu...](http://designhomes.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/mid-century-
modern-architecture.jpg)

~~~
elktea
This sort of thing was popular in the 2000s but thankfully I haven't noticed
any new builds like this for a while

~~~
com2kid
I'm sitting here in Seattle where these buildings just, thankfully, recently
started to become popular.

I despise traditional architecture. Give me something so modern that it makes
the neighbors puke.

~~~
mrcsparker
Those homes are beautiful, but Seattle might be a bit tough with the flat
roofs. I grew up in a house like that in a rainy area and we had standing
water issues on the roof.

It was a beautiful design that was completely inappropriate for the region.

------
applecore
This critique is composed entirely of exterior shots. Maybe the McMansion
layout leads to a better interior configuration for a given square footage?

~~~
SerLava
The critique was mostly of facades and the suggested changes didn't generally
have a secondary effect on the layout.

The layout of these McMansions is often just as bad as the external
appearance.

------
mangeletti
Is it just me, or is Tumblr's UX absolutely terrible?

You reach the bottom and it says "keep reading". Keep reading what, the last
post in the list or pagination to more posts? So I click it, takes me to the
last post (fine), so I scroll down to look at some of the pictures, etc., and
then at the bottom it seems to continue back at the top of the prior post
list. So I go back, scroll back down to the bottom of the page and notice a
"See mcmansionhell's whole Tumblr" link. Perfect. I click it... App Store.

------
digi_owl
As a foreigner, what i find myself thinking is that the mcmansions are trying
to catch the feel of a generational dwelling while being brand new.

Meaning that if you look at old houses in Europe or similar you very often
find extensions and whatsnot that have been added without any overall design
in mind. Instead they were going by the time and resources at hand at the time
of addition.

------
hartror
There is a huge cheap build going on next door. It is two stories with 7
bedrooms with no back yard because pool. The contractors I talked to joked it
will be knocked down in 20 years because of the low build quality.

------
stcredzero
The overarching theme of American architecture gone wrong is the lack of
supporting real community. It used to be that supporting commerce did that as
well, but the car changed this.

------
vanderZwan
Related: Ugly Belgian Houses

[http://uglybelgianhouses.tumblr.com/](http://uglybelgianhouses.tumblr.com/)

Doesn't try explaining anything though.

~~~
dsego
Also ugly croatian houses fb page
[https://www.facebook.com/UglyCroatianHouse](https://www.facebook.com/UglyCroatianHouse)

------
tired_man
I thought having the poor taste to plunk one down into a neighborhood where it
was a sore thumb was enough.

I'm happy to see there are other aesthetic reasons, too.

------
skilesare
People have already mentioned Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language and
Timeless Way, but I'll note that he has further distilled those ideas in his
The Nature of Order Series: [http://amzn.to/2b4XYf5](http://amzn.to/2b4XYf5)

1\. Levels of Scale 2\. Strong Centers 3\. Thick Boundaries 4\. Alternating
Repetition 5\. Positive Space 6\. Local Symmetry 7\. Good Shape 8\. Deep
Interlock and Ambiguity 9\. Gradients 10\. Contrast 11\. Echos 12\. Roughness
13\. The Void 14\. Simplicity and Inner Calm 15\. Each in the Other

------
99_00
That's a great blog. I don't like the term MacMansion. Everyone seems to have
their own definition and sometimes it's applied to anything new and big that
someone is envious of.

------
velox_io
I'm not a big fan of the McMansion houses, but I'm sure they mean the world to
their owners, who have made large sacrifices to get the house of 'their'
dreams.

Personally I like the Georgian style; big windows and look decent when they're
kept simple, or something a little more modern depending on the location. Yes,
money doesn't buy happiness, but I'm sure we all have a picture on our mind of
a dream house. Nothing wrong with aspirations, excuse me while I do more than
just dream!

------
jimmaswell
That all sounds like opinion to me. When I look at the examples of what I'm
supposed to think looks awful, I just see a house. The one with so much
overwhelming "secondary mass" looks nice to me.

If you need to study architecture to "realize" how bad those look, maybe they
actually don't look bad. All the people buying them seem to agree.

There are legitimate problems with the construction quality, as others have
pointed out, but trying to claim they objectively look bad is clearly wrong.

~~~
dsego
Eat shit, millions of flies can't be wrong.

~~~
jimmaswell
[https://xkcd.com/359/](https://xkcd.com/359/)

------
tripzilch
You've got to _know_ to the rules before you _break_ the rules.

I don't know about McMansions. Certainly (~20th century) Dutch architecture
follows somewhat different design guidelines. We don't have as much space,
sometimes sacrificing balance or even proportion. We definitely have much
bigger windows (voids), it's a cultural thing. Similarly, fig.2 "Secondary
Masses: 6" looks to me like it could be a Mediterranean communal farm, grown
organically (truly don't see what's wrong with that one tbh).

But I don't want to go into details. The most important rule of design is:

You've got to _know_ to the rules before you _break_ the rules.

Some of these rules are grown by circumstance, and you can't always break them
(or build a shitty house--but sometimes you can be clever).

Some of the rules are grown by taste or preference. These you can play with.

Some of the rules are grown by circumstance, turned into preference, because
technology advanced and preference didn't. These you can also play with.

Relating this to HN: The above holds just as much for designing webpages or
app user interfaces.

------
mbfg
I'd take any of the McMansions shown here. sorry.

------
bjterry
This conversation has gone in a very interesting direction. It's true that on
one level the perspective of this blog author corresponds to a sort of class-
based tutting of the nouveau riche, but on another level I can't shake the
feeling that he is pointing to something that's real.

I have much more experience doing web design (some) than I do evaluating
architecture (none). The principles he is describing apply in a similar manner
to web design, and they are similarly hard to articulate. When you see a block
of text without enough space between paragraphs, you know it doesn't have
enough space, even though you would be hard-pressed to provide an objective
reason why a paragraph needs 20 px vs. 5 px vs. 100px vs. 500px. Only one of
those distances feels right, and it has almost nothing to do with how much
vertical space is available on your screen or the relative ease of reading
paragraphs with that precise distance between them.

Similarly, you can feel a wrongness when a similar visual element is repeated,
but without consistency, like a second text box that has a grey that is just
slightly bluer than the last text box, even though they contain text of the
same type at the same level of semantic importance. That is the equivalent of
including windows with wooden shutters, and a set of windows with blinds, and
a set of bay windows on the same facade. (For a visual-design example of his
masses and voids principle, see the BeOS UI window, but I think this is the
weakest of his principles)

It is easy to be a contrarian and say "this guy is wrong, all of this is
subjective," but I think that contrariness is more wrong than right. The best
functional (not purely artistic) designs, whether they are web designs or
architectural designs, hold to a set of quasi-universal aesthetic standards,
including balance (symmetry or balanced asymmetry), repetition (consistency in
web development terms, repeated elements in musical terms), and appropriate
blank space. I suspect that these core principles reflect aspects of human
cognition that are not subject to pure subjectivity.

I think if you were designing from first aesthetic principles, you would
probably retain balance and thematic cohesiveness (repetition). What you would
lose is the trappings of particular eras, like roman columns or those shutter
windows. Even if your house was based on a geodesic dome you'd want it to have
a certain proportionality and space between visual elements. The problem with
McMansions is that they take ONLY those trappings, and discard the principles,
and that's what this article should really be about. The reason for this is
obvious: the uneducated consumer sees only the trappings, because they are
concrete and obvious, thus easy to evaluate. They are associated in the minds
of buyers with high class, and so they seem high class in this particular
instance.

~~~
guardiangod
I read from start of the thread till the end when I hit your post. Thank you
for lowering my blood pressure.

This is not 'snobbish higher class looking down on middle class.' When you see
tens of thousands of anything, you start to pick up on best-practices.

For example, in Vancouver, where the house prices _start_ at $1.7 million,
there are tons of $5+ million McMansion here. Due to my line of work, I see
and enter them every day. Their owners are likely 1000x wealthier than me, but
I can tell you confidently that I think their houses are ugly.

Would I get the house if I can afford it? Sure. I need a house to live in, and
a McMansion is a good functional house.

To make a somewhat inappropriate analogy- An Indian outsourcing company'
programmers have written some terrible , but functional code. Other people
took a look at the source files and point out that, yes, they are indeed
terrible (maybe too many goto? Or global variables.)

It is not ethnic discrimination to point out the code is terrible.

Along a similar vein, 'you spend most of your time indoor anyway. Why do you
care what the house look like externally?'

Just because something is functional, doesn't mean it shouldn't (or can't)
look good to most people. You might not care, and I wish I don't care how your
house look either. But general art principles exist because most people _do_
care, at least subconsciously.

As an aside- If you dare to build it, then be prepared to have others critique
it.

Another argument, 'the author should concentrate on the general poor build
quality of McMansion.'

In Vancouver, I've seen $5+ million McMansion built with the best material and
craftsmanship anyone could find. They are McMansion due to their design, not
their quality.

Finally, 'I like the McMansion in the article better!'

Well, good for you. This is like different computer languages- some people
like all the features a language provide them (eg. C++0x), while others like
language that adheres to what it does best (Heskell, Lisp etc.)

Most people prefer orderly items.

~~~
bjterry
Thank you for the kind comment. It's interesting that you say that the build
quality is very high on some of these homes. I was debating the issue with
someone before writing this comment and that was a question I had. I was
thinking about how craftsmanship and art exist on somewhat different
dimensions for creative endeavors. For example, someone who is poor at the
craft of music won't be able to create a song that's listenable, but someone
who is excellent at the craft but poor at the art will create something that
is technically excellently but unmoving emotionally. Or in web design, this
would be a site which very carefully recreates any of a million expensive
corporate landing pages but doesn't have any character of its own. There are
also examples the other way, of imperfectly executed creative works that
nonetheless are effective on an emotional level[1].

I don't know enough about architecture to say, but it seems possible that the
people who build these homes may be lacking in this second, artistic aspect.

1: I recently watched Hachi: A Dog's Tale. It is notable in that the
craftsmanship of the film is merely adequate, by traditional film metrics, but
it's so incredibly emotional that it has won a place on the IMDB Top 250
films. I would also point to Stephen King, who is one of the most impactful
people alive when it comes to TV and film, not to mention his prolific
writings, but his stories don't show the craftsmanship of one of the literary
greats.

~~~
guardiangod
From what I've seen in Vancouver, quality and design are separate. You can
hire a first-class designer, then hire a third-rate builder to construct the
building, and vice versa. These events happen every day. It all depends on how
much the developer wants to spend.

As an aside (Flame suit on: I am Chinese), most extreme high-end houses ($3
mill and up) here are bought by wealthy Chinese immigrants/investors. This
leads to 2 situations-

If the house is built by a developer, then the quality tends to be low. Even
the worst Vancouver builder's craftsmanship is better than what you would
normally get in China. This means that the developers have no incentive to pay
extra as the buyer would be impressed regardless. So McMansion with low
quality.

If the house is built by wealthy immigrants, however, then the quality tend to
be very high. When money is no objection, it's amazing how much quality you
can get... So McMansion with high quality.

More aside: This particular style of house is all the rage in Vancouver
suburbia in the last 5 years. [http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/drastic-pruning-
of-200-year-old...](http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/drastic-pruning-of-200-year-
old-richmond-tree-triggers-rcmp-probe-1.3014683)

Imagine seeing 20 of these new houses in 1 suburbia street :( It's quite
dispiriting.

------
re_todd
It always amazes me that the people I know who are financially well-off almost
always choose to live in an ugly McMansion. Voluntarily. I've determined that
if I ever become well-off I'll buy an old Craftsman or Spanish style home.
They may be smaller, but I can always buy sheds or storage space.

------
hx87
Most of these houses, and most McMansions, would look and function much better
if they just rid of two features:

1) Gables that don't terminate a wing of the house 2) Massive hip roofs

#1 makes no sense from either an aesthetic or functional point of view and
ends up doing nothing besides adding cost and making solar panel installation
more difficult.

#2 also makes solar panel installation more difficult, is harder to ventilate
(or air seal and insulate, in the case of cathedral ceilings), and unless
labor is extremely cheap, more expensive to build compared to trussed gable
roofs.

------
zeroer
I get what the author is saying. But as a home owner, I'll be spending 98% of
my time in the house, not staring at the exterior. I'd like to see criticisms
of the experience of living in a McMansion.

~~~
dsego
But could you live with it?

------
sireat
My SO is an architect, my relatives and friends are also architects.

Common complaint of theirs: clients like to meddle

Analogy would be asking for <blink> tags to a web developer or for gold
incisors to your dentist instead of ceramics

~~~
jessaustin
Yeah that sounds like a lot of architects. They have an ideal home in their
head, and if clients let them they'd only ever draw one plan. Every request is
a deviation from the ideal, so it would be better if clients didn't
communicate such banalities as how many children there are or how big the home
office should be.

~~~
sireat
I should have been more specific on the definition of meddling.

Clients communicating their wishes about their requirements is a normal
process of a workflow for programmers and architects alike.

What all the architects that I know of are upset about are clients that
frequently specify some features (a column, a window etc) which is "wrong".

By wrong I mean it is contrary to the years of experience and learning that
architects have had in their craft.

An analogy would be a client requesting programmer to move close window X to
the lower right without a good justification.

------
manigandham
There are plenty of great looking "mcmansions" \- bad design for some houses
(of any type) shouldnt be generalized to an entire construction and
development approach.

~~~
99_00
I think the term mcmansion is abused.

In common use MacMansion seems to mean "big new house which I don't like", and
the reason can be anything from looks, to environmental footprint, to simple
envy.

------
squozzer
The author made some good points but focused solely on the outside appearance
of the home. Another critical aspect of architecture is the layout and use of
interior space - a point where many beloved designs - such as colonial - have
weaknesses. For example, long hallways. McMansions seem to be designed from
the inside out, which is almost a given for an overtly modern (Bauhaus) style,
then a traditional skin applied.

------
ilaksh
The main problem with McMansions is that they waste a lot of space and energy.

The purely aesthetic perspective should embarass contemporary architects by
its shallowness.

~~~
Jedd
This seems to be an unpopular opinion - but I agree.

The word 'energy' doesn't appear anywhere in the original article, and only a
couple of times, en passant, on the HN discussion. However the wanton misuse
of materials (including energy) and on-going misuse of same, is the thing I
find least attractive about these structures. Sure, it's not a purely
aesthetic response, but it's hard to look at one of those things going up in
the neighbourhood and _not_ think about these aspects.

They all face the street, too. (Thoughtfully designed structures would be
aligned, as appropriate for the region, with north / south.) It's a weak line,
but the owners aren't the ones who have to look at the outside all the time,
so they aren't as impacted.

------
codeulike
What would the software equivalent of a McMansion be, and what sort of
arguments would be used to disparage it and also defend it?

~~~
abraae
It would be a large piece of software, built to time and budget, that was
perfectly functional, met the user's requirements and that they were happy
with.

So nothing like most software at all.

------
jernfrost
As someone who has done a lot of GUI design, I recognize many of the design
principles. The point of balance and symmetry e.g. is very relevant for GUI
design as well.

It is very useful to know these sorts of principles because without them you
notice stuff looks wrong but you don't know why and you don't quite know how
to fix it.

------
rbanffy
To be fair, I found the second one perfectly reasonable - it's kind of nice on
its determination to _avoid_ the recipe the article outlines.

Having said that, it's often better to fail by actively trying to avoid
following the norm than to try to follow it and not quite succeed.

------
gsmethells
This made the rounds on Facebook. It does a good job of covering why bigger is
not necessarily prettier.

------
gopi
Maybe i am unsophisticated but i liked the supposedly bad examples better than
the good examples!

------
swehner
The funny thing to me is, it's more important what your neighbour's house
looks like.

------
sp527
All his examples of presumably 'good' architecture strike me as hideous and in
many instances depressing. I'd take the McMansion over those hands down.

------
emodendroket
Well, if you need education to understand why your house is not aesthetically
pleasing, maybe you should just forego the education and be happy with it.

------
bane
This post wades into an area normally met with knee-jerk comments and
defensive house owners, but I think there's some really subtle points being
made here -- I don't agree with some of them, but I think the author is really
trying to figure out what exactly is going on with some of the really terrible
McMansions shown. However, these problems extend up through _real_ mansions as
well.

Here's a ~$9million house being built that suffers from almost all of the
claims put forth in the post even though they're supposed to be hallmarks of
McMansions and not real mansions
[https://www.redfin.com/MD/Potomac/10501-Chapel-
Rd-20854/home...](https://www.redfin.com/MD/Potomac/10501-Chapel-
Rd-20854/home/10885534)

After spending some time thinking about the problem, I've come to the
following hypothesis: architecture schools aren't producing architects trained
to produce quality designs that match the desires of the vast majority of the
marketplace.

Consider the following: we've been though decades of massive architectural
development in practical housing, the result of which appears to be variations
on boxes-with-mixed-materials
[https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=modern+house+design&hl...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=modern+house+design&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrmb-
elsLOAhVI0h4KHfVGBrcQ_AUICCgB&biw=1536&bih=796)

Most consumers _don 't_ want these kinds of buildings and the ones who do buy
them because they're custom architected and that acts as a status symbol.
Consumers want classic "house" shapes on various degrees of "fanciness".

Most consumers also don't know good from bad architecture. But it's okay,
because it appears most architects don't know good from bad either or else we
wouldn't be getting endless variants of boxes-with-mixed-materials. The last
time the kind of design this blog is looking for was actively used was during
the American colonial period. And that wasn't always a successful meme --
America is littered with old homes with huge pillared entrances on otherwise
modest homes. [http://www.house-design-coffee.com/porch-columns-
disaster.ht...](http://www.house-design-coffee.com/porch-columns-
disaster.html)

It could be worse, America could be littered with craptastic hyper-modernism
and weird vestigial bits of unintersting history
[http://uglybelgianhouses.tumblr.com/](http://uglybelgianhouses.tumblr.com/)
But Europe isn't immune to this nonsense either, McMansions have started
infecting everywhere from Ireland to Germany.

Asia has it's own entirely unique series of architectural sins.

I think there's a number of forces at play here that have all led up to where
we are.

\- A growing desire in industry to find ways to minimize materials usage in
new construction (older homes are sometimes hilariously overbuilt)

\- A rising and increasingly affluent middle class

\- A lack of good examples to educate people on -- _most_ buildings are
crap...even the ones that are well considered often fall apart quickly
[http://failures.wikispaces.com/Fallingwater](http://failures.wikispaces.com/Fallingwater)

\- A lack of architects who can produce something other than boxes-with-mixed-
materials

\- Continued cost cutting as plans go to market

\- Consumers who are fine settling with "nice enough" if it saves them
$100k-$200k on a similarly specc'd home

\- Most people don't give a crap about gardening or yard maintenance. Who
cares what your house looks like or how small the property is if you're
spending all day inside your climate controlled 5000 sq ft personal facility
with movie theater, gym, gourmet kitchen and jacuzzi?

It also turns out most McMansions are actually pretty nice places to spend
time: well lit, nice materials on the surfaces you interact with, tons of
space so you don't have to make too many compromises, open floor plans and so
on.

They are worlds better than the 60's, 70's and 80's era homes I grew up in and
later owned. The 70s and 80s were particularly abysmal for material quality
and energy use. Holy crap the heating/cooling bills on those homes.

------
AReallyGoodName
Americans are really snooty imho. I suspect the snootiness is both the reason
these houses exist (I have a bigger house than you) and the reason this
criticism exists (I have a nicer looking house than you).

I feel like it's a rather toxic cultural thing to care at all about other
people's houses. Likewise with cars. It's also something that's not nearly as
prevalent in mainstream culture outside the US (snobbery is the domain of the
upper classes exclusively).

------
galfarragem
Architecture is materialized values. McMansions materialize the values of the
majority of Americans.

------
jheriko
you would think 101 would tell you what the hell a mcmansion is, instead of me
needing to google it to find out half way through what is otherwise an
interesting article.

------
NietTim
But why would you care about the outside of your house when the inside is nice
and cozy?

------
brokenglass
might want to fix the typo in the title

------
cosarara97
s/cutre/cture/ (On the title)

