Minimalist Boxes or Modern McMansions?

Here's an interesting article from this week's LA Times. It's about a neighborhood's reaction to out-of-scale minimalist architecture. Despite the fact that some of the houses are architectural award winners, the interiors are splendid, and the original neighborhood features pretty undistinguished ranch houses, I have to admit that the neighbors have a point. I'd be pretty upset if one of these monsters went up in my (mid-century) modern neighborhood. Unlike my Eichler, a lot of modern houses do seem to have stunning interiors and really drab exteriors. If anybody wants to read it, the article should be available through 9/27 for free with free registration or via your local public library's website after that.

Both sides are right and wrong.

At what point do you think some style is too much? Who was REALLY the first people there? Maybe the farmer 90 years ago did not care for the stretch of bland ranches being installed either. And maybe the Mexicans didn't care for the farmer booting them out. And the native Americans who were pushed out by Mexicans. And on and on.

What I hate is hypocrisy. To me, IF the person is not bring down the value of the neighborhood, why should people care so much? It's not like these modern styled homes are made of carpeted exterior walls or stacked tires. Now THAT would be a trifle extreme. I guess the only real beef some of these people might have IS the increased value of the neighborhood and hence increased taxes eventually. That happens a lot elsewhere. It seems like a lot of the modern we see in Dwell or the various Prefabs are of good to great material quality. That should be what matters. It's not like someone is ever rich enough to have Gehry build one of his goofy organic structures in any sub.

Style Nazis and their architectural boards are questionable at best... especially for the multitude of McMansion subs today in my area. None are made well, they are just made BIG. And then the owners get a big head and think they are all that. I don't care to even make a fight. If the sub is set up like that, I find a lot elsewhere. There is no point fighting especially if the neighbors do not like it. Why would you want to live next to people who hate you?

Two words: Playah Haters.

I think that no matter what people do with their homes, someone somewhere is not going to like it. And when you're in an area (like LA, among others), where conspicuous consumption is de rigeur, the keep-up-with-thejoneses crowd will seethe with the knowledge that someone has upped the ante in the neighborhood. People would have probably complained a lot less if someone plopped a non-descript vinyl-sided modular cape of similar dimensions on that lot; it would not inspire the kind of envy that an architect-designed high-end house would.

What makes established neighborhoods so desirable is that they don't have the cookie-cutter appearance of new developments. Houses get improved, renovated, knocked down, preserved, etc. The end result is a diverse, interesting neighborhood of many different architectural styles and sizes. These people should feel grateful that they live among such architecturally interesting structures, rather than yet another run-of-the-mill stucco'd faux Spanish villa, like you would find in some anonymous McDevelopment tract off the freeway.

However, that being said, I do question how someone was able to obtain a variance despite the protests of neighbors. :zz:

My take on this is that every neighborhood should have ground rules that specify what is allowed. If the rules allow for 95% lot coveratge and a 40' max height, that is just stupid, but it's legal. In Dallas, there are lots of neighborhoods with 2200-3000 sqft ranch homes (single story, 8' ceiling heights, 5:12 roof pitches) on .2-.8 acres. Many of them are now being replaced with 6000 sqft houses with two stories and 18:12 pitched roofs (French Chateau style). Do the new houses make the old look like crap? Yes. Does the collection of houses on a street look badly out of scale? Yes. But once all the older houses are gone, what will be left is a row of (ugly, IMHO) similar houses. Requiring all the houses to be of the same scale as the house that are being replaced would serve no purpose if they will all eventually be replaced. Whether there is some social purpose to prevent the tearing down of the older houses is a seperate question. I actually think that a row of big houses filling up their lots looks ok if the style fits that scale. Unfortunately, French Chateaus really need some space around them to look right. The Georgian style looks much better in that context. And of course, a modern house can be made to compliment any scale and context. Unfortunately, there is no really good way to regulate aesthetics. I'd like to think that architects would be better at this, but many are not. Then again, what can you do if the client demands a big ugly house?

Who ever decided that all houses in a neigborhood should look the same? I think it goes against the natural evolution of urban environments and makes for boring places. Take a close look at any little Italian renaissance town. The houses are not the same, they were not even built in the same century. I have seen streets in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where modern apartment buildings fit snugly inbetween 100 year old rowhomes. And yet, it works because new construction seems to take into account the context without falling in the trap of looking exactly alike. Style elements and dimensions are often borrowed and the end result is something that looks like it goes together. Over time I hope American neigborhoods will do the same. I find it ironic that some developments in the US would not look out of place in a Soviet era Eastern European planned community given their lack of variation.

I am not advocating that all buildings look the same, but have a similar scale. But also context may matter here. The Dallas neighborhoods I am speaking of are changing rapidly and I have little doubt that within 20 years, 90% of the 1950s ranches in these neighborhoods will be gone. Had the first houses to go been replaced with houses with the same scale as the existing houses, they would now look out of place with the newer French Chateau (Really, you have to see how different the new houses are. With 12' ceiling heights (for each of 2 storoes) and high pitched roofs and fake timbers and stone and gaslights, they make the older neighboring houses look really out of place.)

However, in a situation like row houses in Rotterdam where change happens much more slowly (or on an infull lot in a historic neighborhood) , I am much more in favor of restricting (or encouraging) new buildings to blend in (in terms of scale) with the existing houses. Certainly if Dallas had restricted the scale of houses in these neighborhoods to something similar to the existing houses, the character would have been maintained, but the area probably wouldn't have seen anywhere near this type of redevelopment. I am just not sure I am ready to argue that a preexisting scale must, in all cases, be maintained forever.

I agree the scale is more important than style.

I also agree with Rous that historical restrictions can make some sense, though, the more I think about it, the more I realize that that is likely a tad hypocritical, as 'historic' is certainly open to interpretation.

In this particular case, a historic restriction would amount to requiring a new residence to conform to circa 1930's era tract home standards. Not exactly a high bar. People sometimes confuse age with "tradition". In this case, these older homes are just plain old; there can be no denying that they were built as utilitarian homes for GI's returning from the war. Now, though, because they have become the de facto standard (and ridiculously expensive) somehow they have acquired in some people's minds the status of something actually worth saving, or at the least, defending. The problem is that with a city as insanely large as L.A., you end up with a building department that really has a hard time appreciating the impact that one house will have on a neighborhood. And even if they listen to the input of the neighbors and change the plans, the odds that an inspector will actually catch any "errors" in building are very low. Additionally, the L.A. Times has lately run articles exposing the fraud and mismanagement of the L.A. building department. Rich folks with connections get a pass on a lot of requirements that the little guy has to sweat. Imagine that. The result is what this neighborhood has to deal with. Scale and respect for your neighbors is more important than style. -Richie

Critical Regionalism. Its the idea that you take into context the place in which you are building. This is a huge simplification, but for this purpose its enough (Look at Kenneth Frampton's Towards a Critical Regionalism if you want to know more).

Essentially the idea is that a house in New York shouldn't look like a house in Los Angeles and neither should look like a house in New Orleans. This all stems from the building practices that have developed over time and formed an identity of place. The word vernacular is often used, but is often misleading due to the connotation of style. Its not an imitation but rather a further development of the lessons previously learned about building in one particular region of which the vernacular forms can play a part.

Thus, the French Chateaux shouldn't be in Dallas at all. They should be in France in the countryside and should have been built before the 19th century.

It could also an argument against prefab, and many non-descript modern buildings or as the title of the thread Minimalist Boxes as well.

I agree that scale is vastly more important than style when assessing whether or not a building fits into it's context. Material is more importnat than style as well.

The notion of a Critical Regionalism does not argue against minimalist boxes. As proof I would put forth the architecture of Brian McKay-Lyons in Nova Scotia and that of Rick Joy in the Southwest. Both are essentially building platforms upon which to view the landscape. Both are building minimalist boxes, but the work of each is clearly rooted in the built landscape of their respective regions.

bearch - I agree with you that both architects work wonderfully within the framework of critical regionalism. It is that type of work that I point to when people think that critical regionalism is based on a vernacular style.

That said, the few good example of what you gave are countered by minimalist boxes that don't follow any idea of regional issue. Don't get me wrong though, I would rather have minimalistic boxes over McMansions any day...with or without consideration of regional issues.

Scale is very important. One of the blights of Chicagoland architectural scene is the teardown and rebuilding similar to what was described above. In order for the contractor/developer to make any money they have to put as much house on a lot as possible. What is created is a house that should be on a lot that is 2 to 3 times as big as the lot it was built on. It has to do with the mindset that bigger is better.

In a way I think this debate touches upon that 800lb gorilla in the room that I don't think has been mentioned a lot up to this point. The gorilla is the economic/investment aspects of building a new home. Sure, there are a handful of people who insist that they will build their house and live there until they are carried out in a pine box. But for the majority of people, the house will serve its purpose until life carries them in another direction, i.e., change of careers, death, divorce, etc. As such, the house becomes an investment that should have at least retained its value, perhaps even appreciated over time. So it goes without saying that most people in the position of building their own home MUST consider the home as an investment, as well as a thing of beauty and fulfillment.

One of the most difficult things to consider at the outset of building a house is how large to make it. Surely everyone has absolute minimum requirements. But the economic equation, i.e., the price of the land vs. the price of the house, should also be considered. I am not sure if there is a magic number/ratio for this. But then again, intuitively I don't think it's wise to pay 1 million dollars for a prime lot and then build a 1000 square foot minimalist, windowless box on it. Conversely, I don't think it makes financial sense to buy a lot in the middle of Nowheresville in Podunk County for $1500 and then put a million-dollar custom built Tudor castle on it. My own gut tells me (based on nothing) that ideally the intrinsic value of the land should be between 50 - 100% of the cost of construction. Otherwise it gets very hard to break even vs. buying a resale.

So before one goes about saying that a house is out of scale for a neighborhood, perhaps the size/scale of the house was an artifact of necessity; it had more to do with the economic fundamentals/land values of the area vs. greed/decadence/chutzpah. I don't think developers/builders are in this to improve communities; rather, they are doing what they have to do to squeeze out anything they can from a building project. And sometimes this results in way too much house for way too little land. But that's the price you pay for living in an area that has become very desirable.

I have seen in a few sources that when people are going to spend an extra $1000 on a house (b/c income went up), they put about $250 into a nicer lot and $750 into a nicer house. That is a rule of thumb that might not still hold in places where prices have really risen. In any case, the basic economics is that for speculative developers to buy a house that would otherwise be worth $200k to someone who wants to live in it, a developer has to believe the lot is worth $200k. Which means they have to believe that a $600,000 house will sell on the lot for $800,000. And generally, a $600,000 house that will appeal to good number of potential buyers is going to be a big house. This is the reason new houses that replace old are so much out of scale in a neighborhood.

If you accept that size = value (which seems to be the prevaling developer notion), then you have an inherant scale problem. Even great design talent may not overcome the issue. If you shift your paradigm to value the quality of the space created, then you have less of an problem. That, however, requires an educated general public. This is what Sarah Susanka is attempting with her whole Not-so-big-house thing. Whether or not you buy the economic tradeoff argument or her preference for more traditional design, she has effected a much greater public awareness of the debate than I thought possible.

The problem is that the general public isn’t educated. They believe what real estate agents and other experts tell them. Which is: BIG. And that those who buy and read Sarah Susanka’s books are already convinced of the “Not so big” topic. Books like her’s don’t reach those who should be reached. That’s the sad truth with every book that tries to convince someone of something. It almost always has the wrong readers. After all, how could anyone of us survive growing up in a modest home without a theater room or a gym?

The economics of it suggest that if, in general, the market says 25% of the value of a house is in land+neighborhood amenities and 75% is in house value. House value is some combination of quality and quantity. I have certainly seen that the market is willing to make that quality/quantity trade-off especially if the smaller higher quality house is a bit cheaper than the largest houses in the neighborhood. BUt overall, the economics suggests that replacement houses will have 3x the value as the house they replace. At 3x the cost per square foot, the house could be the same size as currest houses, but most people do not want to go that far down the quality quantity tradeoff. Heck, I am not sure I would want a $600k 2000 sqft house --if I could afford a $600k house