Why are The Property Brothers renovating a Las Vegas McMansion?

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The Property Brothers at Home recently started on HGTV and it involves renovating a large home outside Las Vegas. Though they don’t call it this, here is why the home is a McMansion:

1. It is about 5,000 square feet. Plenty of space inside, particularly with the cavernous living room.

2. It is on a quiet residential street about 11 miles outside of Las Vegas. Classic suburban setting.

3. It is a relatively new build. It does beg the question of why a relatively new house needs so many new design ideas.

4. The home has a Mediterranean exterior which is not exactly “native” to Las Vegas (though defining “native” Las Vegas architecture could be interesting).

5. It was purchased as a foreclosure. Las Vegas was one of the foreclosure centers in recent years.

There are a few factors going against the McMansion trend: the home does not necessarily seem poorly built (often a critique of mass-produced homes) and it is on a decent size lot.

Why would the Scott brothers want to be associated with such a home? I understand that they are putting their own personal touch on it but many critics would argue they are starting from a bad place: garish home in a lonely suburban neighborhood in the metropolitan region that exemplifies suburban and consumerist excess.

Sociologist is the “Jane Goodall of the [insular] art world”

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Sociologist Sarah Thornton provides a behind the scenes look at the elite art world:

It’s an exclusive, insular world, but Thornton’s first book about art, 2008’s “Seven Days in the Art World,” was pure populism, a dishy, behind-the-scenes read about heady auctions at Christie’s, the cutthroat atmosphere of art fairs, and much more. It became an unexpected bestseller and landed the writer in art’s inner circle…

Thornton has the ability to “seduce people to expose themselves,” the artist Andrea Fraser recently told an audience at New York’s New Museum.

The author’s two volumes on art read nothing like most art books, which are often academic tomes or picture-filled coffee-table books. But “33 Artists” has just one muddy black-and-white image for every chapter. Instead, Thornton fills in the blanks, writing so evocatively that the reader can easily imagine the immensity of a hundred million sunflower seeds rendered in porcelain by Ai…

Fraser and others opened their doors to Thornton as she traversed the globe to interview and observe artists in their own world. The author watches as Maurizio Cattelan prepares for what he called his retirement retrospective at New York’s Guggenheim in 2011. She is with eccentric Japanese pop artist Yayoi Kusama on the eve of her phenomenal 2012 comeback, when she landed a retrospective at the Whitney and a complementary Louis Vuitton line. And Thornton spends time in the studios of photographer Laurie Simmons and her husband, painter Carroll Dunham, just before their daughter, Lena, lands a deal with HBO.

This is one of Thornton’s greatest knacks: She tends to arrive on artists’ doorsteps just before some seismic shift in their public profiles. But her other talent is gaining access, penetrating artists’ private spheres as both an art-world insider and an academically minded outsider.

While the article is short on details about the art world, it does describe three unique features that help Thorton’s work stand out. First, she effectively uses the ethnographic method. One artist describes her as “like a ghost” and she clearly has the ability to build relationships and then use connections to explain the broader world of major artists. All of this takes time, sustained effort, and the ability to systematically gather information. Second, she is able to write in a way that appeals to a popular audience. How many sociologists write bestsellers or are said to write evocatively? Third, she gets access to an elite group. Artists whose works sell for millions have a particular social status and can be inaccessible to the average person. (I remember one of my art colleagues asking a group of other faculty about how many of the most famous artists alive today they could name. We did not do well.)

It all sounds interesting to me…

Frank Gehry answers critics of the Lucas Art Museum design

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Architect Frank Gehry suggests Chicagoans will come to accept his proposed design for the Lucas Art Museum:

Chicago is a great city for architecture and has historically supported innovative, forward-looking work. There is a natural impulse to deride a project in the early stages of design, particularly one that has a new shape or expression.

This is not a new concept.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and even the Monadnock Building in Chicago had many early critics. In my own experience, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles was called broken crockery when I first went public with it, and that was the nicest thing that got said. In Bilbao, the newspapers had an article asking for the architect of the museum to be killed — that was me! All of these projects have gone on to be great assets to their mutual cities, and I think the same will be true of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and Chicago.

The work presented for the Lucas Museum has precedent. It’s not just out of the blue; it is something that has been in the air for many years. The use of rooftops as public space has precedent in the Malmo Concert Hall in Sweden by Snohetta. It is one of the first great examples, and I think it has proved very successful. Zaha Hadid has used flowing forms in many of her projects to great effect. If we go even further back, Eric Mendelsohn was using organic forms to create his masterpieces such as the Einstein Tower in Germany…

Please do not dismiss it because it doesn’t look like something you’ve never seen before.

An interesting plea from the starchitect. Chicago is indeed an important city in architecture, particularly with the rise of the International Style in the post-war era. Yet, Chicago doesn’t have too many whimsical or rounded designs as its larger buildings tend to stick with older Green styles (think the Museum Campus), modernism (International Style of glass-walled skyscrapers), and the occasional postmodern touch in a high-rise or tall office building.

If Gehry is right that cities tend to accept his work down the road, does his line of reasoning cut off any potential criticism from the start? Gehry suggests new designs may be unusual but they tend to be liked down the road. But, there are buildings that are constructed and people never quite take a liking to them. As another example, Gehry’s design for the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington D.C. has prompted a lot of debate. How would we know if the Lucas Art Museum is one of those cases that is not popular years later? The location near Lake Michigan and the public interest in such land is not likely to do the building’s design any favors.

Adding a chart to scientific findings makes it more persuasive

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A new research study suggests charts of data are more persuasive compared to just text:

Then for a randomly selected subsample, the researchers supplemented the description of the drug trial with a simple chart. But here’s the kicker: That chart contained no new information; it simply repeated the information in the original vignette, with a tall bar illustrating that 87 percent of the control group had the illness, and a shorter bar showing that that number fell to 47 percent for those who took the drug.

But taking the same information and also showing it as a chart made it enormously more persuasive, raising the proportion who believed in the efficacy of the drug to 97 percent from 68 percent. If the researchers are correct, the following chart should persuade you of their finding.

What makes simple charts so persuasive? It isn’t because they make the information more memorable — 30 minutes after reading about the drug trials, those who saw the charts were not much more likely to recall the results than those who had just read the description. Rather, the researchers conjecture, charts offer the veneer of science. And indeed, the tendency to find the charts more persuasive was strongest among those who agreed with the statement “I believe in science.”

Charts = science? If veneer of science is the answer, why does the chart support science? Scientists are the ones who use charts? Or they are the ones who are trusted more with charts?

I wonder if there are other explanations:

1. Seeing a clear difference in bars (87% vs. 47%) makes a stronger impression than simply reading the difference. A 40% difference is abstract but is more striking in an image.

2. More people accept the power of visual data today compared to written text. Think of all those Internet infographics with interesting information.

Three graphics showing more non-whites in the American suburbs

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William Frey discusses the increase of non-whites in American suburbs with three graphics:

These findings are not new though the trend continues: the suburban populations of the three largest minority groups have increased in recent decades. William Frey and others at the Brookings Institution have been tracking these findings quite effectively. Yet, as Frey notes, population growth doesn’t mean that non-whites are evenly spread throughout the suburbs:

While Hispanics, Asians and blacks are now main players in suburbanization, they do not yet have a substantial presence in the outer suburbs and show some clustering in same-race communities, in many cases as a result of quasi-legal exclusionary practices.

Thus, the headline of this piece – “The Suburbs: Not Just for White People Anymore” – might be a bit misleading. This does not mean that wealthier whites and non-whites are living in the same places even if more non-whites live in suburban areas. Given the role of social class in the suburbs where more wealth and money means living in more exclusive communities, many non-whites haven’t exactly attained the same suburban life.

Gas prices down? Some SUVs still big? Back to connecting McMansions and SUVs

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Here is a review of the 2015 Chevy Suburban that clearly ties the large SUV with McMansions. The headline? “Suburban: McMansion on Wheels.”

2015 Chevrolet Suburban 4WD ½ Ton LTZ: The all-new King of the Road.

Price: $72,835 as tested ($64,700 base).

Marketer’s pitch: “Built for everything and everyone.”

Conventional wisdom: A McMansion on wheels.

Reality: Ginormous on the outside. But the inside? Debatable…

The big fella: This is it, the beast, the mother (or father; the Suburban is all masculinity) of all family vehicles. With seating for up to nine and plenty of room for storage, they don’t offer more space than the Suburban, right?…
In the end: Sorry, Suburban lovers and minivan haters. Unless you’re towing or foraging through the muddy hills of the Dark Forest – or if you want something that lots of people will notice – a Sienna is a more versatile people mover. Still, the caché of the Suburban will keep this monster popular for years to come, I’m certain.

The main emphasis in this review is on the size of the vehicle: quite large. The reviewer compares this vehicle several times to his family’s Sienna which also offers a lot of cargo space but has some other features (even if the minivan is not as cool, it less like a “box truck” and has more flexibility with the middle seats). I have to wonder how much the recent story that SUVs have regained some popularity with decreasing gas prices influenced the connection here to McMansions. SUVs are large, McMansions are large – why not connect these two common items of large size as well as symbols of excessive consumption? The headline illustrates a journalistic shorthand: big consumer items are comparable to super-size houses.

Interestingly, yearly sales of the Suburban fluctuated quite a bit in the last 15 years. Sales peaked just over 150,000 in 2001-2002 but then bottomed out at 41,055 in 2009 before rising slightly to 51,260 in 2013.

Designing an “eco-elegant home”

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Interior designer Trudy Dujardin discusses what it takes to have an “eco-elegant home”:

Q. What is an eco-elegant interior?

A. I’m glad you asked! Our favorite saying at Dujardin Design is “A healthy home is the ultimate luxury.” All of us spend most of our time in containers — a house, office, school, bus, car, museum, restaurant. We feel strongly that all of these spaces/containers should support one’s health and well-being. They can be beautifully designed, but if they are not also “eco,” meaning having excellent indoor air quality, to me it’s a contradiction in terms. With every project we do, we strive to show that you can have a beautiful home that is also healthful for you, your family and the planet.

Q. My home is probably the opposite of eco-friendly, but I want to change that. What are some easy things I can do and where should I start?

A. Here are my top five suggestions to make your home eco-friendly: First, try to eliminate as many chemicals, insecticides, pesticides, etc., as possible. When chemicals are used on your lawn, they are tracked into your living space. Second is energy conservation. We can all begin to switch to LED lights over time. Caution: If you are using compact fluorescent bulbs, which is what we have all been told to do for energy conservation, dispose of them with extreme care. They need to be separated and sent to the dump as hazardous waste. Third, use water-based, latex-free, no-VOC paints and floor finishes, such as Benjamin Moore’s Natura and Basic Coatings’ StreetShoes floor finish. Even though it’s water-based, it’s highly durable and is used on basketball courts. Fourth, recycle. Fifth, check on your insulation, to reduce fuel consumption in the winter months.

Greener homes have some appeal these days, particularly for those who want to cut costs (energy is a big issue) or those with health concerns. It remains to be seen how much appeal all of this would have for the general public if they had to pay more for it. Perhaps the best way to do it is to simply build it into the house in the first place rather than having to make expensive retrofits.

LA to have the worst traffic on Thanksgiving getaway day

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Add in more drivers this Thanksgiving and one firm says Los Angeles will have the worst getaway traffic on Wednesday:

Trips on Wednesday—deceptively nicknamed “getaway day”—are expected to take 36 percent longer on average, with peak times from 3 to 5 in the afternoon. Perhaps it would be more efficient for everyone to just Skype their family members while eating meals at home.

A rep for Inrix tells the LA Times that leaving either before or after the late afternoon peak times might spare drivers a little road pain, but that leaving the morning of Thanksgiving would be even better. The unfortunate folks picking up at LAX on Wednesday and traveling on the 110 south can expect the worst delays on their trip between 7 and 8 a.m., with delays of up to 15 minutes, which actually just sounds like regular holiday traffic at the airport.

Some interesting info – the data we have these days is pretty amazing – but this is such a limited issue. The two hour window in Los Angeles between 3 and 5 PM is expected to be worse and some of the other cities on the list have only one hour windows. If this is the case, then people should take note and try to leave at other times. Many people may not be able to help it given plane or work schedules but the traffic doesn’t have be as bad as suggested if people use the information well.

Watch for more personal appeals from home sellers

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Personal appeals from home sellers may be the next big thing in real estate:

Watch for this to take off in home listings: Sometimes, in a bidding war, you hear about homebuyers writing love letters about themselves — words that explain what wonderful families they have, how they’re crazy about the house, etc., in order to persuade sellers to choose them over other bidders.

Now comes a vaguely comparable feature for sellers: Coldwell Banker Real Estate recently revised its listings to allow home sellers to post personal stories, photos and videos about their homes, with the aim of making their listings stand out. Among the first to take up the offer were actors William Macy and Felicity Huffman, who explained their affection for the house they’re aiming to sell in Colorado: “Felicity and I love to hike up toward Sopris Mountain, right out the back door. … We put a secret door between the kids’ bedrooms, which has been a huge hit.” The brokerage says that all of its seller-clients can add their own content to their listing pages, although it must be approved by their agents.

Positive emotions seem to be the key to such appeals. If the opposite party is touched, the home can be sold for more or bought for less. It all may seem cheesy but selling and buying a home can be a very emotional process. As economic sociologists and others have found in recent decades, such decisions are not just about dollars and cents but often include complex emotional reactions. Buying and selling certainly counts as an emotionally fraught process from the amount of money involved to the transitions involved (changing communities, jobs, etc.) to the commonly-invoked American ideals of “making it.”

I would love to see some data on this: how much does an effective letter change the price? And, on the flip side, how might a poorly worded letter damage the party who wrote it?

“Milan’s ‘Vertical Forest’ Declared 2014’s Coolest High-Rise”

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The winner of an international high-rise award is a “vertical forest” in Milan:

Milan’s “vertical forest” has been named the winner of the 2014 International Highrise Award. Rising above a shortlist of towers by Rem Koolhass, Jean Nouvel, and Steven Holl, Boeri Studio’s Bosco Verticale was selected for being an “expression of the human need for contact with nature.”

“It is a radical and daring idea for the cities of tomorrow, and without a doubt represents a model for the development of densely populated urban areas in other European countries,” continued jury president Christoph Ingenhoven. It’s got like 900 trees on it.

Not exactly pristine nature here but an innovative way to include a lot of trees. Here is more on the benefits of the trees:

Said Boeri Studio in a statement, “this is a kind of biological architecture that refuses to adopt a strictly technological and mechanical approach to environmental sustainability.” Along with the saplings, some 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 floral plants are planted on the balcony of each apartment, with the aim of creating a microclimate of sorts able to filter out pollutants and oxygenate the area, fed only with the tower’s wastewater.

What if these trees were fruit trees or other kinds of plants? I suppose this could cause problems with falling objects but they could also provide food in addition to providing more nature.