Tag Archives: Atlanta

Discussion over “Prairie Modern” McMansions in the Atlanta suburbs

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A historian discusses “Prairie Modern” McMansions that have been built in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur:

For the past several years Decatur architect Eric Rawlings has been designing homes in a style he describes as “Prairie Modern.” Rawlings considers the eight Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired homes to be among the best examples in his portfolio. Others in Decatur’s Oakhurst neighborhood call them out-of-place McMansions. All but one of the Prairie Modern homes have been built at teardown sites, single-family residential lots where smaller homes were demolished to make way for the Prairie Moderns…

Rawlings defends his Prairie Modern design and he strongly disagrees that his Prairie Modern homes are McMansions. He left this comment in a 2011 blog post:

I have over 60 built projects in Oakhurst alone and only 8 are Prairie Style, only 22 are New Construction. I have about 40 renovations, many of which preserve the original building with a minor addition not even visible from the street. KC Boyce’s house is only 2100sf with 4 beds and hardly a McMansion by the actual definition. Susan Susanka, author of the Not So Big House, invented the term McMansion and would completely disagree with your interpretation of the definition. His 2 story house with low slope roof is barely taller than the houses near it with steeper roofs. The house on the left is sitting more than 6ft lower because of grade elevations. Scale does not mean height or floor area. It refers to the proportion and size of the pieces and parts that make up the structure. A simplistic two story cube is out of scale compared to a one story house made of smaller forms. A larger house made of the same sized pieces and parts is in Scale with a smaller house made of the same size pieces and parts. The Fayetteville house is 25ft tall, 10ft shorter than the Decatur Zoning limit of 35ft. [Copy pasted as received.]

Despite Rawlings’s assertions that his Prairie Moderns are not McMansions, they are more than twice the size of the homes they replaced. They are also larger than neighboring homes that are contemporaneous to the ones torn down. And, they draw from an architectural vocabulary that is out of character with the community. All attributes that conform to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s definition of a McMansion.

Lots of interesting pictures of homes to illustrate the argument. Several things are worth commenting on:

1. Susan Susanka did not invent the term McMansion. The term dates roughly to the late 1980s.

2. There seems to be some discussion of what exactly constitutes a McMansion:

2a. The historian draws from a definition from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and it seems that the teardown dimension is big here: these houses are bigger than the surrounding homes.

2b. But there is an architectural congruity issue as well: Prairie style homes don’t fit in this particular community. This amuses me: the Prairie style is well-known in the Chicago area because of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in Oak Park and Chicago and you could find a number of “Prairie Moderns” in the region. I suppose this style is tied to Prairie regions (Midwest) but wouldn’t the Prairie style make more sense than stucco houses in the Atlanta area? Of course, one could argue that neither style or perhaps any “foreign” styles are appropriate.

3. Adding to the intrigue is that one of the “Prairie Moderns” won an award from Decatur for “Sustainable Design and Energy Efficiency.” So perhaps not everyone has an issue these homes. If so, this would be common in teardown situations: you can often find people arguing for newer homes and owners being able to do what they want for their property and others arguing that new houses should have some architectural congruency with the existing neighborhood and that there should be some design guidelines or standards (perhaps through the creation of a historic preservation district).

h/t Curbed National

Quick Review: Turner Field and Busch Stadium

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In the last three weeks, I visited two baseball stadiums for the first time: Turner Field in Atlanta and Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Both stadiums are relatively new (Turner Field opened for baseball in 1997, Busch Stadium in 2006) and I’ll compare them.

1. Both have some similar features that characterize baseball stadiums built after Camden Yards in Baltimore. They feature wide concourses, particularly on the bottom level. There are unique spots in each stadium such as special vantage points, named sections, food options, and restaurants in the bleachers. The seating is pretty close to the field though skyboxes and suites are given prime positions. Home plate faces the downtown and the outfield seats are constructed so that the buildings can be seen from the seats. I would have to say Busch Stadium was nicer: it featured a lot more red brick (while Turner Field had a lot of dark blue) and a better location.

2. The locations differ. Busch Stadium is at the south end of the downtown with its southern edge bordering Interstate 64 while Turner Field is a few miles south of downtown along Interstate 75. There really is nothing to see or do around Turner Field while one can easily walk from Busch Stadium to the Gateway Arch. Even with these options in St. Louis, more could be done to surround the stadium with fan-friendly areas instead of open space.

3. The two games offered some fun moments. The best part of the Atlanta game was watching the home team come from behind to win in the bottom of the 9th. The best part of the St. Louis game was to watch Aroldis Chapman of the Cincinnati Reds. In his third big league appearance, Chapman threw multiple pitches over 100 miles per hour, peaking at 103 mph. Chapman also faced Albert Pujols with one on and one out in the bottom of the 8th – Chapman induced an inning-ending double-play groundout.

4. It is a little hard to compare crowds since I was at Turner Field on a Monday night and at Busch Stadium on a beautiful Saturday afternoon during a key series with the first-place Cincinnati Reds. However: Atlanta had a pitiful crowd considering the team was in first place and playing well. The St. Louis crowd was enthusiastic throughout, even with their team down 4 and 5 runs in the last two innings. I felt bad for the Atlanta players as they deserved a better crowd.

5. One feature I strongly disliked in both stadiums: they both had people speaking to the crowd between innings. While this is probably done to keep fans attentive, I found it annoying. This is the sort of thing I would associate with minor league parks where the baseball quality is lower so fans need to be entertained in other ways. Fans at major league games should find plenty to do without needing to be entertained all the time by special entertainers.

6. A final thing I noticed: both teams prominently featured their past accomplishments. The Cardinals’ scoreboard consistently included the line “ten-time world champions.” The Braves set of pennants in the outfield commemorating their incredible playoff streak from the 1990s through the 2000s was impressive.

7. Final thought: I enjoyed visiting both stadiums and seeing some good baseball.

Quick Review: Georgia Aquarium

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While recently in Atlanta, I had a chance to make a brief visit to the Georgia Aquarium. Some quick thoughts:

1. Overall, a beautiful facility. Well-designed with an interesting central space/lobby. Vivid exhibits. The only downside was the large crowds in some of the exhibits.

2. The best part were the large tanks. This aquarium doesn’t have a lot of individual tanks featuring a lot of different species. The emphasis is on large tanks, particularly in the Ocean Voyager exhibit. While this exhibit features some rare animals such as the whale shark (unbelievably large), this has numerous great viewing points plus a tunnel underneath the middle of the tank. The viewing theater space at the end of the exhibit was a location where I could sit for a long time just watching the animals swim by. Here is an image of the whale shark from the viewing theater:

3. There were a number of innovative ways to view the tanks. In addition to the tunnel in the Ocean Voyager exhibit, I walked through a small tunnel with glass ceilings (probably three feet tall) under a river exhibit. The penguin exhibit featured special “bubbles”: people would walk up into the exhibit from below and while surrounded by a plastic bubble perhaps four feet across, see eye-to-eye with the penguins.

4. There is a special shark exhibit that didn’t feature any live sharks but had a lot of information on fossil teeth, different shark species, and interactions with humans. One room featured a frozen giant tuna next to a large shark and talked about how sharks chased tunas in the ocean depths. On one hand, the exhibit said sharks were dangerous creatures (with a particular emphasis on their teeth and jaws). On the other hand, the exhibit kept saying that the media and Hollywood have over-hyped shark attacks.

5. The aquarium seemed pretty kid-friendly, particularly in the Georgia Coast exhibit where patrons could touch a number of animals (I touched a small shark, stingrays, along with a few other small and more fixed creatures) and kids could crawl around in some cool-looking equipment.

6. Like many museums today, it was pricey: around $31 for what I saw (and I didn’t purchase all the add-ons).

Even with the price and the crowds, this was well worth the money. I thought the Shedd Aquarium was a lot of fun – this relatively new aquarium is vastly superior.