Tag Archives: single-family homes

Offset House on display in Chicago peels layers of balloon frame homes

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One of the featured designs in the Chicago Architecture Biennial involves a large home taken down to the timbers:

The droll Offset House by Otherothers in Sydney addresses lot-hogging McMansions by tucking smaller homes into the flabby frames of McMansions that have been stripped to the studs to serve as balconies and porches.

And a further description from the American Institute of Architects:

One of the most striking examples here is the Offset House from the Australian firm otherothers, which tears away the derivative façades of typical suburban housing to reveal simple stick-framed structural grace. The balloon frame was developed in Chicago, and otherothers uses it to create semi-public open-air verandas.

This is the best image I could find with some further description:

Using the Sydney suburb of Kellyville as its prototype, Otherothers suggests the adaptive reuse of timber-framed suburban homes by stripping off the outer cladding (often brick), exposing the outer frame, and creating a verandah in the space between the outer and interior frames. They claim there is beauty to be found in the exposed frames. They also propose that since the verandah would now define the home’s outer border, fences would no longer be necessary and spaces between houses could become shared common areas for gardening and communing.

The design seems to shrink the interior square footage (a waste to many McMansions critics) as well as alter the private nature of single-family homes (another critique of McMansions and suburban homes). The design also seems similar to some of the buildings in the post-World War II era that flaunted their essential infrastructure rather than cover it up. The retrofitted home still takes up the same footprint and the exterior balloon frame still requires maintenance. Yet, some of the critiqued aspects of the McMansion are softened and social life might improve. I’d be interested to see this in action across a whole neighborhood…

American homes grow in size yet lots shrink

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Zillow finds that American homes continue to grow larger even as their lots shrink:

Nationally, the median size of a new house is now 2,600 feet, a full 500 square feet (or almost 25 percent) more than it was just 15 years ago.

Yet the median lot size is now 8,600 square feet, down 1,000 square feet (or about 10 percent) over the same period:

Zillow continues to find interesting patterns in real estate data. So what could be behind this trend? Both the land and the home (materials, labor) cost developers and builders money. Thus, smaller lots with bigger houses can reduce land costs even as the home price might stay similar or increase because the home is growing. Or, perhaps this is also the result of land regulations from municipalities. Small lots could be preferred by some places because subdivisions and residential properties then take up less space.

One of the common complaints about McMansions is that the big house are on small lots. Yet, this may be necessary for some housing in order to (1) make housing more affordable (lower the costs for land) and (2) to limit damage to the environment (use less land and open land for more green space or open space).

The “Reincarnated McMansion Project” taking on big issues

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The Reincarnated McMansion Project of an Australian artist keeps developing:

His plan is simple enough: buy one giant, carbon-hungry McMansion on more than 800 square metres of land and carefully demolish the brick veneer home to rebuild four sustainable, affordable and architecturally designed townhouses for $450,000 each – less than half Sydney’s $1 million median house price…

Gallois’ dream is to create a company or strata-titled commune where like-minded “model citizens” embrace sustainable living rather than climbing the profit-centric property ladder…

The community-funded project has attracted sponsors and some of Australia’s best environmental architects – including Tone Wheeler, who designed the eco house on reality TV show Big Brother – which is why the price tag is so reasonable.

“We have raised half the money and we want one or two more families with like-minded values to register their interest,” Gallois said.

The price tag could be even cheaper if there was a family currently living in a McMansion who wanted to join the project and downsize into one of the eco-townhouses, which feature greywater treatment, a shared laundry and “features that save space and are good for the environment”.

Gallois is taking aim at several issues at once: the growing size of Australian homes, limiting the carbon footprint and energy use for single-family units, avoiding the “profit-centric property ladder,” and finding alternative funding to make this possible. It will likely take some time to do all of this; the third and fourth ones seem more difficult to me while the first two are already prompting a number of people in the United States and Australia to consider other options. The market for smaller homes may be growing as people consume differently and both retiring residents and younger people want some smaller options. Being more energy-efficient is more attractive with rising energy bills and it isn’t too hard to do some simple things in newer homes that could have positive long-term consequences. But, how do you get buyers to see their homes differently such as moving away from “the most bang for your buck” and having lots of extra space for things that owners might need? Or to find large enough funding sources to do this on a bigger scale when it may be more profitable to develop, build, and sell McMansions?

See an earlier June 2015 post on the project here.

Maybe the American lawn is dead

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Get through the history of the lawn and recent reactions to drought in California (see here, here, and here) and read one conclusion about the fate of the American lawn:

Maybe we really are in a new era. Maybe it will signal the end of our love affair with lawns. Maybe the new national landscape—a shared vision that inspires and enforces collective responsibility for a shared world—will take on a new kind of wildness. Maybe, as the billboards dotting California’s highways cheerily insist, “Brown Is the New Green.” Maybe the yard of the future will feature wildflowers and native grasses and succulent greenery, all jumbled together in assuring asymmetry. Maybe we will come to find all that chaos beautiful. Maybe we will come to shape our little slices of land, if we’re lucky enough to have them, in a way that pays tribute to the America that once was, rather than the one we once willed.

Here are four reasons why I think this will take some time – if indeed a majority of Americans do get rid of their lawns in the next few decades:

  1. What California has experienced hasn’t hit many other states. For much of the country, this drought is still an abstraction.
  2. Americans associate their green lawn with their single-family home with kids and all the success that the lawn and home symbolize. This is a simplification with some validity: the green lawn = the American Dream. This is why so many neighborhoods and communities fuss about and fine lawns that don’t look good.
  3. The lawn industry will fight back. Yes, the lawn industry has a lot invested in this and could develop varieties of lawn that need less water as well as champion alternatives that they can sell.
  4. A return to “nature” in our yards isn’t exactly real nature. It is another human modified version. Some replacements for lawn could take less work than the perfect grass lawn – but others will still require a good amount of maintenance. And I’m not sure how many homeowners really want truly untended yards.

“The Architecture of American Houses” in one poster

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A new poster covers over 400 years of residential architecture in the United States:

https://i0.wp.com/mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/p-americanhouses_fpo1.png

In all, the new poster features 121 hand-drawn American homes divided up into seven primary categories—Colonial, Folk/Vernacular, Romantic, Victorian, Eclectic, Modern, Neo-Eclectic—and 40 subdivisions, such as Italian Renaissance Revival, Ranch, and the dreaded McMansion.

Just mail me a copy and I will put it on the wall in my office. Three quick thoughts on the styles depicted:

1. I don’t see the split-level. Of course, it could be built in a variety of these styles but it is a unique arrangement that is common in many suburban areas.

2. The McMansion is at the bottom left as a separate category and it looks appropriately large, out of proportion, and multi-gabled. Yet, how different is it from the other “new traditional designs” on the rest of the bottom row? The “new traditionals” depicted here are more architecturally pure but they are similarly large. How much architectural mismash qualifies a house to be a McMansion? And can’t a architecturally accurate yet overly large, particularly if a teardown, still be considered a McMansion?

3. The subdivision grouping idea is an interesting one as it implies certain kinds of homes are found together. This probably is often the case as subdivisions typically have a limited number of designs and are built within a several year stretch. Yet, some places may not match this due to longer development spans (imagine a place with larger lots initially that are later broken up and built on) or denser urban areas where there is more construction and housing turnover.

Only 8% of new American homes under 1,400 square feet

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Even with the rise of tiny houses (with a new push by HGTV), most American new homes are nowhere near this small. According to Census data, only 8% of new homes constructed in 2014 were under 1,400 square feet. And the median square footage for new homes was 2,453 and the average was 2,657.

As noted in earlier posts, the size of the tiny house movement is unclear. They may be popular in particular situations such as cities with affordability issues (like San Francisco or New York City) or dealing with homelessness. This is the case even with a sluggish housing market for starter homes and the burst housing bubble of the late 2000s.

What is the future for tiny houses? I suspect it will continue as a niche movement. Many Americans still like larger homes and their stuff and have a hard time imagining paring down their life that much. Perhaps semi-tiny houses will become popular: the 100-200 square foot homes ask for a big sacrifice but housing units of 700-1,000 square feet are doable (and not already uncommon in denser cities). It might take the efforts of a major city or developer really getting behind smaller homes to convince a larger group of people that this is the way to go. But, outside of specialized uses, it would take a big shift to get many to build and/or buy such small houses.

McMansion as a term went from “funny criticism” to “spiteful slur”

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A Denver resident suggests the term McMansion has become too broad to be useful:

Regarding McMansions, this term originally meant very large tract houses that pretend to be grander than their vapid finishes should allow. They are mass-produced like hamburgers with no understanding of taste or style. Now McMansion has morphed into any big house no matter its utility or architectural worth. A funny criticism has turned into a spiteful slur.

An interesting observation. The term arose in the 1990s and its “Mc” prefix suggested a mass produced item. This was not necessarily a new critique of housing; the postwar housing boom also gave birth to large developers – like Levitt and Sons – and tract homes became a major part of suburban critiques (see the song “Little Boxes“). And the McDonaldization of the world was in full swing across a range of industries.

Yet, today calling a home a McMansion is definitely not positive and tends to lead to animosity among neighbors (a recent example here). Big houses invite though own criticisms – waste of resources, unnecessary space, larger than nearby homes – though what exactly qualifies is unclear. You can’t find too many defenders of McMansions.

Does this suggest the term has outlived its usefulness?

Seeing American home trends from the 1900s to the 2020s

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This scrolling exhibit highlights some of the changes to American homes in the last 110 years. Here is what it predicts for homes in 2020:

Houses are nearly three times the size of homes from 1900.

Two master bedrooms (one upstairs, one downstairs) is a growing trend.

Water and energy conservation systems are becoming mainstream.

Extra bedrooms are being replaced by specialized storage (i.e. bigger pantries and closets).

Home automation tech (remotely controlling locks, lights, HVAC, and appliances) is booming.

There are some major changes over time this period including increasing size (with decreasing household sizes), more of an emphasis on cars, and changes in interior design and layout that take advantage of new technology and different social arrangements but are also subject to aesthetic whims (floating staircases in the 1970s, floral wallpaper in the 1980s, etc.).

Also noted: the 2000s are said to be the decade where “McMansionism continues.”

Will outlining the monetary and environmental costs of lawns change behavior?

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Americans may like their green lawns around their single-family homes but they come at a cost:

These days, front lawns cost Americans $40 billion a year to maintain, and are spread over about 50,000 square miles—the land area equivalent of the entire state of Alabama.

This vast swath of ornamentally maintained land is generally bad for the environment. A lawnmower generates more greenhouse gas emissions per hour than 11 cars, according to the Environmental Protection Agency; nitrous oxide emitted by fertilizer has 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide, and lingers in the atmosphere for as long as 120 years. Swept into waterways, those fertilizers strip the water of oxygen, causing algal blooms and “dead zones” that kill freshwater and marine life.

Then, of course, there’s water use. Americans consume around 9 billion gallons of water a day on average on outdoor use—most of it watering their lawns. That’s more water than families use for showering and laundry combined. As populations rise, water needs will only get more taxing in many states.

The writer concludes by suggesting that California’s drought and trend-setting may just help limit lawns in the future. However, there are at least two major hurdles to overcome:

1. The cultural importance of a lawn should not be undervalued. The minor connection to nature (or “nature” modified appropriately by humans) is important.

2. Simply citing large numbers or figures like above may not go very far. In the abstract, $40 billion sounds like a lot until you consider what kind of money is spent on other things. Or, what might people do instead with that $40 billion? Even the environmental concerns – and the effects sound quite harmful – are more abstract since the consequences are pushed down the road either in time or place.

Perhaps the best way to combat the American lawn would be to change the American view of nature and what is appropriate around single-family homes. We have seen some of the shaming efforts in California, from overhead photos of celebrity compounds to neighbors reporting each other over water violations. This could be done more positively with incentives (such as being paid to remove turf in Western state) or new trends. What suburban resident would want to be the only one on the block with the green costly lawn if all the neighbors had moved on?

Record 5 homes over $100 million sold in the world last year. Is this really a trend?

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The luxury housing market is booming and a new record was set last year for sales of $100 million+ homes:

Demand for mega-mansions and penthouses has accelerated as wealthy buyers seek havens for their cash and search for alternative investments such as art and collectible real estate, according to a report Thursday by Christie’s International Real Estate, owned by auction house Christie’s. Five homes sold for more than $100 million last year, with at least 20 more on the market with nine-figure asking prices, the brokerage said…

Just one home sale exceeded the $100 million mark in 2013, following four such transactions in 2012 and three in 2011, Christie’s reported.

While I have seen other corroborating evidence that this segment of the market is indeed doing well, how much of a trend or record is this went the number of transactions throughout the world increased to five? Here is the trend from the last four years: 3, 4, 1, 5. So if 2014 was a record year, was 2013 a big plunge in the market? The number of cases is so small and the timeline is so short that it is difficult to draw any substantial conclusions. Yet, suggesting a record occurred makes for a better headline or story…