The House of the Fifteen Gables...

[Shuckins]

....or the "The Agony of Wretched Excess."

The wife and I just returned from the first real vacation I've had in over two years.  Packed the youngest son up and transported him to the Fayetteville, Rogers, Springdale region of Northwest Arkansas so that he could spend a few days with his fiance and her family.

My better half and I spent most of our time just bumming around and window shopping.  Oh, and driving through the burgeoning housing developments that are covering this scenic area like a cancer.

Are all the architectural designs in such developments as eye-poppingly, monstrously, butt- ugly as the ones we saw?  Huge, nightmarish, architectural grotesqueries.  Gables, gables, gables.  Miss-matched colors of brick and natural stone.   No single feature of the design complemented any of the other features.  

And nary a porch with a swing could be found on any of them.

Is American taste in architecture really this bad?  

Whatever happened to simplicity and modesty of design?


Or am I just out of touch with "modern concepts" of home design?


Pardon....I have to take a dose of Pepto-Bismol.

[vorticon]

American architecture is that badif there anything like the monstrosities up here.

not only are they ugly,

there a
pain in the bellybutton to build, and probably built just well enough to pass inspection for minimum code - which is pretty lax in a lot of places...the roof lines and gables can cause problems later on, and in the winter up here....

theres a bunch of ugly, pointless crap on the inside, there smaller than would be expected, with stupid floor plans. and there likely to use bowed studs...

the architecture IS thing thats worse now...everything else is generally better than it was in the days of simple, modest, design...

[lasersailor184]

Originally posted by Shuckins
Is American taste in architecture really this bad?

It's not so much an exercise in bad architecture, as it is a display of the Herd Mentality.

The big builders can throw together shoddy houses, with bad architecture, 10 feet away from the house next to it.  And people will flock to it.  The demand is so high, that a similar house (well built, as opposed to waiting to fall down with these communities) built on it's own, will sell for roughly 25-30 percent less.

When you factor in the extreme low cost they spend to build these because of bad construction practices, and the comparatively high prices, these companies are sometimes making 100% more then what they spent.


Judging american architecture based off of that crap is just foolish.

[FiLtH]

Being in the trades I see it alot. People want everything but dont have the money for it. Hence the chandelier in the mobile home. As far as personal taste, I too prefer seeing the simple stuff. Folks can have whacky tastes and think its what other people think is stylish. Once you start mixing up designs it all becomes a mess. Roman style pools with statues, and a few plastic pink flamingos scattered about.

[Phaser11]

What's a Gable?

[storch]

what is missing in homes with mansards or hips

[nuchpatrick]

Welcome to Track Homes..

[texasmom]

Originally posted by Phaser11
What's a Gable?

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the lines of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used (which is often related to climate and availability of materials) and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable.