Does architecture matter? Resoundingly YES! Nothing makes my blood boil faster than seeing people spend their hard-earned cash on something that COULD have been so much better for the same amount, if only….  If only they had gotten some professional guidance.  I see this over and over again in the home building and renovation industry.  There are SO MANY badly built, unnecessarily awkward or downright ugly homes that could have been great, if only.  And while beauty is in the eye of the beholder and different personalities are drawn to different styles, I maintain there is still a difference between good design and haphazard design.

Good design matters.  It makes life better because the rooms function more easily and gracefully.  Light and passageways make sense.  Space is used efficiently.  Transitions between rooms and functions are both defined and flow seamlessly, and the facade is a “welcome home” beacon of safety, comfort, and security.  Good design is what we mean when we say a house that has “good bones”.  The proportions and relationships of the different elements are pleasing and make sense with the style.

Even if you don’t overtly realize it, unattractive houses impact how you feel.  Some houses and additions are innately charming and welcoming, and some are Franken-monsters of epic proportions.  Does anyone really feel better/more relaxed/more positive driving up to something that is awkward and foreboding at the same time?  That is the exact opposite of a safe, comfortable, welcoming, environment.   

Which brings me to Exhibit A. 

A little background - my son shared this picture of a house with me because he knew I would have a stroke when I saw it.  He is a professional musician, not a designer or architect, but he’s grown up with my unbridled outrage at objectively bad design, so he knows bad design when he sees it.  He was most incredulous about the giant triangle of doom looming faceless over the monstrous addition - “what is with all that blank space above the arched window?” What indeed!  I find it baffling because SOME sentient being intentionally made those choices - houses don’t build themselves. 

For the absolute best and most hilarious in architectural critique, you MUST read Kate Wagner’s blog McMansion Hell.  She would die over the exterior of this house - the awkward proportions, the assortment of randomly placed windows, the gaping garage door she refers to as a carhole, and the gratuitous dormers that have no relation to anything else.

I can guarantee that this was not a design that passed through the hands of an architect or was reviewed by any sort of design professional.  This is a builder giving a homeowner what they thought they wanted - more space….and while this wasn’t an architectural gem to begin with, instead of making it better, they’ve made it ten times worse.  

The thing is, more space does not ever solve the problem of badly configured design.  

More space just creates more awkward passageways to get to the new space, allows more room for junk to accumulate, requires more utilities to heat, cool, and light, and requires more work and expense to maintain.

More often than not, space issues can be solved with better design of the existing square footage.  Unless these people are hosting basketball games or bowling tournaments in their bedroom, they likely did not actually need this much additional space.

I’m guessing here, but I suspect this started out as a 2 car garage attached through a mudroom and was renovated into this muffin-top monstrosity like someone rained a little too much Miracle-Gro on it all in an effort to produce a master suite.  There were better ways to do that. 

And they spent REAL money. I’d guesstimate the living space of the addition to be over 1000 sq ft (not counting the garage.) At the average cost for renovations/additions of $150/sq ft, that’s over $150K.  At that price tag, not getting the best possible design is crazy.  Construction is expensive and they added a lot of ‘extras’ -  like the ill-proportioned “Palladian” window and the tiny transom window slits over the garage and second hobbit entrance. The placement of windows and doors is undoubtedly dictated by level changes on the inside, but makes for a VERY awkward facade.  And even without all that, there is still that looming triangle of doom. If this is the outside, I shudder to think what happened on the inside…

Could this house be saved?  Maybe, but personally, I’d start by taking a bulldozer to that addition. 

I hate to leave you with that image, so here is what a properly proportioned Colonial style house might look like…which one would YOU rather drive home to?

I am all for personal expression and designing for how YOU live, but please, if you are going to spend money on construction, do it wisely! I rant because I care :-)

Live well. Design Matters!