Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/13/snarking-about-architecture.html
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Is it just me or do those houses all look like the early results from an AI trying to learn architecture.
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I’d say its worse considering that a human being intentionally designed the homes to be that way, but certainly seems like the kind of thing a half assed neural network would come up with.
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Folks from outside Wisconsin will not be shocked to learn that Waukesha County was patient zero for Scott Walker Syndrome.
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Kate Wagner is a national treasure. God bless her.
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What really kills me about the #1 house is the fact that the giant C embedded in the driveway is aligned so that it can only be viewed correctly when leaving the house. That’s… not how it’s supposed to work (he said, as if anyone involved in McMansion construction understands how any of this is supposed to work).
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I like how the big “C” in the front drive is situated for the viewing pleasure of the homeowner, rather than visitors. Or maybe dyslexics.
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I wouldn’t put it past a narcissist like Trump, tho.
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I grew up in very close to Waukesha county (if not part of it, it’s a bit confusing over there), and now I’m just trying to see if I recognize any of these from the neighborhood.
Our nextdoor neighbors’ place didn’t have any two identical windows on the front, so this stuff is pretty common over there…
(**EDIT: ** Though I will say, the huge pointy roofs are more for dealing with snow than design. Can’t have flat tops or the ceiling would cave in.)
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Are we sure a human being actually designed it, and didn’t use some sort of wonky algorithm to come up with at least some of it? Because, honestly, that’s the only way it makes sense.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised, at the very least, if there’s some architect sitting around somewhere, churning these things out, cutting-and-pasting bits of existing designs to fit the footprint of the desired houses, creating weird design artefacts as a result, not bothering to take the time or effort to clean them up before sending them out.
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House #8 looks like it has a drive-thru window.
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The way Kate has explained it, most McMansions are feature checklists rather than holistically-designed houses, so the wild-ass floor plans and eldritch roofline geometry are byproducts of trying to cram a bunch of disparate features like “lawyer foyer”, “2-story great room”, “15-acre semi-detached master suite”, “10 car garage”, “fireplaces in every bedroom”, “squash court”, and “all 29 bathrooms need their own window” into a single structure.
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So it is a bunch of cut-and-paste, only based on features rather than desired footprint, with the interplay between buyer and architect acting like a dumb AI, rather than the architect trying to come up with a coherent design that incorporates features organically.
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Are these things the cheap knock-off Rolexes of the housing world, or what?
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If you insist on schtupping architects with acid and meth, then you can’t very well complain about the results, can you?
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I believe that’s pretty much the hallmark of a McMansion, they’re rich enough to afford the large piece of land and the custom built house, but not rich enough to be able to hire a very good architect to be able to design something that actually looks good with all of their wild inclusions. Or their taste is so bad that they think it actually does look good. Or both.
(Hello fellow Wisconsinites!)
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The “C” design in the last one is just an alternate version of the Creative Commons license symbol. You’re free to adapt this McMansion for your own McMansion, but you have to credit the original McMansion.
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Maybe it’s supposed to be the Roman sicilicus, the numeral for 1/48?
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With things like this, there usually isn’t an architect involved in the process.
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