Loading...
Newsweek / The McMansion Next DoorThe McMansion Next Door - Newsweek Design Dozen - MSNBC.com Page I of 6 Q Web 0 MSNBC Make MSNBC Your Homepage I MSN Home I Hotmail I Sign In Newsweek Home » Technology » Design Dozen ■: r a 4. t Subscribe Now I Make Newsweek Your Homepage I Newsletters I RSS Newsweek Subscribe Now Table of Contents Periscope My Turn National News Politics World News International Ed. War in Iraq Business Enterprise Tech & Science Health Society Education Entertainment Tip Sheet The Boomer Files Columnists Letters & Live Talks Multimedia /Photos Search Archives The McMansion ]Next Door Why the American house needs a makeover By Cathleen McGuigan Newsweek Oct. 27, 2003 issue - Design is everywhere, right? Your toothbrush, your running shoes, your cool - looking couch, your latte machine, your laptop. OK, no one would mistake Indiana for Italy, but you can finally buy good design almost anywhere, from the mail to the Internet. But there's one big- ticket item in this country that is virtually untouched by the hand of a good designer: your house. Story continues below .I advertisement Golden arches not included: An exi ubiquitous McMansion QUIZ Are You a Gearhead? • It seemed like only yesterday when taking pictures with your cell phone was cutting edge. Hah! It's time to upgrade. EDITOR'S CHOICE 1 n 1) i ,)nn,7 T.he McMansion Next Door - Newsweek Design Dozen - MSNBC.com Video U.S. News Politics World News Business Sports Tech / Science Entertainment Health Weather Travel Blogs Etc. Local News Newsweek Multimedia Most Popular NBC NEWS � Today Show �- .._..__.. MSNBC TV Nightly News Meet the Press Dateline NBC . Disable Fly- outm SUBSCRIPTIONS • Subscribe • Give a Gift • Renew • Change Address • Classroom Subscriptions NEWSLETTERS • Sign up for our Web Exclusive Alert e-mail newsletter • Sign up for our World News Update e-mail newsletter • Sign up for our Live Talk Alert e- mail newsletter • Sign up for our Political Perspectives e- mail newsletter Page 2 of 6 • Iraq: The Battle for Haifa Street • Gellman: The Deeper Truth of C • Clift: The Washington War Gam • The Business of Branding Beckh • Television: Jack's Back advertisement Most new off- the -rack houses aren't so much designed as themed: Mediterranean, French www'e°ns'com country, faux Tudor, neo- Colonial. These houses may offer —on the high end —every option money can buy, from a media room to a separate SEARCH THE SITE shower for the dog. But the market actually gives consumers little true choice: the developer .......... .... .......... ._..........................._ _........................._.. _.........._..., house, in most price ranges, is amazingly similar from coast to coast, across different climate zones and topographies. If you ripped off the roofs —and the turrets and gables and fake widow's walks —or peered into the windows — double -hung, round, Palladian, picture (often in the same house!) —you'd find essentially the same thing: a vast foyer with chandelier; formal living and dining rooms (rarely used); open -plan kitchen /family room; master suite and bedrooms; many bathrooms; at least a three -car garage. It makes me wonder whatever happened to the modern house, and why the core idea of modernism- -that through mass production, ordinary people could afford the best design —never caught on when it came to houses. Le Corbusier called the house "a machine for living in" —which meant, notes New York architect Deborah Gans, that the house is a tool people control, not the other way round. The brilliance of the modern house was in the flexible spaces that flowed one to the next, and in the simplicity and toughness of the materials. Postwar America saw a few great experiments, most famously in L.A.'s Case Study Houses in the late 1940s and '50s. Occasionally, a visionary developer, such as Joseph Eichler in California, used good modern architects to design his subdivisions. Today they're high - priced collectibles. Modernist houses, custom - designed for an elite clientele, are still built, 1 11 n innn� The McMansion Next Door - Newsweek Design Dozen - MSNBC.com Page 3 of 6 READER SERVICE of course. But when I recently asked Barbara Neski, who, with her • Make Newsweek husband, Julian, designed such houses in the 1960s and beyond, why Your Home Page • You Feeds modern never went mainstream, she replied, "What happens when you ask a child to draw a house ?" You get a box with a triangle on top. A little gabled house still say's "home." r' X2A&AJ ` "A:&4. Yet the cozy warmth of that iconic image doesn't explain the market for Btestri S �� g, neotraditional houses today. Not all these houses are ugly and shoddy: Stop sear+hingt though most are badly proportioned pastiches of different styles, some .5 Ott flnding>! .. are built with attention to detail and materials. But as the epithet 401K Plans Accounting McMansion suggests, they're just too big —for their lots, for heir Advert ising & neighborhoods and for the number of people who actually live in them. Marketing AirCttaifer And why do they keep getting bigger, when families are getting Air Travel `6 smaller? In 1970, the average new single- family house was 1,400 'A i Apartment Loans E square feet; today it's 2,300. ;Architects'_ Finance Auto F n4n.cing Auto Insurance Auto Leasing: Autos The housing industry says that we want bigger and bigger houses. But I think they're not taking credit for their marketing skills. Last year's annual report for Pulte Homes, one of the nation's biggest builders, contains an astonishing fact: if you adjust for inflation, houses of the same size and comparable features are the same price today as they were in the 1970s. That means that if business is going to grow, the industry has to sell more product —not just more houses but more square footage. It's like the junk- food - marketing genius who figured out that people wouldn't go back for seconds but they'd pay more upfront to get, say, the 32 -ounce Big Gulp. This year, Pulte predicts, the number of houses built will be only slightly higher than last year's. "More and more of the same might not sound particularly exciting, but it is," the report says. "That's because houses ... will continue to get bigger and better, ensuring that real inflation- adjusted spending on residential construction will continue to rise." Bully for them —and for the folks in the real- estate and financing industries who base value on size not quality. But finally some people are saying "Enough already." Sarah Susanka, a Minnesota architect, started a mini - movement with her best - selling 1998 book, "The Not So Big House." Susanka argues that a good architect understands the importance of human scale. Under the dome of St. Peter's, you're meant to feel awe. But if your bedroom's the size of a barn, how cozy can you get? The eco- conscious hate big houses, too, with the energy cost of heating and cooling all those big empty rooms. And now that McMansions not only are the staple of new suburbs but are invading older, leafy neighborhoods, built in place of tear -downs and overpowering the smaller vintage houses nearby, communities from Greenwich, Conn., to Miami Beach are beginning to take action. The McMansion Next Door - Newsweek Design Dozen - MSNBC.com Page 4 of 6 EDUCATION Some middle -class people who care about design have opted out of the Learning With new -house market. They'll remodel an old house, one with an honest Newsweek patina of history that all the money in the world can't reproduce. And • New for parents and teachers: an some architects are hatching low -cost plans for the mainstream interactive news market. Prefab is hot right now: designs that use factory-built modules section for you and your kids are assembled on -site. It's much cheaper than conventional • Is your high school construction, and if it's done well, it can look great —and modern. "We not getting have this concept about design and mass culture in America, with Newsweek? Click here Target, Banana Republic, Design Within Reach," says Joseph Tanney of Resolution: 4 Architecture, which won a Dwell magazine competition to MORE design a cool house in North Carolina for only $80 a square foot (a custom house would be $200 to $400 per). The house is prefab, and Sponsored Features the firm has half a dozen more in the works. Seattle architect James • Looking for a Cutler (who designed Bill Gates's Xanadu) is working with Lindal Cedar degree from a quality school? Homes, a national builder, to adapt a wood - and -glass modernist house Discover for modular construction. "I think there's a return to an interest in Newsweek distance modernism," sa s New York architect Deborah Berke 'sand I would call y ' learning.com it warm modernism, not sleek minimalism." She argues that a younger generation, steeped in a love of cool design and loft living and ready • Newsweek for a first house, isn't going to buy a mini- McMansion. "That's where showcase.com— the industry is not reading the social signs yet." As more people get your resource for health, education into design—even starting with a toothbrush —the more they'll want 9 9 Y and business their houses to reflect what they value. Flat roof? Peaked roof? It opportunities doesn't really matter: the best design reflects who we are and the time in which we live. Who knows what our grandchildren might come up PARTNERS with if someone hands them a crayon and says "Draw a house "? wC sl'klvo Ipost.com © 2006 Newsweek, Inc. Subscribe to Newsweek S 0%*'Ift 1 Rate this story Low % ?f, High Current rating: 3.5 by 58 users • View Top Rated stories ARTHua FRONWIF" Diki Print this EA Email this Blog this 0— this ® MORE FROM NEWSWEEK TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE Next„ Newsweek Technology & Science Section Front • Hacking Through Life's Electronic Clutter • Interactive Design: Where Tech Meets Art • Tech: Welcome, Year of the Widget • Environment: Majora Carter • Sir Richard Branson: Making the Skies Green • Quiz: Are You a Gearhead? • Levy: In Digital Age, Nothing's Really Private • Moving Into a New Office The McMansion Next Door - Newsweek Design Dozen - MSNBC.com • Newsweek Technology & Science Section Front Add Newsweek Technology & Science headlines to your news reader: lAfindvws Live My y ioo, to rvews9atof F13 Blatinax • More RSS feeds from Newsweek • WP: Battling for Iraqi soldiers' hearts • Missing Scout, other boy found • Tsunami fears ease in Japan • Rice: U.S. won't quit on Iraq • WP: The war within Sen. McCain Sponsored Links TOP STORIES • Iraq: The Battle for Haifa Street • Gellman: The Deeper Truth of Good and Evil • Clift: The Washington War Game • The Business of Branding Beckham • Television: lack's Back Florida Modular House Premier Manufactured Homes in FL. Visit our Manuf. Home Communities! www.HometownAmerica.com Indiana Modular Homes Exceeding Customer Expectations Since 1977. Browse Our Gallery Now! www.RedbudHomes.com Manufactured House Search the Nationwide MLS Easily Find Any Type of Home or Condo! www .TheMultipleListingService.com House of the Future Patented Aluminum Framing System Starting at $299k www.jerikohouse.com advertisement Page 5 of 6 Subscribe to Newsweek — Lowest Rate Available Add Newsweek RSS Feeds Mobile.newsweek.com ARCHIVES I MY NEWSWEEK (BETA) I NEWSWEEK RADIO I ABOUT NEWSWEEK I SUBSCRIBER SERVIC PRESSROOM I ADVERTISING INFORMATION I CONTACT US I EDUCATION PROGRAM BACK COPIES I RIGHTS AND REPRINT SALES I SHOWCASE ADS I ONLINE AND DISTANCE LEARNING DIRE The McMansion Next Door - Newsweek Design Dozen - MSNBC.com Page 6 of 6 Cover I U.S. News I Politics I World News I Business I Sports I Tech /Science I Entertainment I Travel I Health I Blogs Etc. I Weathi Newsweek I Today Show I Nightly News I Dateline NBC I Meet the Press I MSNBC TV About I Alerts I Newsletters I RSS I Mobile I Podcasts I Site Map I Help I News Tools I Jobs I Contact Us I Terms & Conditions © 2006 MSNBC.com © 2006 Microsoft MSN Privacy Legal Advertise Feedback I Help