The ugly house thread... (houses, construction, mansion, plan)

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by archineer

You see this type of thing everywhere in the UK - how uPVC strips a building of any charm it once had. The first building is particularly bad, I bet there is some high quality stonework under that pebbledash render just being ruined by damp. The neo classical garden 'wall' is just ludicrous, and the original wrought iron guttering has been replaced with you guessed it - uPVC!

This looks like typical housing stock in the UK to me. Not only are vinyl doors/windows going to last longer in a humid island climate, they are harder to force open and are usually more energy-efficient than the wood models they are replacing.

As for the pebbledash...I doubt it's covering up anything more important than breeze block.

I wouldn't get knotted up over this; I think listed buildings are not allowed to use vinyl window casings, depending on the grade of the listing. Ergo, buildings of any kind of tangential historical import whatsoever are not nearly as likely to have uPVC windows as you are leading people here to believe.

[archineer]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

This looks like typical housing stock in the UK to me. Not only are vinyl doors/windows going to last longer in a humid island climate, they are harder to force open and are usually more energy-efficient than the wood models they are replacing.

As for the pebbledash...I doubt it's covering up anything more important than breeze block.

I wouldn't get knotted up over this; I think listed buildings are not allowed to use vinyl window casings, depending on the grade of the listing. Ergo, buildings of any kind of tangential historical import whatsoever are not nearly as likely to have uPVC windows as you are leading people here to believe.

I can't find better photos online, but you see them everywhere even on rather nice Victorian buildings (unless listed.) I live in Brighton, you'll walk down one street and it'll all be well preserved Neo Classical architecture, you turn the corner and there are rows of houses of near equal architectural quality, maybe they're two storey instead of three for example, or just because they're slightly later (i.e. late victorian/edwardian) they have all been ruined.

That house is definitely stone, or at least brick. It's too old to be made from breeze block. They may not have ever been of the highest architectural standards, but the alterations people make end up making whole areas look like slums. Buildings that are historically important are always listed, you are right there, but there is a general lack of care for regular buildings.

edit: When i'm out and about i'll take some photos and show you what I mean.

[Mooseketeer]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/...47_468x321.jpg

[E.RR.Armoneaux]

Originally Posted by Mooseketeer

Those architects need their licences revoked

[Mooseketeer]

Originally Posted by E.RR.Armoneaux

Those architects need their licences revoked

Absolutely. Mind you these are "council houses" which are low cost houses for underprivileged people ( extremely low rent ) so I suspect style was not a consideration. Sadly Britain is littered with those from the 60s and 70s.

[Chango]

I ran across yet another example of "fine American" architecture:



People always complain about how mcmansions are too damn huge and stick out like sore thumbs. Somebody please tell this developer the solution to that problem is NOT to just build the second floor of a mcmansion on the ground!

Maybe there was a massive mudflow and the first floor is still under there?

This disaster in brick is so wrong looking in so many ways... Nothing says bizarro like gigantic ground to ceiling "colonial" windows with ridiculously large fake mutins of various sizes slapped all over a facade (to help make the windows look even more out of scale, I guess) coupled with various off scale pointy gables and a completely superflous copula that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the house.

[Chango]

If you've ever carefully nutured a dream of living in a rental self-storage unit, this house is for you!

"Out of balance" is an understatement here and the various incoherent window sizes plus teenie-weenie roof and Lord Humongous-sized metal garage door much to enhance the wonkyness of the house. Check out the 2X6 "zen garden" carefully dumped in a random spot on the middle of the lawn too... a most excellent place to do elderly naked tai-chi if I've ever seen one! Seeing Gramps and the old lady carefully attempting to backbend in the buff would only help this setup... because we'd all involuntarily look away in disgust instead of just the architecture nuts.

[sheena12]

Originally Posted by Chango

Like many here I am house fantatic and an amature architecture critic; I love beautiful homes but I also love to hate ugly ones.

So post your ugly house pictures and let us mock them, because honestly, what else is there to do, besides that deferred maintenance we should be doing?

Here's some scary stuff I've found lately:




This might as well be a duplex; cars live on one side and barbie doll people on the right. A good example of why you shouldn't build a mansion with off the shelf of Home Depot parts too. Yea, it was expensive, but it still looks cheap.



This house is not too far from me in Salt Lake County. This is dracula's castle realized in brick and vinyl. It's a good thing they put that big ass chimney on the roofline to compliment the other big ass chimney right next to it along the facade; it distracts my eyes away from the ticky-tacky windows, the various oddly shaped (and located) towers and the giant flagpole, to remind us that only in America can we associate ugliness with success!



American domestic architecture is replete with phallic symbolism, and this house in no exception. Also present is the owner's apparent indecision to go with either sleek modern or quaint traditional styling; so hell, why not do both?



The two guys in front say it all... in a nutshell: "WTF?" Here windows are optional, as well as good taste. At least the garage is easy to find. Somebody raise Diego Rivera from the dead...we need a giant mural, pronto!



...Speaking of good taste, props to this person for preserving the natural environment in the front yard; too bad a 45 square mile piece of desert vista is ruined by the "cheap condo" quality pile of early 21st century pressboard turd built on the rest of the lot. There's nothing like a pimply fake rock job and enough roofing tile to shelter Tijuana to say "I've arrived"!

Share some architectural sins against nature and humanity!

Chango those are some ugly assed houses!!!!

[Chango]

Originally Posted by sheena12

Chango those are some ugly assed houses!!!!

We give ourselves way too much material in this country!

Ok, last one for the day, I promise.




Somebody please tell me why?! Why do you want to spend your lives in a garage that has a house attached? Why do you spend the most money you will ever spend on anything on a complete piece of turd such as this?

It has no style. It has no proportion. It isn't pleasant to look at, it looks like a million other houses of it's type, it says nothing about the occupants and it's... well, its ugly!

Why do we consistantly accept bad architecture in our lives? It would not be more expensive or less convenient or less functional to build a house like the one above in a more pleasing form.

PLEASE, WAKE UP AMERICA!! The world humans build for themselves is a direct reflection of the people who built it (as any archaeologist can tell you) and has a subtle, yet profound psychological effect on their mental states.

It's no accident that we are all on antidepressants, nor that we are so unconcerned with the world outside our own 4 walls. We've built a pathetic "hairless ape habitat" for ourselves that just isn't worth caring about and are suffering the consequences every day.

[archineer]

Originally Posted by Mooseketeer

Absolutely. Mind you these are "council houses" which are low cost houses for underprivileged people ( extremely low rent ) so I suspect style was not a consideration. Sadly Britain is littered with those from the 60s and 70s.

Well it may be as ugly as sin, but at least 60's brutalism has integrity. I prefer it to the noddy architecture going up everywhere these days.

There was an attitude after the war that buildings should be 'functional' and any consideration of aesthetics was considered frivolous. I suppose the austerity of the war years had an affect on the mentality of post war architects.