McMansions (apartment, costs, comparison, warm)

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Here is my problem with this type of discussion:

If someone has the means, and wants to build a 25000 Sq ft home (or larger), so what? Good for them. They are building what they want

I frankly do not see any problem whatsoever with that.

and they keep me in a job lol

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by nativeDallasite

According to the Wikipedia article posted earlier the links I posted are clear McMansions, and they make the house in that other photograph look like a shack.

My parents' HOA does not dictate many things at all which is how the McMansions wormed their way in in the first place. The woman in charge of the HOA has refused to consider doing a thing about it but she's outta there next year and the people in that neighborhood are planning to band together to stop the onslaught. Oh, and those homes aren't custom-built. They are mass-produced pooped-out generics sold by higher-end builders and built by illegals. I watched them build one in six weeks. Would you want to pay $1.6 million for a house built in 6 weeks with clear inadequacies in its construction? The one across the street from mom and dad was not built for or by someone; it's been completed and for sale for a few months now and they have an open house almost every weekend. My parents saw the inside; it's shoddier than hell...we're talking mistakes in tile patterns, mistakes in wood plank patterns, countertops that don't fit correctly, improperly sealed bathtubs and toilets, baseboards that don't fit properly, incorrectly stretched carpets, crooked switchplates, etc. It's a piece of crap, and from the outside looks to have the same floor plan as one 2 streets away.

McMansion, definitely. Dunno why you insist on arguing about it!

I can design a home with two similar exteriors, but have the interior floorplan be completly different, likewise I can build a home with exactly the same exterior facade, but have the exact same floorplan. I am just trying to give a solid awnser to what is a "Mc Mansion" They are production builders that try to do custom apearing homes. I spend too much of my time and effort, and tallent at work designing custom homes, to go and find someone trying to label it a Mc.Mansion because of the size, or exterior style. about 95% of the homes we do will never be built a second time, let alone what production builders do with one floorplan, monor changes to materials on the outside, and build it on 50-150 lots.

BTW, the top link for the homes in a previous post of mine were all 100% custom homes, that I had designed for clients.

it is not the job of the HOA or the government to dictate what people can do on their own land. If these builders do shody work, the market will respond. They will sit on an empty house for a long time. Or they will go back through and fix the mistakes in construction. No, I would not buy a home with obvious mistakes, I do happen to notice them more quickly than the normal person due to my profession. I will not buy a Mc.Mansion, but I can tell you the quality of the home in custom and semi custom from spec builders is a world apart from eachother. and there is a HUGE difference in a home of custom, semi-custom quality vs. a spec builder, even though they may be the same square footage, and price point

[Bob The Builder]

Originally Posted by ProLogic

$650k for a Mansion?! Thats wayy cheap! Here in the bay area you can get a.. decent home for that much.

Pro

Do decent people live in those homes?

[nativeDallasite]

Originally Posted by Noahma

I can design a home with two similar exteriors, but have the interior floorplan be completly different, likewise I can build a home with exactly the same exterior facade, but have the exact same floorplan. I am just trying to give a solid awnser to what is a "Mc Mansion" They are production builders that try to do custom apearing homes. I spend too much of my time and effort, and tallent at work designing custom homes, to go and find someone trying to label it a Mc.Mansion because of the size, or exterior style. about 95% of the homes we do will never be built a second time, let alone what production builders do with one floorplan, monor changes to materials on the outside, and build it on 50-150 lots.

BTW, the top link for the homes in a previous post of mine were all 100% custom homes, that I had designed for clients.

it is not the job of the HOA or the government to dictate what people can do on their own land. If these builders do shody work, the market will respond. They will sit on an empty house for a long time. Or they will go back through and fix the mistakes in construction. No, I would not buy a home with obvious mistakes, I do happen to notice them more quickly than the normal person due to my profession. I will not buy a Mc.Mansion, but I can tell you the quality of the home in custom and semi custom from spec builders is a world apart from eachother. and there is a HUGE difference in a home of custom, semi-custom quality vs. a spec builder, even though they may be the same square footage, and price point

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...they're McMansions. My dad's in the construction business too (designs steel structures on commercial/govt buildings) and he's extremely upset about what's being built in the 'hood. He knows the business in this area.

[Tesaje]

I can see you are trying to draw a fine line because you are in the business. The term is a lay person's derogatory term applied to ostentatious, poor quality, or generic bland architecture as seen by the public. Having an architect try to do a fine tooth redefinition to exclude his/her own designs is just trying to put lipstick on a pig.

The judgment is not for the industry to define. It is for the general public to define. Sorry, if the building rules define that you must produce an ostentatious, bland and similar looking huge house for the lot, it doesn't matter what it looks like inside, it's a McMansion.

Custom does not always mean quality. It depends on the builder and the company. There are a bunch of very similar looking custom houses that went up where I live and they were built like crap. I have no idea about the quality you produce, so it is no personal judgment. Just that it can vary a whole lot what custom really is.

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by Tesaje

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMansion), a McMansionis an "architectural term which first came into use in the United States during the 1980s as a pejorative description. It describes a particular style of housing that, as its name suggests, is large like a mansion, but is cheaply and hastily built, often in large neighborhoods at a time with almost no difference between individual structures, similar to the producing of food at McDonald's fast food restaurants. In addition to ubiquity, almost every reason to poke fun at McDonald's has been applied metaphorically to "McMansions". These criticisms include the deviation from traditional local or regional architectural style; a gaudy, sterile, mass-produced appearance; and perceived negative effects on nature and neighborhoods." "The typical square footage is in the range of 3000 (280 m²) to 5000 ft² (460 m²)."

and "The term is less often used to describe houses situated within existing urban areas. Usually, smaller cottage-style houses have been demolished to make way for these homes. They are not usually built as a "development cluster" which is managed by a homeowners association; rather, they are built by their owners as a single dwelling."

the bold and red text above best describes what a McMansion is,
your damn right I am going to defend and draw the fine line on what is Mcmansions and what is custom, semi-custom. I have worked in the industry for long enough to be able to draw this distinction. I spend way to much time prefecting this form of art to have a derogitory term applied to it. I would bet that other Residential Designers feel the same way. Our company wins awards in quality in design, and our builders win awards in our area for quality of the construction. We pride ourselves on that. A McMansion is not custom, nor semi-custom. They are massed produced Production homes.

[nativeDallasite]

Originally Posted by Noahma

the bold and red text above best describes what a McMansion is,
your damn right I am going to defend and draw the fine line on what is Mcmansions and what is custom, semi-custom. I have worked in the industry for long enough to be able to draw this distinction. I spend way to much time prefecting this form of art to have a derogitory term applied to it. I would bet that other Residential Designers feel the same way. Our company wins awards in quality in design, and our builders win awards in our area for quality of the construction. We pride ourselves on that. A McMansion is not custom, nor semi-custom. They are massed produced Production homes..

It doesn't really matter how much time you spend designing it or how proud you are of it; the other poster made an excellent point: the public decides what's a McMansion and what isn't, not the architects or builders.

Sorry!

[Noahma]

When I get a chance to get out this weekend to do a few site visits. I will take a few pictures of what a Colorado Mc.Mansion sub-division looks like compared to a custom development. It is plain as day and night between the two of them.

[nativeDallasite]

Originally Posted by Noahma

When I get a chance to get out this weekend to do a few site visits. I will take a few pictures of what a Colorado Mc.Mansion sub-division looks like compared to a custom development. It is plain as day and night between the two of them.

Maybe to you, but us non-architects/real estate developers obviously don't know the difference and need to be educated in what is tacky and what isn't. Right?

[Noahma]

The decision is ultimately the buyer, but there is still a very distinct line between what is Mcmansion and what is not. The name implies mass production with the comparison between Mc.Donalds and not. you can get a burger from Mc. Donnalds, and you can get a burger from a 5 star restaurant. They are both burgers, but one is using fresher ingredients, and care is taken to make it for the customer that ordered it, not just grabbing one of 1000's made that day and kept warm under a heat lamp.

this is definatly a Mc.Mansion in my mind, never would I be happy about doing a scrape in an established sub-division, to build a monstrosity as this.


not a Mc.Mansion. the lots in these types of sub-division were set with the larger homes in mind.