Current architectural styles?

I apologize for "parachuting" into this group but I'm trying to learn if there is a generally accepted name for the style of housing architecture that is currently popular in the USA. These houses are typically very vertical with high-pitched roofs. Multiple (often unnecessary) roof lines, giving them a layered appearance. Narrow eaves. Turrets, gables, etc. They stand in total contrast to modern architecture, ranch style houses and the prairie school and seem to emphasize form over function. The only names I've heard for this style are pejorative, such as "Yuppie Pseudo Victorian", "Kitsch Neo Gothic", etc. I was wondering if there is a name for this architectural style that is not derogatory?

Reply to
Donald Newcomb
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BWE - Big White Elephant

Reply to
Michael (LS)

Dual garage frontal? (the garages are often the forward and irritatingly menacing element) Megacottagic? Cementboardorific? (and the extremelylimited color palette that goes with cement board) Gablemanical? (what you are decribing below.)

Reply to
++

No.

Well... at least not from most of this group.

Are you looking for a name? The problem with almost all of them is that they are uniformly poorly designed and, even in many cases, downright ugly. If it's a "style" in its own right it would be derogatorily named. Kind of like putting a tu-tu on a rhino and saying it's pretty.

(and from the text of your post, you seem to agree that there really isn't a nice thing to say about them, either)

Reply to
3D Peruna

Hardie Boarded Garage Frontal Neo Colonialist ?

Reply to
++

\\ spelling eror - Gablemaniacal.

the color palette comes from the cheapest Hardie board or clone. Ex.

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Reply to
++

I don't think so, unless some uneducated builder/developer/designer/realtor calls them 'traditional' to distinguish them from whatever the masses think is the opposite from that, say 'modern', or 'contemporary', or 'ranch', or any other reasonably accepted stylistic appellation.

It isn't a conscious 'style' underpinned by any kind of ideal, other than any espoused by PT Barnum. It's more of a marketing formula. It's the architectural equivalent of that stuff graphic designers put into their mock-ups:

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

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BTW, the shine one the 'form follows function' line wore through to the cheap white metal under it long ago. I don't know anyone with an architectural education under the age of 80 who sees that as anything but quaintly naive, or cynically pompous. (I wonder if even *that* will even get a rise out of someone.)

Reply to
Michael Bulatovich

I think "crap" is a decent name for the style, though "nifonging crap" works too. Or we could go with "neo-profit driven" style.

Reply to
Edgar

nifonging crap would be redundant. Nifongian is probably a good start...

Reply to
3D Peruna

I like that :)

Reply to
Edgar

various people continued juvenile inappropriate naming:

Thi all falls under the category of the drawing so bad that when mommy is shown it for the fourth time, she realizes that baby needs encouragement. So she says "Oh, how creative, darling" but saves the "Oh, how good!" for the drawing that actually shows promise.

It's simply innappropriate to make fun of anyone's name. The person you are making fun of in hopes to somehow making smaller so you can momentarily congratulate yourself on being bigger, probably has perfectly decent relatives who might be nice people to know, if you weren't the person making fun of their surname.

Reply to
++

I'm definitely not bigger, and this is a open forum, if you don't like it don't read it, or go the extra mile and plonk us. We're not going to change the world in here, as much as you think we might.

Reply to
Edgar

read it, or go the extra mile and plonk us.

Who's "us"

I'm thinking I was suggesting that it is inappropriate to make fun of someone's surname, especially an attempt to turn a surname into a common currency root insult. I would be wrong to fail to comment on such an insult.

Reply to
++

Pretty much everyone else who took the nifonging thread exactly as it was...a joke thread.

Exactly, and you also suggesting that us groupies in the alt.architecture newsgroup have the unlimited might to bring such a thing to pass, that is, turning a name into a common currency root insult. Believe me when I say, we don't, and the word will probably not get farther than this and other related newsgroups. If it goes further, then I truly underestimated the power of this newsgroup.

Reply to
Edgar

quisling

Reply to
3D Peruna

Remember that James Crapper invented or popularized the flush toilet. "No good deed goes unpunished" EDS

Reply to
eds

BWE is reserved for use by the Bucket Wheel Excavator and I'd thank you not to sully the holy acronym. Harumph.

Reply to
gruhn

I have a number of acquaintances who have been calling the current sitting president "Twig" and similar words since before he was first elected. I find it says far more about them than it does the president.

On the other hand, using the word "nifong" derogatorily as seen here is and expanding its use to verb and adjective forms is not making fun of the name but rather is a comment on the person. And in particular, not "making fun" at all but rather making a serious political comment that needs to be spread.

"Twig" says "I have no actual complaints to make about this person and must 'attack' his name." "Nifong" says "this person has done something so notable that it needs to be marked, perhaps for all time."

I suppose that if you consider his actions laudable then you may feel that the use of his name is mere taunting. Even so, you'd have to admit that it would be making fun of him and not his name.

"Twig" is a clear try at a pun. A kind of joke. A way to make fun of the thing itself. "Nifonging" isn't much as a direct mock at the name. It's more of a gerund. A way to ... noun verbs.

Ah, good old armchair psychology. I give it as much credence as I read "Pop Psych".

In that vein... "why, what happened to you?"

Reply to
gruhn

Nah, they use twig, because Bush is already taken for so many, many wonderful things, LOL.

Reply to
Edgar

"Michael Bulatovich" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news3.newsguy.com:

There is a reason for that. It is used because (1) the text itself does not color a client's perception of the page-layout design, and (2) it allows clients and designers to make consistant and direct comparisons of layouts and typefaces. It allows a page-layout designer to look at the text as a graphic element, rather than being distracted by the text's content. When one is doing page layout (well, if one is even minimally competent, that is...), one looks at the emotional impact of the grapical elements of the page. There are well-established (and well-researched) compositional guidelines that are applicable to all of the visual arts, and involve porportion, position, arrangement (vertical versus horizontal versus diagonal), numbers of elements, and so on. The graphic/page-layout designer is supposed to arrange the graphic elements so that they reinforce the message of the actual text. Having a standardized chunk of nonsense- text allow the designer to do that.

At any rate, assuming even a minimal level of visual-graphic competence, the standardized nonsense text is, in reality, quite the opposite from what you indicate. It's actually rather a *good* example of "form follows function" when it comes to page layout and typeface design/choice, because its form was designed to fulfill a very specific function, which it does very well.

The problem with the saying is that, even in the biological world, "form follows function" holds true only up to a point, and often a rather limited point at that, because even a very specific function ends up having an vast variety of natural solutions (i.e., forms).

Certain basic principles exist - such as, a mollusk will have a smooth interior to its shell because that smoothness prevents unnecessary injury. but look at the tremendous variety in the sizes and shapes and colors of shells. OK, yes, all shells are "containers" at their most basic level, but that's as far as the similarities often go. A Mussel shell is a shelter/container, and a Giant Conch shell is also a shelter/container, but they are otherwise dissimilar.

Now, it *is* true that some forms are inherently either dysfunctional or even non-functional (such as a cubic shell with an abrasive interior). And, similarly, some floorplans are barely functional, but the arrangements were arrived at using constraints other than pure functionality, including marketing constraints such as the notion that "everyone wants a fireplace", so designers are instructed to ignore how much it might interfere with a room's functionality, or at least, functional efficiency.

The point being that one can take a specific function, and arrive at multiple forms/spatial arrangements that will work, albeit better for some people than for others. ANd therein lies teh other complication: different people have different needs, and what is functional for one person can be quite to opposite for another person.

So, "form follows function" has good alliteration and rhythm, making it a cute "sound bite", but it's a general guideline more than an absolute law.

- K.

Reply to
Kris Krieger

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