Why are most houses so badly designed?

Phil_aka_Pip

EG: wasted space. Who needs 4 bathrooms + ensuite? Why would you want a massive kitchen, plus a dining room that's too small to be used for much else than a dining room and only gets used once a week, and then put up with a lounge thats way to long and thin to be any good with a decent-sized stereo?

My ideal = a decent-sized kitchen that you can eat in as well (luxury spec = that plus enough space to include family/day room: a few easy chairs etc); a lounge that you could put your stereo and telly in and have at least 10ft between the speakers; another room that could be used as a music room which in my case implies at least 16ft long and not much less wide.

Compromises: using a bedroom as a lounge if there's not enough rooms on the grouind floor.

Most houses I look at would require knocking through 2 bedrooms to make a decent sized lounge, that's assuming the ground floor plan is any good which in most cases it isn't.

randella

Old houses get knocked around, bathrooms were brought indoors wherever they'd fit.  One room turned into two for the kids.  Kitchen tacked on the back wherever it'd go.

New houses are built to a price and a minimum government-mandated room size in order to get as many as possible on a given plot.

The house I've just moved out of was built in the 60's and was great, but for the tiny bathroom (about 1600 square, slightly too small for a standard bath).

I'd bet three-quarters of house grumbles could be blamed on the above.  They're never *quite* right.

jellyroll

We've just re-wired our house. Not so bad? Except the entire house is made of concrete........

ronnyb

Know exactly what you mean. I live in a decent sized detached bungalow, 3 beds, well 2 and a box room actually. It has a huge L shaped hallway that is completely wasted space. All the main rooms could have an extra foot on them if the hall was smaller and it would still be functional.

Phil_aka_Pip

Some houses (not always modern ones) have a massive amount of wasted space in the "hallway". Barn conversions are the worst. All the space you'd like to use for making music or listening to it has kitchen units round it plus a little island in the middle with stools I'd never sit on, then there's a massive dining room that's too big for a dining room but not big enough for anything else, you'd think there would be plenty of bedroom space but the mezzanine is tiny so as to make a huge void over the kitchen area that would cost a fortune to heat ...

... I'm convinced architects have to have 2/3 of their brain cells removed before they get their licence to practice ...

TTony

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Why are most houses so badly designed?

Most houses today are designed to get the most number of rooms out of the least amount of space. 

I can remember my sisters sharing a bedroom for years.  Can you imagine that happening today?  Everyone wants their own bit of space, no matter how small that space actually is.  

Similarly, we had one bathroom (and a loo downstairs) for parents + 3 kids.    It never seemed to be a major problem.  Nowadays, with (some) men spending as much time on "personal hygiene" and "grooming" as an 80's movie star did, everyone wants their own bathroom space, or make-up mirror.

Estate houses are designed and built to hit what "most people" want. 

I know it's ridiculous, but  the needs of the single male musician, with an interest in hifi, just don't get considered often enough.

Phil_aka_Pip

TTony said:

the needs of the single male musician, with an interest in hifi, just don't get considered often enough.

fixed

TTony

Phil_aka_Pip said:

 Barn conversions are the worst. 

That's because barns were designed for cattle.  And planners want to retain the illusion that the countryside is still full of barns, so conversions have to stay within the original form factor.  They're a massive compromise, and good design is generally incompatible with compromise!

Phil_aka_Pip

Don't you just hate it when the estate agent says "How many bedrooms"? I don't give a shit. What's it's ground floor layout like, does it have a stree light outside??

Phil_aka_Pip

TTony said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

 Barn conversions are the worst. 

That's because barns were designed for cattle.  And planners want to retain the illusion that the countryside is still full of barns, so conversions have to stay within the original form factor.  They're a massive compromise, and good design is generally incompatible with compromise!

I'm damn sure I could make way better use of the space AND keep the original form factor. How hard can it be to turn an empty rectangular box into something with 3 decent sized rooms on the ground floor plus a mezzanine with 3 beds and a bathroom?

not_the_dj

Calling @kevinmccloud

scrumhalf

jellyroll said:

We've just re-wired our house. Not so bad? Except the entire house is made of concrete........

Cuts down on window-cleaning bills, I would imagine.

EricTheWeary

Certainly needs shift over time. I grew up in a 4 bedroom house with six of us living there. It had one tiny bathroom. I'm assuming that in 1966 when it was built ( so this is a relatively modern house) the architects didn't think that all six people ( okay, they probably assumed a maximum occupancy of five) would  want a bath every night so it probably seemed adequate. 
This morning I went to see someone who lives in a council house built in the 50s. Tiny house, massive garden. The thinking was that people would be using those gardens to be growing their own veg because that's what people did in 1950. 
They have to guess how people are going to live and they not only get that wrong but often completely useless in terms of future predictions. 
When I worked in Telford this was on estates with minimal car parking and poor vehicular access to houses. The assumption in 1970 was that the relatively poor people who lived there were never going to be car owners ( or even recieve deliveries).

It's amazing how wrong some of these things turned out to be. 

Phil_aka_Pip

ronnyb said:

 a decent sized detached bungalow, 3 beds, well 2 and a box room actually.

That's the other thing. Estate agents often say "2/3 beds". Well come on, which is it? 2, or 3??

Kilgore

Phil_aka_Pip said:

ronnyb said:

 a decent sized detached bungalow, 3 beds, well 2 and a box room actually.

That's the other thing. Estate agents often say "2/3 beds". Well come on, which is it? 2, or 3??

In some new builds it's actually a fraction.

CabbageCat

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Why are most houses designed as if someone other than me might live in them?

It's a fucking mystery.

ronnyb

Phil_aka_Pip said:

ronnyb said:

 a decent sized detached bungalow, 3 beds, well 2 and a box room actually.

That's the other thing. Estate agents often say "2/3 beds". Well come on, which is it? 2, or 3??

You couldn't get a bed in number 3, mainly because its stacked floor to ceiling with guitar cases. 

Phil_aka_Pip

@ronnyb yep, my "dining room" is host to 2 off 4x12" cabs stacked, 1 off 4x15" cab with 2 small combos sitting on top, 1 off 1x15" cab with a keyboard combo and a wedge monitor stacked on top, 2 off flightcased combos with other stuff stacked on top ... there is just enough room for a dropleaf table and 3 chairs.

"Architects" just don't think, do they?

ronnyb

Phil_aka_Pip said:

@ronnyb yep, my "dining room" is host to 2 off 4x12" cabs stacked, 1 off 4x15" cab with 2 small combos sitting on top, 1 off 1x15" cab with a keyboard combo and a wedge monitor stacked on top, 2 off flightcased combos with other stuff stacked on top ... there is just enough room for a dropleaf table and 3 chairs.

"Architects" just don't think, do they?

Clutterer.

Phil_aka_Pip

CabbageCat said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Why are most houses designed as if someone other than me might live in them?

It's a fucking mystery.

twat. The question is Why are most houses designed as if someone with no hobbies or interests might live in them?

My mum doesn't want a music room, but she does want a room with sufficient space and light for her to paint pictures or fix up clothes. Most people have some kind of hobby to which they need to dedicate space. If all you do is go to work and off out to the pub in the evening then a shoebox may be OK (you were lucky we had to live in hole in t'middle of t'road), but even so most people don't go to the pub any more ... so unless they are going out elsewhere the need (demand?) for a decent amount of space in the house must be going up not down.

p90fool

Four bathrooms plus an ensuite? I have one, and it has to have a sliding door because it's not big enough to open one into it, you must live in a palace  

Houses are designed to attract the biggest number of buyers, my ideal of a ground floor made up entirely of motorcycle storage with a pokey flat upstairs wouldn't attract that many customers.

In architects'  defence I will say that over the years I've known a few people who've designed and built their own houses, and they've always had some weirdly unworkable compromise which sounded great to their inner teenager, but was shit in practice.