What Were They Thinking: House design misses that should end
Some homeowners (at least, that’s what the designers say) don’t know when enough is enough. In a certain affluent subdivision south of Manila, there is an unconscionable preponderance of badly designed vacation houses, many of them disconcertingly similar to one another (in fact, some are almost copies of each other), as if a tight circle of architect mafiosi have monopolized the build-and-sell business in the neighborhood. Below are examples of house design disasters that just shouldn’t be repeated.
You know the saying, “Try and try again?” Well, in the case of architecture, sometimes you just shouldn’t. Because committing a bad design decision on a house or a building, even if it’s just once, is more than enough. Unlike unflattering lipstick that you can wipe off or an ill-fitting suit you can retire, you and your neighbors have to suffer the sight of badly designed exteriors day in and day out.
House design miss 1: Fake bricks
This looks like someone got a hold of a fancy-looking Band-Aid and decided to plaster it all over.
Inset: The placement of windows in this house design is so random—somebody cover them with Band-Aid too.
The architects here love to use fake brick cladding like it’s wallpaper.
I can take the fake Middle German timber frame on the gable, but the fake brick-clad scalloped balcony over the garage?
READ MORE: What Were They Thinking: Neo-classical elements out of context
House design miss 2: Textures
When a house develops chickenpox. Everybody quick, get your houses vaccinated.
Dear Homeowner, there’s a battalion of sperm on your textured wall. I believe you have a clear case of sexualized home harassment. Call your lawyer this instant. And what’s with the fake trellis?
House design miss 3: Concrete trellis and fake trellis ends
Did I mention they love concrete trellises and fake trellis ends poking out of walls?
House design miss 4: Windows
Unfortunately, good sir, your windows came with eyebrows. Perhaps you can have them plucked?
Your off-center window is putting my OCD on full throttle. And what’s with the round windows that look like exhaust vents?
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House design miss 5: Color
Whoever told you to make bloody red accents of bloody shapes out of a ginormous bloody cookie-cutter should go to bloody purgatory and repent of their house design sins.
This is why crayons should be restricted to children from 6 to 12 years of age.
Crimson framed ceramic tiles and a mustard yellow gate. Your house design makes me want to overdose on Tylenol.
I blame your guacamole-hued paint for making that poor tree turn sterile.
House design miss 6: Fence
That moment when you decide to buy a gate and you come home to realize you already have one. Brilliant.
Let me put it this way: cross-section of a cake.
Sir, your use of grills and blue-green hues in this house design is an addiction. Please seek help.
Inset: Beyond the fence is another fence to keep people away from a water fountain standing in a small tiled pool topped by—you guessed it—a trellis.
READ MORE: What Were They Thinking: The mixed-use Plazuela de Iloilo development with misused styles
House design miss 7: Awnings and gutters
Absolutely no silver lining in this silver gutter. There are over a dozen homes here with Sarao jeepney stainless steel fenders and bumpers for gutters.
Look, pal. You know, I know, we know and they know that those rusted steel rods do nothing to hold up those concrete awnings. Stop this house design madness, please.
House design miss 8: Entrance
Ain’t no mountain high enough to keep me from you…Uh, sorry, but your front steps are way too high for me and my lola to make it up there.
House design miss 9: Style
If you want to achieve the majestic appeal of pillars, don’t interrupt the vertical sightline—certainly not with a garage of a totally disparate style and material.
Good lawd, I don’t know where to begin with this house design. Somebody just call an exorcist. It’s possessed by the spirit of bad taste.
Ah, and the pièce de résistance. Legend in these parts has it that whenever the king of the castle is home, Excalibur is drawn from the pile of—er, stone. I guess this means King Arthur has left the building.
This first appeared in BluPrint Volume 1 and 2 2014. Edits were made for BluPrint online.
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