Why are new builds all so ugly?

Dudda

Tiny back garden - cheaper

No front garden - cheaper

Box type shape - cheaper

Standard grey windows - cheaper

Grey cladding instead of brick - cheaper

Tiny box rooms - cheaper

Plastic ESB meter boxes at front door - cheaper

Cheap plastic electrical sockets and light switches instead of designer metal - cheaper

No trees or very limited landscaping - cheaper

Plain interior rooms with no covings, white walls - cheaper

Plain timber internal doors painted white - cheaper

Plain MDF skirtings and architraves - cheaper

Standard chrome door handles - cheaper

No fireplace - cheaper (but also easier to meet regulations)

Steep narrow stairs - cheaper

Three stories instead of two floors to fit more buildings - cheaper

Anyone starting to notice a pattern? House prices are expensive as they are without adding another 150 - 200k to improve the look and quality. 

You’d be amazed at the pressure to reduce prices and waste building houses. For example the size of a window is influenced by the size of a concrete block to avoid having to cut a block. That saves a blocklayer about 10 minutes per window, half a bucket of cement and about 3 blocks. So if you’re looking at a window and thinking it should be 4 inches wider keep that in mind.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055763#Comment_119055763

The "extension from day 1" trend appears to have started during the tiger. There's lots of houses around here like that built in the past 15 years. Your one ticks a lot of the boxes

Surrounded by barren site

Corner window

Fake stone glued onto the walls

Ugly flat roof section

Grey everywhere, will never be painted

Really it should have the pointy opposing "darth vader" windows on the other side, maybe it does?

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119045885#Comment_119045885

Those actually arent the worst, although they're not great

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119031477#Comment_119031477

They are both equally prone to ugliness as far as I can tell.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119045885#Comment_119045885

Agreed. We live in the ruins of a better civilisation.

SodiumCooled

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055665#Comment_119055665

10 years is extreme but why the need to finish everything from day 1? There is more important things to put money into especially with the current level of prices. We want to get our house built and enough finished so we can move in asap, get enough interior rooms finished to a high standard (kitchen, master bedroom etc) to enable us to live there and then finish the rest as we go. Things like garden, spare bedrooms etc are very low priority, painting we plan to do all ourselves so will be gradual. This is the normal way of doing things with self-builds.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055763#Comment_119055763

I think someone said earlier that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this is definitely true for houses. To me that's a very nice house, nice modern design and as I had another thread on it no point denying I am very much considering no facia and soffit for our own build - we are very 50:50 on it still as we are still undecided if it will suit our house. It really suits that house you have linked to.

Personally speaking one thing I really dislike on new (or old houses as they have them too) are pointed church like windows.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055763#Comment_119055763

The lack of a facia is the least worst thing about this abortion. A jumble awkwardly clumped together.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055904#Comment_119055904

Beauty is objective, not subjective, and we've totally lost sight of it.

https://twitter.com/arch_crimes/status/1504081579877961729

Spudmonkey

All periods in time have their own style. Nowadays its a more minimalist style possibly passed off as Kirving mentioned above with the subtext of cost saving. And it makes sense to build nowadays with all the advantages that we have in terms of larger windows, better insulation, better quality products.

I'm not sure if minimalist designs age well. At least they need a lot of maintenance and like all styles their time will eventually pass. There are a lot of things about the design of houses and I don't really know who is to blame (probably a mixture of planners/builders/owners). E.g north facing gardens/patios/conservatories, some modern houses completely dark despite an overwhelming abundance of windows, houses finished with the Dermot Bannon style box with huge windows staring out on a pile of sand two years after the house being built.

I also really don't understand the size of houses out in the countryside. Some are absolutely massive and with only 3-4 people living in them. In years to come they will be impossible to heat to a reasonable standard. Had I built one of them myself I'd possibly have reduced the size and spent ~30k of that build on landscaping. You'd end up in a house with a nicer setting and easier to clean/heat.

sydthebeat

who wants to go back to the bad old days of 'bungalow blight' ??

in my opinion these designs are much more considered, interesting and sited into the landscape than the above:

mickdw

Designs obviously far ahead of the typical 80s bungalow.

People are running away with themselves though. Room sizes are getting out of hand and adding in typical features as required today, build cost is just through the roof.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119056308#Comment_119056308

2 & 4 are not bad. 3 would be OK too if it didn't have the god awful corner window

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119066149#Comment_119066149

2 is terrible.

Georgian bars in windows, fake curves to windows, unfunctional square quoins to external corners, dwelling cut into site, concrete front wall with mock balusters, house set into a lake of asphalt with terrible "drive around"

2 is a lot more resolved design. respectably set into landscape, no obnoxious drive / car spaces. the corner window is obviously functional to take account for view.

funny thing is both houses are probably similarly sized, but a world apart when it comes to design.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119066149#Comment_119066149

Most people are looking for that corner window. Lintel for that cost circa 10k never mind the window / door cost.

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119066241#Comment_119066241

That doesn't look like a corner window to me, it looks like there's a steel pillar in it.

I have a couple of proper corner windows in my 80s house and there's nothing in the corner except wooden window frame.

mickdw

Of course there is a pole there.

Doing a small corner window without a pole is ok but doing that build without corner support would not be possible with simple domestic construction.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119056308#Comment_119056308

The 2 new designs you linked here are just as bad as the older houses you linked. I cant see how they sit into the landscape better - they are bland and boring. They will age really badly. Natural Stone should have been incorporated if they wanted it to sit into the landscape.

Building houses is something the victorians and georgians got right. These houses were designed and built by true craftspeople. They are still as beautiful now as they were when they were built. Modern architecture is trully awful.

Kintarō Hattori

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119031263#Comment_119031263

All the time here. We have it planted with grass, a hedge and some plants. My five year old loves sitting on the doormat to soak up the evening sun. We also have a bench and enjoy a coffee when it's mild.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119069383#Comment_119069383

I have a soft spot for our tiny number of art deco buildings and mid-century housing. The latter were solid houses, ok they need to be brought up to spec insulation-wise, nice lines but spoiled with modern stuck-on 'improvements'.

monseiur

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119038394#Comment_119038394

Another more pertinent reason for smaller windows was what was known as Glass Tax or Window Tax. This tax was introduced by the English parliament back in the 1690's and was abolished at the end of the 19th century. The more square feet of glass you had in your house the more tax you paid, so when building a house the poorer classes kept the no. of windows to the very minimium and as small as possible. On the other hand, the rich had huge windows on their houses to show off their wealth !

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119070031#Comment_119070031

The bloody Brits eh?

In some of the poor African countries they barged into they imposed a 'hut tax' to encourage the locals to become """civilised""" and move into Western-style houses

dragonkin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119056308#Comment_119056308

The designs of the first two and the third are basically the same, a long rectangle with a roof on top. The third has too many windows, reminds me of my student accommodation where you always felt on display and the neighbours could see exactly what you were up to.

Im not a fan of the original bungalows but I’d say they’re probably more comfy inside than the more modern version also the colours are more natural, something very stark and minimalistic about the third house,

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119072661#Comment_119072661

the FORM of both are similar, though the first house is hipped.

however the designs couldnt be much different, they are a world apart.

its obvious that the first two are typical bungalow bliss, hallway down the centre, double deep plan form. You can see in the first house that the living room to the front is in the completely wrong place. it has a single aspect most probably facing east (going by the shadows) and it is sandwiched between the entrance hall and whatever that room is to the front left.

the orientation of house two is harder to determine because of the clouds, but its obviously a double deep plan as well, meaning one half of the house is always colder than the other, and probably has to have lights on all day. Assuming the kitchen is most probably in the back right of the photo, because its "cut into" the site, it means youre looking out the window at a concrete wall and grass bank... delightful. its again obvious that there are much better views on the left hand side of the house, yet there was absolutely no attempt to design for these views. its very clearly a house plan dropped onto a site with no consideration for the orientation or topography.

at least house 3 has retained a single room deep plan which allows for that double aspect window in the living space, clearly a large open planned space. the patio is very well considered with no disturbance from cars and looks like a lovely place to be on a sunny day. House 2 has none of this.

"stark and minimal" equates to resolved and considered. trust me, as a designer, "simple" is extremely hard to achieve. a circle is the most perfect, simple form... but how many edges were chipped away to achieve it??

petronius

Seems all architects and designers of new builds and refits have drunk from the same font. Many things seem to be cut and paste from the fashionable designs of today. Grand Designs and Room to improve have a lot to answer. High ceilings to let light in, walkin wardrobes the BS Bingo of architects

Cladding that doesn't age well, they all seem to be taken from an IKEA brochure, with house interiors that look like your office, decking that will last a few winters (how environmentally unfriendly), gardens without grass (not absorbing/storing water)....

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119074244#Comment_119074244

Cladding that doesn't age well, they all seem to be taken from an IKEA brochure, with house interiors that look like your office, decking that will last a few winters (how environmentally unfriendly), gardens without grass (not absorbing/storing water)....

sounds like youve more of a problem with builders than designers.

dudda has already dealt with this succinctly above.

High ceilings to let light in

oh the horror !!!!

🙄

mickdw

Rurally, the design guidelines have really steered design to narrow form with simple detailing. That is why alot of the new builds are of this style and it's no bad thing.

I'm not a fan of timber cladding myself. It ages very quickly and designers appear to be fine with that and argue that this is as it's supposed to be but imo it's just a maintenance and repair issue for the future.

Stephen_Maturin

Can’t stand the modern new builds.

Horrible boxy profiles, that manky dull cladding everywhere, overuse of glass and crappy pine - makes for sterile, soulless “homes”.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119075222#Comment_119075222

Pine?

When was the last time you looked at a new build house? Pine detailing is definitely not modern.

Stephen_Maturin

The pine was in reference to the interiors

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119080605#Comment_119080605

Yes, I know. Pine detailing everywhere is a Tiger-era thing, definitely not modern.

You won't see any pine skirtings or doors or window frames in any houses being built today.