Our house is a 70’s house.
Which is to say it was designed and built during an era when architects did really stupid things.
One look at our roof will tell you that. The south slope has a mind of its own. Instead of meeting the north slope at the peak, it ends at a wall which rises another two feet to the ridge line.
In a better designed 70’s home, this wall would hold a row of windows to welcome the sun onto a vaulted ceiling. But we don’t have a vaulted ceiling - just a wall across our roof, clad in vinyl.
It looks ridiculous.
It is not just the roof that looks like this, one half of the house is actually smaller than the other.
When our guests first come to visit, I have to explain it away by telling them that the factory shipped the wrong halves of a prefab home and instead of correcting the error, the builder simply cobbled it together.
But in the 1970’s, design like that was considered revolutionary because it broke all the rules. Now it looks just plain dumb.
So what makes for bad architecture?
The same thing that makes for bad writing.
The key to bad anything can be found in the words of the worst insult one can toss at any work of art: "It must have won a prize."
I am sure the architect of our house was thinking about a prize when he or she drew up the plans. Â Okay, if not a prize, they were thinking about their portfolio. Â What they were not thinking about was us, the people who have to live there.
How could they be?
Since the south half of the house is smaller than the north half, we have all kinds of problems. Â The kitchen is so cramped that you have to stand off to the side to open the refrigerator door. Â The bedroom closet has only half the space it would in a normal configuration. Â The list is long.
So how did this happen?
Well, it looked great on paper. Â Maybe even good enough to win a prize - and right there is the essence of bad design. Â When the designer is focused on something other than their customer, they are inevitably doing their worst work.
The irony is, they think they are doing their best work.
The same goes for writing. When we find ourselves impressed by the brilliance of our words, it is a good time to back off and think about the reader. Â Will the writing be clear to them? Â Will they enjoy our words as much as we do? Â Are we adding to the story or just trying to be clever?
If not, we are in danger of writing badly.
I couldn't leave you without an example. Â Here is a paragraph from a book reveiw:
Banville is one of the great stylists of our times. He is a dedicated lexiphile possessed of preternatural lucidity whose accurate sentences unfurl with such fluency and syntactic grace that even the most quotidian descriptions are rendered euphonious. One does not simply read Banville; one luxuriates in the susurrating glory of his prose. - James Levy writing in The Age
One does not have to wait forty years for styles to change to realize just how atrocious that paragraph is.
Now please don't confuse poor writing with bad writing. Poor writing happens when we are careless and screw up, and anyone can do that - like when we mangle a sentence or deliver the wrong halves of a prefab home.
Bad writing is something else entirely - it takes effort.
Â
(h/t Mark Nicol at Daily Writing Tips)
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Comments: 76
One man's trash is another man's treasure? One man's bad writing is another man's joy? Is it all in the eye of the beholder or is the beholder so out of touch with what is deemed "bad"?
Will those who lack humility recognize that they lack it -- even if they are singled out and publically shamed? Probably not.
The difference though - is the writer. We have all read a lot of writing that was only written for the writer themselves. Which is fine...but then why was it published?
Thanks for sharing with Gather’s Luminous Writers & Artists where it's now featured.
But then we have to remind ourselves; we have to live here.
about the writing. your example was perfect. this was clearly a case of somebody doing their best to impress the reader with their superior intelligence. a reader sniffs out lose ends faster then greased lighting so the writer cannot leave them hanging.
It's great if a writer has a well-developed vocabulary - but often times what needs to be said can be said better with simple words and simple sentences.
A good rule of thumb is to send your reader scampering for the dictionary no more than once per article.
Car designers should also have to drive the cars they design. Most cars are made for tall people. Short people like me need a double jointed right arm to access the console, which is slightly behind me when I'm driving.
OH GAG ME WITH A SPOON..
About architecture. Yeah, 70s was bad. We live in an old 110-year house, but it is a two family and poorly designed. Not a proper closet anywhere. Kitchen has been redeisgned and is lovely. The other rooms suck. No closet can you hang a dress or skirt in. Or walk around in. And no coat closet. Hang your coats in the hall and you can't walk up to the finished attic...
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Let's not beat up on poor Mr. Banville. It was Mr. Levy who wrote the review. Of course if Levy like him, that is a strike against Banville.
In our old apartment, the master bedroom was huge - and had two large closets, and in between those two was a humongous walk in closet. That was my storage room. I stored all my kids baby stuff there, plus anything not in use. When we moved last year, I do believe most of the stuff packed was from that walk in closet...
Featured in Bad writing and bad architecture don't mix: In other words, don't put your pen where you lay your hoe in the Triple Name Club.
Did you read the NPR article on hyphenated names? It would be a great link for the Triple Name Club.
See When Hyphen Boy Meets Hyphen Girl, Names Pile Up
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I love this challenge, Greg. Your responses should be fun.
You know who writes luxuriant prose? Ray Bradbury.
Bradbury did and we loved him for it but one thing Ray never would have written would be a paragraph like Mr Levy's.
Thanks for sharing with Surreal Circus
That is the way they did things on the farm.
First: Most residences aren't designed by architects, they're simply built. An experienced builder can look at other homes or designs and put something up. If you're house was designed by an architect, then it probably has greater than 3000 square feet of living space. By law a space greater than 3500 square feet requires a licensed architect or engineer to sign off on the blue prints, anything less than that requires a monkey, a napkin, a pen and a building code official's seal. So unless your house is 60' x 50' or greater, Bob the builder did it, not Andre the architect.
I'm not saying Andre the Architect or Ed the engineer couldn't have designed your house, it's just that it is unlikely they did. It really isn't worth their time to do it. Architects and engineers get paid a percentage of the project's projected and adjusted cost, so a typical 3 bed 2 bath is not going to provide them the income that a commercial, industrial or institutional project will net them. It also would take up too much of their time, verses what they would make from it.
Outside of a large space the only other reason an architect or engineer would be associated directly with a residence would be a difficult piece of construction or a feature that could be dangerous if not designed or engineered properly. A lot of Post Modern or Industrial Design residences use architects for this reason. Towering sheets of glass and iron stairways do not make a safe residential space, so someone had to manage how they where installed before a ticket of occupancy was issued.
Second: The feature you refer to at the beginning of your article is called a clerestory space. These where invented by Ancient Egyptians as a way of providing light and air into a tall space surrounded by shorter spaces. Modern clerestories typically have single hung windows, but they don't have to. Like I alluded to before you don't need to be an architect to put this into a house design, you can be Bob the builder or Herby the homeowner with a subscription to House Plans Monthly. You are probably right that it is a design from the 70's though, A-frames and clerestories where very much in vogue then. Just a dumb decade all the way around.
Third: "all architects should have to spend at least a year banging nails before they even pick up their magic pencil." Not every architect does, but most do. It is a very large issue in the community and many colleges with accredited schools of architecture do have hands on programs for their students; it's been like that since the 90's. Again if you see odd designs, poor construction or something that doesn't make sense to you, it's probably because the house was built by a non-traditional builder (homeowner) or features where asked for by a homeowner and furnished by a builder. A builder might come to an engineer for advice or a change order on a home, but again the time versus the cost of creating a residential construction document set makes it very unattractive to an architect or architectural firm.
I know a builder that changed walls on a residence several times at the request of the home owner and then the home owner balked at paying because the wall still wasn't "right." This is a good example of why architects, engineers and even some builders won't touch a residence that is less than 3500 square feet. It's just a massive waste of time, that can be controlled by the building code official.
Fourth: A reason that you may dislike your home is that it was built with someone else in mind. It is comparatively rare that people find an open spot of land and put up a house. It's an expensive proposition even if you know how to use a level and a chalk line and it takes a lot of time. A good book for you and everyone else to read is "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HOUSE IN THE WORLD" by Witold Rybczynski.
However the point of your article is a valid one, even if architects have nothing to do with your example.
You probably had it right when you said, "House Plans Monthly". I am sure that is where Bob the builder got them - and yes, his name actually was Bob.Hey thanks, that is an interesting term to know.My gripe with the design is that it impinges on the livability of the house. The kitchen and bedroom are abbreviated for purely "aesthetic" reasons which is an architectural crime because function is sacrificed for form. I doubt this was the Bob's idea since he incurred additional expense in time and materials to construct the oddly shaped foundation. I guess that he went with a plan that he thought would attract a buyer to pay a premium because of the "modern" design.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were mirror copies of our house all around the nation.
My point with the essay was one I borrowed from Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things; that good design, whether it be architecture, industrial design or the written word, should be centered on the people who use it.
Again as I stated in my response, as long as the living space is under 3500 square feet, no design professional is needed. I am an architectural drafter and the only time I have ever been used on a residence is when a couple wanted a specific plan. To be very honest on that occasion she could have used any one of the house planning software packages available and the plans would have been accepted by the building code officials. When I said all you need is a monkey, a pen and a napkin to submit a set of plans I was only slightly kidding. Check with your building and zoning officials and ask them how many actual construction documents (that's what architects actually call blue prints) they get for small residences. It won't be many, all you really need is for a building code official to tick off your punch out list as you build the home.
As for the odd spaces in your house I encounter those in homes that where built a long time ago (like the 50's through 80's) and the landlord or homeowner has made adjustments. Many of the times it has nothing to do with aesthetics or functionality, but with hiding mistakes when they add on to a home. That is actually what your house sounds like. If you went to the office of records they would have your original house plans and then the addendas to the add-ons that where put on later.