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Comment by te_chris | Hacker News Reader

I've been thinking about this a lot in terms of urban housing. Maybe it's just too expensive now, but modern houses just look like cheap painted boxes inside and out. There's no attention to small details, no flourishes or embellishment. It's depressing, especially compared to mass built housing from pre WWII.

All over the world it seems to be ther older neighbourhoods and houses that are most sought after. I used to think this was snobbiness, just the benefit of time (larger, more full trees etc), but the more I look, the actual built environment of these buildings is a lot more pleasent as well, especially if you consider them against what would be an equivalent new build.

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As far as exteriors go, at least in North America, a lot of houses have a garage with a giant overhead door out front and centre, with the actual house set back behind the garage. This means there are very few windows that face the street, the entire structure feels unbalanced and awkward, it unnecessarily complicates the roofline, and they're just plain ugly.

There's an easy solution to this: integrate the garage inside the house, not as a box bolted on to the front, and make the overhead door smaller. There's no reason for the door to be 15 feet wide and 10 feet high if you only need to fit a single car through it—an 8 foot square door is plenty. This has a huge effect on the end result.

A lot of the older homes in St. Pete (FL) have detached garages with inlaw suites. Looks better imo.

> if you only need to fit a single car through it

A lot of garages in the United States are 2 car garages where the cars are parked side by side. So you need a wide garage door to get the cars in and out.

True, but I rarely see people park 2 cars in their "2-car garages". Even rarer, 3 cars in a 3-car garage.

Usually the extra space is used as a workshop or for storage. I would love to have a 2- or 3-car garage with just an 8-ft door off to one side. The rest of the elevation could be either a nice big window, or a large porch.

Yeah, I suppose this arrangement would hurt resale value. But it would look nicer.

I like how my neighborhood handles it. The garages are set back behind the houses, with the driveways running alongside the houses. When you look at it from the street, the house is front-and-center, rather than the car storage box. Also a big fan of alleys with the garage facing that way.

> Usually the extra space is used as a workshop

When used as a workspace, those massive garage doors come in very handy. They make it easy to get a lot of airflow through the garage and move large equipment or the product of your project in and out without having to squeeze past whatever car is also parked there. They may not look nice, but those large doors are very practical.

I'm definitely not knocking the practicality of a huge door. They sure are handy. Just much nicer when they're tucked back behind the main building of the house. Or facing sideways if you have the lot width to accommodate.

On the other hand, they also take up precious wall space that needs to stay clear at all times. It's not a big deal to move a car out of the way a few times a year. In any case, a double man door looks a lot nicer and is just as functional.

Many places in North America (including where I live) have a rule that cars can only be parked on a driveway, and a driveway can only be as wide as the garage. Combine with expensive frontage and you get houses whose fronts are almost entirely garage.

In a perfect world the cars should be simply "stored away" and the garage area used as a workshop or additional living area, like:

https://www.idealpark.com/Products/Car-Lifts/

https://www.idealpark.it/Prodotti/Parklifts/Parklift-462/

(this kind of stuff is relatively rare even here in Europe, and used only in "luxury" houses or condos in the city center as it is definitely expensive)

Back alley parking.

Labor prices relative to material prices are higher than they have been in all of human history (at least in Europe and North America). That's why everything that can't be economically shipped is designed for quick and efficient assembly by the lowest skilled labor possible. Interior and exterior architectural fanciness and whatnot still exists in new construction, just only in the mansions and beachfront cottages of the wealthy because nobody else can justify the cost of labor.

A lot of buildings you can look at and see person-centuries of skilled labor that wouldn't be imaginable today. Not just medieval cathedrals either.

Example: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-details-of-delaware-and-hu...

I'm sometimes amazed at the little architectural details found in places like old public school buildings, railway stations, and even power plants, docks, and water distribution infrastructure. A lot of these are utilitarian facilities not designed to show off wealth like manor houses... It must have just been a time where skilled labor was cheap enough to spend on such things.

To be fair, the railroad that built the castle I linked to was definitely showing off its wealth. I don't know what they were thinking, but it seems to have been right around the first world war.

I like the Gothic style.

The prettiest church I've ever seen: https://s.hdnux.com/photos/65/31/06/13996432/3/850x0.jpg

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