Hacker News Reader

Comment by analyte123 | Hacker News Reader

These "fake shutters" are just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that. This type of misguided plea for authenticity would be valid if somebody put mis-sized or fake shutters on an actual period house, but most of these houses are modern. They weren't designed to have real shutters, they don't need real shutters to thermally perform, and the material and type of real shutters that you put on houses that actually need hurricane protection now is not always the same as it was 100 years ago. This is like complaining about "fake columns" on a neoclassical facade. Or the non-structural "fake brick" on any modern building.

View on HN

I appreciate your point of view, and I find it somewhat persuasive.

But my personal aesthetic compass swings back and still chafes at the "non-functional" functional part. More than any other analogy, it reminds me of fake scoops or vents on some sport cars or sport image cars, which are actually completely non-permeable and definitely don't lead anywhere or do anything. They're aesthetic trim yes, but they're also a... Dunno, pretense? It reveals a slightly "wannabe" attitude.

Though it's possible I'm reading too much into the whole thing - non functional spoilers / wings don't bother me nearly as much on cars. Maybe fake shutters just look cheesier?

So I guess that fake brick feels like non functional spoilers. Fake shutters feel like non functional scoops.

If you dress up for the opera, take a look at your clothes - almost every aspect will be some “fake aesthetic” that has become standard.

I was hoping for more detailed reasoning beyond “it’s fake and not a great imitation” - but so are many other vestigial fashion items. Ties don’t work well as bibs anymore, after all.

given the argument that good design is functional design fake anything that serves no functional purpose would, if that argument holds sway, be bad.

> If you dress up for the opera, take a look at your clothes - almost every aspect will be some “fake aesthetic” that has become standard.

I agree wholeheartedly and find the idea of dressing up a specific way for anything but practical/safety reasons or costume parties to be silly. Most non-safety dress codes only exist to artificially segment the population.

Now I’m imaging you showing up to the opera in full PPE.

(Of course, if that become standard fake PPE would begin to become common).

I've seen nonfunctional mesh masks worn by people protesting mask mandates.

I don't think most people would actually utilize a handkerchief, especially one of the flimsier pocket squares that comes with a tux. But it looks cool.

Why would you dress up for an opera? You just go there in your regular clothes, it is like going to see a movie.

Indeed. Go there to enjoy it. You'll probably get more out of it than the dressed-to-the-nines people.

Because it's fun to.

Hmm, I see what you are saying, but I don't think most opera-dress-up items are pretending to be highly functional. They have transformed long time ago into purely aesthetic.

To go back to my car analogy comfort zone ;), I don't like 22" rims personally (16" tires are so much cheaper:); but they don't bother me. There's no pretense at functionality, some people just think it looks cool, awesome. Some people think ties look cool, awesome. It's not a "fake" 22" rim, it's not a "fake" tie.

But a non-functional hood scoop, and non-functional shutter, strike me as "fake" in way that other fashion/aesthetic items do not. A hood scoop hugely implies that it's shunting air somewhere important. A shutter hugely implies that you can open or close it, brighten or darken the room. They have not yet transformed far enough from their functional origins. Whereas a modern tie doesn't hugely imply anything functional that I or anybody few generations around me have any cognizance of. Heck, I'm from Croatia, and I have to Google every time what Kravat was actually used for - I honest to gawd cannot even think right now what Tie could have been functionally used for.

Maybe a hundred years from now, when hydrogen and electric cars are all anybody ever remembers, hood scoops will be seen as purely an aesthetic choice; and maybe to people from different climates shutters already seem a purely aesthetic choice. To me, today here now, fixed, wrongly-proportioned ones don't evoke either "pretty" or "ugly", they evoke "cheap ridiculous fake".

My 100 Croatian Lipa :->

> A shutter hugely implies that you can open or close it, brighten or darken the room.

This probably varies by the viewer

What about hood scoops on a die cast model car?

While I also consider the fake shutters silly, when it comes to the broader fake = cheap feeling, I used to think the same way but recently got educated and it changed my outlook a lot.

Please think of a Greek temple, something that probably evokes feelings of monumental, functional beauty to last the ages. But their structures are largely non-functional, and stone is ill-suited to their construction - consider their long, horizontal roof beams. This is widely considered to be a result of faking wood structures with their light frames, and the classical columns we all know were likely meant to imitate bundles of wooden poles that originally served this role. This theory is known as petrification.[1] Modern neoclassicist buildings are fakery all the way down. They usually have steel frames at their hearts and zero need for stone veneers, columns, and arches, but we still enjoy the traditional, trustworthy feel they evoke.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_architecture#Petrifi...

I got educated on something new today. Thank you.

It does shift my outlook, but not enough. Let’s say that the Greek structures were the “fake spoilers” of their day and we mistakenly took it as the pinnacle of engineering and craft. That doesn’t change the fact that marble lasts longer than wood, or that certain designs can objectively hold more weight from a heavy roof, or that some designs keep rain and snow out better than others.

From that perspective, I argue that “fake shutters” are less like Greek columns and more like a fisher-price hammer (especially when a nail needs to be hammered).

I think your description of modern buildings faking classical ones actually meshes with the author's. If the fake shutters were sized correctly such that we could picture them covering the windows when closed, they would be more palatable. And likewise, if a modern steel structure, clad in stone veneer put in false columns that only went up halfway to the roof above and then just left empty space above them, they probably would be irksome to no end.

I don't know what you mean with the opera thing - how so?

A more obvious parallel would be in useless decorative zippers on "cool" clothes, where "cool" is the interpretation of a clueless mom of what their teenager kid will like.

Except that even smart clothes have a functional use: as clothes. Fake shutters have no utility value.

A closer analogy to dressing up for the opera would be artisanal hand-carved decorative (but functional) shutters basic plain shutters. They both have the same utility but one has nicer aesthetic.

Now people are putting fake handles on their roll-up garage doors to make them look like a door that opens horizontally in the middle. I find it even worse than the fake shutters.

Guilty as charged. To be honest though, my (detached) garage looks much better with them - possibly because a lot of the old garages in my area actually are old carriage houses (or replacements for them)

Reported to the architecture police.

How about fake chimneys with some sort of fake stone/brick veneer on the exterior? Looks convincing from afar, but you can tell they're fake if you saw them under construction with the wood framing and plywood underneath.

> But my personal aesthetic compass swings back and still chafes at the "non-functional" functional part.

My problem is not really that they are not functional. It’s that they do not even try. It’s like they insult my intelligence by being ostensibly worse than useless. These 20 cm wide things are a joke, they’re not even trying. They could have least have the right shape, size, and an overall plausible appearance.

It’s also really ugly. Part of the appeal of the real thing is the harmonious shapes and proportions with the windows they are supposed to protect. Thin bands on either sides of a large window just looks absolutely terrible.

> But my personal aesthetic

And there's where it all falls apart. Your (and the author's) personal aesthetic is not the be-all, end-all of design. You may not like how they look, but others do. And that's fine.

(I happen to agree with you; I grew up in houses with fake shutters and thought they were a silly design choice. But I'm not the final word on design, and I suspect the author is not either.)

I mean, not "fall apart" as such. I assumed it was part of the premise from the start that we are sharing subjective preferences here, not laws of nature :).

I am reminded of new building built near me a few years ago. To be "in character" with the buildings around it (which are >100 year old brick industrial buildings) the brick veneer includes several "windows" on one end that were "bricked up" with a different style of brick than the rest of the veneer.

The new building has a significantly different aspect ratio than the surrounding buildings (tall and thin, versus low and wide). It's 3 stories, unlike the 1 or 2 story buildings around it. It also has a roof line completely unlike anything close by. It really sticks out visually.

It's got bricked-up windows, though.

> These "fake shutters" are just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that.

His problem is not that they're window trim, it is that they don't seem to even be trying to make them aesthetically accurate to the real ones.

> Reason #1 They Don’t Fit […] If your window is 6 feet wide and your shutter is only a foot wide, who do you think you are fooling? You may not think it’s a big deal, but proportions matter. Putting undersized fake shutters on your house is like driving a big rig with 18 donut spare tires.

Would it be that hard to have the shutters be the same area as the window for good proportionality?

It's like having (fake) columns and not making the effort to making sure the measurements are right:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_order

He wants people to make an effort to do things properly instead of in a slap-dash fashion. If someone wants a certain aesthetic look or feature, then actually try to re-create it. Otherwise why bother wasting people's time and money?

“Would it be that hard to have the shutters be the same area as the window for good proportionality?”

Considering one of the pics showed a window taking up 70% of the available space, I’d say the designer would tell you that having shutters with the same area as the window would be an impossibility.

> This is like complaining about "fake columns" on a neoclassical facade. Or the non-structural "fake brick" on any modern building.

It is. But I'm more on the author's side than not on this. I mean, fake shutters don't make me angry -- but I do notice them because they look so stupid. I feel similarly about most fake columns. Not so much about fake brick.

I think I react that way because they're so obviously fake -- that's what makes them stupid. If they were decorative but plausible, I'd react differently. I suspect that's why I don't mind the fake brick -- most fake brick looks realistic.

Fake brick may be fine; I haven't done an extensive survey. The fake rock sold for use on exteriors, however, is awful. If you're closer than twenty feet, the wood glue they use to paste it to the paneling is the most visible feature. Nothing that looks like mortar is used. Closer up, the "rocks" themselves start to look like those sold for aquariums. I suspect that the architects who spec these never visit their mistakes.

I have no problem with non-functional facsimiles of things. Like, I'd rather have a stick-framed house with brick veneer than an actual brick house. (Easier to modify, better seismic, better insulation, etc.) Brick looks nice, and that's all I'm wanting out of it.

Same with my old patio. Instead of paying lots of money for large-format tiles, I had someone skim coat some colored concrete on top, using pin-striping tape to give the illusion of grout lines. (Tape is pulled up after concrete cures a bit, so there's actual grooves) Came out looking fantastic, and was much cheaper. But the guy who did it still had to pay attention to the details, like not having patterns magically cross the grout lines. Real tile would never do that, so my fake tile better not, either.

My issue with these shutters isn't that they're not "real", but that their attempt to mimic fails and basically sticks out as shoddy work.

Go ahead and fake it, but please put some effort into the illusion. Otherwise why bother with louvers that slant wrong, and shutters that have no hope of matching the adjacent window's proportion?

> I have no problem with non-functional facsimiles of things.

I needed a damaged tile floor repaired once. But the tile was not available. A local artist said "no problem" and with mortar and paint was able to very convincingly fake it.

Faux finishes and Trompe-l'œil are really incredible art in and of themselves, and are a lot of fun, too. I have a Trompe-l'œil mouse running along the baseboard in my house :-)

> I have a Trompe-l'œil mouse running along the baseboard in my house :-)

That's awesome. I had to look up "Trompe-l'œil" to see what you meant. That image search is neat.

And this mouse[0] would work perfectly in my hallway. There's already some cracking plaster in there. Might as well lean into it.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/4U6G8sH.jpg

Love it!

I agree. Know what I hate way more than fake shutters? Giant flat exterior walls, usually on the site of the house, with a couple of small, undecorated windows. To me, they look like a kid drew a house and then remembered to draw a couple of holes on it.

House-shaped box. Windows are expensive, see. It's especially annoying when the home is in a northerly latitude, and the S/SE facing side has no windows.

One of the worst offenders are the low-rise apartment buildings painted in beige or other “semi-arid” palette that are built with a street level soft storey and have square holes in the walls for windows but are otherwise unadorned. The kinds that northridge often toppled.

They suck.

Oh, those are horrid. Not that shutters would suddenly make them attractive, but they could use something to give them visual interest.

Yes! I had a guy painting my old house, and when he was done I was staring at it and it looked...ugly. Not the paint, something was off about it. He forgot to put the cheap plastic fake shutters on. Much better.

The difference is that fake brick and fake columns can form visually convincing illusions. Fake shutters aren't a convincing illusion of real shutters, but they look enough like shutters that they aren't convincing as non-functional decoration, either.

If you had fake shutters that were wide enough that I could imagine them being able to cover the window if they were able to close, I personally wouldn't be bothered by them.

What about real but collapsible shutters? They often come from above but they scrunch down to a smaller space than actual shutters would.

I don't have a problem with folding shutters, though I don't see them around much.

I've seen them up north and I think they're a good fit there.

I suspect (not sure) that they aren't as strong as single piece shutters and here on the Gulf coast it might make a difference.

Noting here that I prefer typical shutters over rolldown protection. Hinged shutters are great to reduce light and the winds that rolldown are good for can lift off (gable strapped) roofs.

> This is like complaining about "fake columns" on a neoclassical facade. Or the non-structural "fake brick" on any modern building.

Those seem like valid things to complain about.

Brick needs no painting. If you’re choosing a brick finish to save on exterior maintenance, then the brick is functional, even if not structural.

Shutters that close are terrifically useful for reducing light & noise and for storm protection (I'm in FL).

What fake shutters do is endlessly remind me how marvelously stupid it is that that I don't have actual shutters.

People started to have short-grass lawns because they were pretending they were an estate house with livestock. That's a much worse waste of resources in my opinion, because most Americans have forgotten why they were doing it. It a zombie affectation.

I get a certain (artistic?) satisfaction in bringing order out of natural disorder. Trimmed bushes, groomed/edged lawn, mulched beds - can't all be a throwback to a bygone era, can it?

Keeping short grass helps keep vermin away from the house. It is pleasing to walk on, shoes or barefoot. It has an orderly aesthetic.

HOAs and city ordinances that measure the height of your grass to within a quarter of an inch are absurd, but letting your entire yard go wild isn't great either.

My house is surrounded by forest and wild grassy areas, but we still keep a buffer of short grass at least 25' on all sides (with some ornamental bushes and a few select trees) and I wouldn't give it up for anything.

I don't believe this one. I guess it's possible it was originally true, but I don't think it's relevant now. I've lived in a house where we let the lawn go. It got very brushy and wasn't usable by us anymore. It was difficult to even walk though. AND, by that point it was too high to cut back into shape with a regular lawnmower. So I keep my lawn trimmed for the practical reason of wanting to use it.

Well, sure, if you have a lawn and stop maintaining it, the result will suck. That’s not the alternative though, which is environment appropriate landscaping. Out west that’s often succulents and hardscape. Where I live in the Midwest, that’s perennial flowers and prairie.

You don't want that near your house unless you like pests and rodents.

That’s overhyped. Keep your foundation clear and dry, and the wildlife will stay in the habitat you create. I live by a forest, and when we moved in the place was surrounded by sterile lawn. We had all sorts of german cockroaches crawling in, mouse damage in the garage, mice hiding in all the outdoor equipment, etc. Since then, I’ve been waging war on the lawn, and despite obvious vole activity in the various mulched areas, the pest situation in the home is better, if anything.

I have a pasture 20ft from my barn and no way would I want that as close to my house as my turf is. Mice, ground hogs, ticks, a gazillion insects, ground hornets, all sorts of weeds including poison ivy, wild animal poop you can't see because the vegetation hides it, so you step in it. You can't walk through it in summer in shorts unless it is mowed like grass. Forget walking barefoot.

What you describe is not replacing turf grass with pasture, which is what the parent described that I responded to.

Turf lawns started out being grazed, but very quickly transitioned into being maintained manually by humans. It took a while before became common because care was so time consuming and obviously expensive.

A turf grass lawn is incredibly practical. It aids with the control of bugs and rodents, it is easy to walk and run in without twisting an ankle because of a hidden hole, it great for sports like soccer, bad mitten, corn hole etc. You don't lose everything you drop, you can walk through it without getting ticks on yourself (try walking through a pasture in the NE during the summer). You can throw a towel down and sunbath. Infants can learn how to walk on one and play with minimal risks. They are great for water fights with your kids in the heat of the summer.

Turf lawns are incredibly useful.

Back to the original point - the problem with shutters today on most houses is not they exist, but they are such a low-quality effort. Superfluous items can have a place in design, but at least make an effort and show an ounce of care. Here is a video showing a minor detail that can make a big difference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI3bC0mRp2o&t=301s

“such a low-quality effort.”

Exactly. To use the turf example: what if people started installing turf lawns that were lumpy, blotchy, brown, and uncomfortable to walk on just because the factory could pump that kind out faster?

Based on the comment threads here, guaranteed some percentage of people would argue that those lawns have benefits and should continue to be produced.

Speed holes on various upsettingly ugly vehicles would agree with you I suppose.

I personally don't care about the function or lack-there-of, but many of your examples seem to embody the desolate nature of suburbia in the same way as awful cul-de-sacs, lawns, or Applebees; they're a bad compromise. If you don't need pillars, make something good using the framework you're operating in and add other decorations that aren't trying to be something they're not.

Fuck fake pillars. They're as gross as the stupid greyish peach tan colour the house is painted.

My house has the "Are You Kidding Me" 11ft wide windows with 1ft wide shutters variety. It's stupid practically speaking, but they've been there for decades and they look nice.

Rather than ranting about how terrible they are, it would be be helpful to offer some alternative dressing - I have 3 more huge windows without fake shutters that look quite plain...

> they look nice

That's the key to this entire thing -- I'm having trouble believing people don't understand that this: discussion on the functionality is fine, but at the end of the day the "fake shutters" are decoration.

I'm having trouble believing that people don't understand this: the criticism isn't that someone is decorating, but that this specific choice of decoration feels self-contradictory and stands out as unusual to many people.

If you want decorative rectangles to the sides of your windows, great, go for it! What's the specific value add of designing those decorative rectangles to look like spectacularly useless shutters, instead of any other decorative design that's not trying to look like something functional in a way that contradicts that suggested functionality?

Alternatively, if you want your decorations to look like shutters because you like the aesthetic of shutters, why would you choose for them to look like useless nonfunctional shutters instead of designing them to actually look like a usable shutter?

What's the reasoning behind someone who sits down to design a house and concludes "I want this to look like shutters, but I really want it to look like bad, useless shutters that could never work."?

Either make it look like a shutter, or don't, but it's baffling to me that so many people decide to hang out in the uncanny valley between those two options.

“it would be be helpful to offer some alternative dressing”

Honestly, this is probably the part that irks me the most about fake shutters (and that says a lot). If you’re not going to make the illusion convincing, then why not make something genuinely aesthetically pleasing that’s not shutters at all?

Something based on picture frames, or some type of CNC-cut pattern, or even just wider vertical sections painted the same colour as the rest of the trim.

We’ve been making interesting accents around rectangles for hundreds of years. The well is deep and full of beauty!

Having fake brick anywhere or a column that doesn’t actually support anything is also terrible. If something looks like a stone or brick it better not be a thin fake thing on a piece of exterior sheeting.

But I agree on the principle because the most common window trim today: muntins (Glazing bars) is almost invariably “fake” today, in that it doesn’t have the original function of breaking up the glass in smaller and cheaper pieces. Today it’s purely a trim. Seen that way, I guess there is nothing wrong with having shutters for the same reason.

I do agree with the author on one thing though: if one does put fixed shutters on a house then at least make them plausible. Just get shutters that are half the window size. Choosing shutters 1/3 the window width makes little sense.

Non-structural brick and columns aren't the same thing at all. They look like they could be the real thing doing the real job.

These shutters are visibly non-functional.

"just window trim, and there's nothing wrong with that"

I agree! And so do my inflatable biceps!

Sometimes they can't even get them right as decoration:

https://goo.gl/maps/j2P3kogSxbq1X3th7

How do I delete this?

There's nothing wrong with your view or the author's, however it seems like you're talking past each other because neither of you are each other's target demographic.

This is like complaining about how bad JavaScript is as a language on a thread about React, or something. It's nearly irrelevant

I challenge you:

Which demographic wants fake shutters that are visibly useless?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com