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Not so big house architects6/26/2023 ![]() ![]() Spaciousness just isn't conducive to comfort. "We're using quantity to find home, but home isn't anything to do with bigness. "People are almost desperate for a sense of home," she explains. Susanka emphasizes that she is not advocating a small house, but rather, as she puts it, a not-so-big house. These showplaces, sometimes dubbed trophy houses or McMansions, illustrate what Susanka calls a "Versailles complex - the notion that houses should be designed to impress rather than nurture." Many feature vaulted ceilings, Palladian windows, walls of glass, and separate rooms for single activities - media rooms, exercise rooms, hobby rooms, art studios, yoga rooms. I can't tell you the number of people who say, 'This isn't really me.' " "Our lifestyles have metamorphosed, but houses haven't changed. "People are deeply, deeply unhappy with what society is offering up in housing," Susanka explains. Owners, saddled with impersonal, cavernous spaces, sometimes wonder what went wrong - why they feel so profoundly disaffected from the very place that is supposed to nurture and satisfy: home. Susanka hears more often these days as new homes increase in size. "All we've got is square footage with no soul. ![]() "We just built a $500,000 house, but we can't bear to live there," she said. A couple in the audience came up to her, and the wife, her eyes brimming with tears, told a sad story. Minneapolis architect Sarah Susanka had just finished speaking at a local home and garden show, emphasizing that bigger is not always better in housing design. ![]()
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