An Architectural Affront

That's what I thought about that house that I posted on Sunday and asked your opinions on.

I'm not given to really strong statements like that. Generally speaking, I'm pretty chill about doing what works for you. But that house? That house actually upset me.

Here's why.

It is a house that is aggressively out of place in its natural environment. It's a dark concrete house in a desert. There is no desert culture on Earth that has ever lived in a dark dwelling. And why is that? Because the house will absorb the excessive sunlight and be unlivable.

Unless, of course, a person plans to spend all of his or her time at home in air conditioning. Which I must assume the dweller of this house will, seeing as there are no windows to open on the front of the house. Those dark squares are actually garage doors.

There are a (very) few windows, but they're all around back. And it doesn't look as if they are able to be opened, anyway.

Do you see something else that's missing here on the front of the house?

There is no obvious door on the street side of the house. Plus there's an industrial-looking gate to block vehicle access from the street. All of which means that this is a house where visitors are not only not welcomed, but actively repelled.

So the builder of this house chose to build a house that thumbs its nose (so to speak) not only at the natural environment around it, but at the community in which it is located. And by so doing, has rejected the collective inherited knowledge and cooperation that has allowed humans to survive in all sorts of environments for centuries.

Am I reading too much into a house? Probably. Most likely whoever designed and commissioned this house didn't think about these things at all. (Which is its own problem, honestly.)

So now you know why I had such a strong reaction to this house. At least I know what I would never build myself given unlimited funds and the opportunity.