Why are UK houses so ugly

[Cuellar]

Horrible, pebble-dashed, mouldering heaps of utter shit

[Cuellar]

New build modern house, wow! Looks great!!!

[Icehaven]

I guess a lot of them were thrown up in the post-war/baby boom years when aesthetics went out the window in favour of cheapness and maximising limited space.
Edit: And the same sensibility had remained ever since, which is why most new builds are equally vile. This modern housing estate


won a prestigious architecture award a few years ago and I remember thinking it still looks like a labyrinth of plain, miserable boxes.

[Cuellar]

Inspiring fucking dreck!!

[Glebe]

Lots of remnants of empire here in Dublin. Always found a lot of Victorian buildings depressing, not all but just those grim oppressive kinda structures.

[Cuellar]

Exciting new development, COMING SOON! £500,000 please!!!

[Cuellar]

Offers in excess of £500k, Milton Keynes!!

[Zetetic]

I remember thinking it still looks like a labyrinth of plain, miserable boxes.

Notably, however, in that picture alone you can see:
1) Houses not pointlessly "semi-detached".
2) Communal outside area.
3) Sunlight, because house height/density allows it.

These things would be enough to distinguish from many new build estates.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Roughcast protects brick-built houses in a wet and windy climate. It can look dreary but it's pragmatic.

I'm not sure about the premise of the thread - there are undoubtedly some very ugly houses in the UK (mainly those thrown up in the 20th C in an attempt to get people out of unsanitary slums as quickly as possible) but also some of the nicest buildings and houses you'll find anywhere.

[monkfromhavana]

I find Scottish houses to be the ugliest. I think it's all the sandstone which, when accompanied by the dour weather, make everything seem a bit dank.

[Blinder Data]

I find Scottish houses to be the ugliest. I think it's all the sandstone which, when accompanied by the dour weather, make everything seem a bit dank.

You what?! Sandstone > Redbrick

There is an awful amount of ugly post-war homes in Scotland, right enough, but that's nothing to do with sandstone (which they are not built out of).

[Glebe]

Some of those houses should be advertised as "would suit those who wish to pretend they're living in a kind of 'modern' Victorian workhouse".

[shoulders]

North East England has more than its fair share of ugly pebbledashed grey cheaply built dwellings.

Belgium has a book about its ugly houses though so probably a winner.

[Icehaven]

Notably, however, in that picture alone you can see:
1) Houses not pointlessly "semi-detached".
2) Communal outside area.
3) Sunlight, because house height/density allows it.

These things would be enough to distinguish from many new build estates.

Communal outside areas but no gardens of their own?(well not that you can see anyway, maybe they're round the back). And while communal areas are sometimes better than nothing they're far from ideal, they don't generally end up being a "village green" type spot for neighbours to have a friendly chat, more a place for pissheads and/or charming groups of teenage monsters to congregate. Spose it depends where you are but the ones around where I grew up were typically occupied by the aforementioned so not somewhere most residents could generally use.

[hamfist]

There are plenty of turds elsewhere too. Beautiful chocolate box Switzerland? Absolute fucking gash everywhere.

In my village just outside york the locals are bitching about a new development.

Saying it isn't in keeping with the look and fabric of the village.

But they only see the pretty cottages in the middle, the rest of this village consists of typical estates from the 60s through to the 90s - all very different and very much of their times.

[Zetetic]

Communal outside areas but no gardens of their own?

I suspect part of the disease is cramming "features" like personal "gardens" into developments that can't really support them for the sake of ticking boxes on an estate agent's list.

[jobotic]

Most new developments look like this



Or like this but with less room. Blame David Wilson Homes.

This is near me though and it's actually quite nice to walk around.

https://www.proctorandmatthews.com/project/horsted-park-kent

[dead-ced-dead]

I posted this in the wrong thread. This was it's right destination:

I bet you'd all appreciate the movie Vivarium. It's about a young couple who move into a modern home in an estate full of identical houses and find that they can't escape. One day a baby arrives on their doorstep, and it's the kind of identikit baby you imagine all parents in the late twenties/early thirties are saddled with.

Terrifying stuff.

[Icehaven]

This is near me though and it's actually quite nice to walk around.

https://www.proctorandmatthews.com/project/horsted-park-kent

That 3D brick detailing, which they're very proud of judging by the number of close-up pictures of it there are, would make it nice and easy for burglars to climb into your upstairs windows. Or for you to climb down if there's a fire, so swings and roundabouts.

[Johnny Yesno]

This is near me though and it's actually quite nice to walk around.

https://www.proctorandmatthews.com/project/horsted-park-kent

Not bad, but compare with somewhere like Reykjavik, though:

[buttgammon]

Pebbledashed faecal matter, 3 undersized bedrooms, tiny downstairs bathroom with doll's house toilet and sink, broken loft, marble-effect fireplace not included. £1750 per month.

[Sebastian Cobb]

[Clatty McCutcheon]

For those of you who like this sort of thing...

Chumbawamba have let their criticisms of people's living arrangements become more polite.

[shiftwork2]

Malvina Reynolds with the smuggest and most sanctimonious song ever recorded, skewering those identikit bozos!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Malvina Reynolds with the smuggest and most sanctimonious song ever recorded, skewering those identikit bozos!

I reckon it's a fair commentary on the banality of middle class aspiration and values. A community of curtain-twitching isolation.

[Bad Ambassador]

I posted this in the wrong thread. This was it's right destination:

I bet you'd all appreciate the movie Vivarium. It's about a young couple who move into a modern home in an estate full of identical houses and find that they can't escape. One day a baby arrives on their doorstep, and it's the kind of identikit baby you imagine all parents in the late twenties/early thirties are saddled with.

Terrifying stuff.

That film is total shit.

[H-O-W-L]

Pebbledashed faecal matter, 3 undersized bedrooms, tiny downstairs bathroom with doll's house toilet and sink, broken loft, marble-effect fireplace not included. £1750 per month.

Missed a zero there mate

[Johnny Yesno]

Missed a zero there mate

30 bedrooms is still a mansion, even if they are undersized.

[shiftwork2]

I reckon it's a fair commentary on the banality of middle class aspiration and values. A community of curtain-twitching isolation.

Those doctors and lawyers and business executives whose children go to 'school' and 'summer camp' (whatever that is tbf, dunno but it sounds fun) and 'university' really need taking down to Chinatown.

What did she live in then, a fucking castle?

[jobotic]

The Big Country by Talking Heads and The Monkees' Pleasant Valley Sunday are about the same thing aren't they? Still great.