“Dangling”, by Amy Casey

Writing for the New York Time’s Opinionator blog, our friend Allison Arieff recently wondered if, in the wake of the housing bubble’s bursting, we can begin to think of a house more as a home, and less as a resale value:

When did “rm w/a vu” turn into Viking range, cathedral ceiling, granite countertop and four-car garage? At what point did the house become more about the future tenant than the current resident?

It’s a good question, and one that goes to the heart of current home design. Do you really want to lounge in your dressing room? Or is that just something that looks good on the MLS search? McMansions, Arieff suggests, might not be so much a result of people’s bad taste as of the real estate equivalient of ‘teaching to the test’: architecture designed to sell, not provide comfort.

Allison—a GOOD contributor, Refresh Project Ambassador for Food & Shelter and editor emeritus of Dwell—writes regularly for the Opinionator, and is well worth a follow. Check out the article here.