Gentrification Architecture—It’s Baffling

"When [Maria] Nicanor looks at the newer houses in Houston that she calls 'white elephants'—those wonky, stacked boxes that look more like what children build with Legos than what they draw with crayons—it’s not so much that she finds the architecture aesthetically dubious (though she does), it’s that she sees right through it to 'the systems that over decades have made it this way,'" writes Allyn West.

Nicanor is the executive director of the Rice Design Alliance, and her take on housing design in Houston describes the standardization of architecture as gentrification sweeps through that city and others throughout Texas.

The phenomenon reflects the inability of cities to balance new development with what has long existed there, says West. "Nicanor wonders what can be done at city hall, from rewriting zoning laws and enacting preservation ordinances to protecting renters and supporting community land trusts. Should the market make all the decisions?"

West looks at a variety of examples of this gentrification architecture in various Texas cities, including huge homes out of scale with the bungalows and cottages around them, packs of generic townhouses, and houses dominated by their garages. 

Architect Ben Koush has an issue with mammoth homes, whose design reflects the market more than what neighborhoods need, notes West. "I think it’s almost disrespectful when you build a big, hulking box," Koush says. "But I’m also not a developer, so I see things differently than they do, and they think it’s probably stupid to build what I did. And they’re like, 'You’re an idiot.' And I’m like, 'You’re an idiot.'"