Infill McMansions: Style and the psychophysics of size

The number and size of infill oversized houses, or McMansions, has increased in the U.S. and the world. To maintain desirable neighborhood appearances, communities should know what constitutes “too big.” This paper reports six studies that used color simulations of blocks of houses to examine compatibility and visual appeal in relation to attributes of the infill house and its context. Following psychophysical findings, the relative size of the infill house should have larger effects on response than its actual size. The studies confirmed that the infill ratio had more weight than size for perceived compatibility. Compatibility did not always translate into visual appeal. For visual appeal, infill style had larger effects than did size or size ratio, height had larger effects than width, and, for larger sizes and ratios, infill ratio had larger effects than actual size. To maintain visual quality in relation to infill houses, communities should first seek an architecturally compatible style, and then try to control its relative size (the infill façade area). Tests of responses to real infill houses can show how well these findings generalize.