Kate Wagner
Contributor
Kate Wagner is the creator of the viral blog McMansionHell, which roasts the world’s ugliest houses from top to bottom, all while teaching about architecture and design. Since its launch in July 2016, the blog has been featured in a wide range of publications, including the Huffington Post, Slate, Business Insider and Paper Magazine. Outside of McMansion Hell, Kate is a guest contributor for Curbed, 99 Percent Invisible, and Atlas Obscura. In addition to writing about architecture, Kate has worked extensively as a sound engineer with expertise in recording engineering, product development, and research. She is currently a graduate student in Acoustics as part of a joint program between Johns Hopkins University and Peabody Conservatory, where her focus is in architectural acoustics.
Don’t blame dense cities for the spread of coronavirus
The pandemic has challenged my urbanist beliefs, but buildings aren’t responsible for human problems.
The case for keeping things
We live in a throwaway society, but our objects deserve better.
Should we still be building single-family homes?
Single-family homes are partly to blame for our housing mess, but they can also be a tool to solve our problems.
A green new home
A Green New Deal would touch our lives at every level, including at home.
The budget furniture dilemma
As companies like Wayfair face criticism, is buying from them the right thing to do?
Why Marie Kondo’s method is ideal for my ADHD
For me, ADHD turned the luxury of storage space into a hazard, but KonMari circumvented some of my habits.
The case against lawns
As we surround more houses with grass, we deprive ourselves of natural signposts.
The myth of ‘We don’t build houses like we used to’
The common lament misses crucial context about the style trends and building materials of the past.
Building houses that grow with us
We need to design homes for our lives, not our stuff.
How to renovate your home
Keep what’s irreplaceable. Improve the rest.