• @mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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    1093 months ago

    You’d need that space to go somewhere, so the rest of the floor would either need to be a meter thick, you’d need a big protrusion into the lower floor, or you’d have to have it on the ground level with nothing underneath.

    You’d also be pretty locked into the floor plan layout, and there would be no place to put a TV screen that’s visible from the whole seating.

    Pretty cool looking, but also pretty impractical with modern buildings.

    • @Flying_Hellfish@lemmy.world
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      1603 months ago

      there would be no place to put a TV screen that’s visible from the whole seating

      That was kind of the point, it was called a “conversation pit”

    • @dustyData@lemmy.world
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      363 months ago

      Naïve of you to think that this space needs a TV, when any house like this is probably large enough and expensive enough to have a proper home theater room with a proper projector and surround sound system.

      • @Stoney_Logica1@lemmy.world
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        83 months ago

        You’re probably right for a home with this setup today. Back when these were really popular, probably not.

        Home theaters are a fairly recent thing and were not the norm, even for people with these types of setups, outside of maybe the uber rich who could afford a projector and the cost of prints. For a sense of costs, a Super 8 reel of a theatrical film would run anywhere from $600-$1000 (accounting for inflation).

        • @dustyData@lemmy.world
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          113 months ago

          If we are placing this setup in a time where a home theater would be prohibitively expensive, then it is also the time when a TV is a boxy space hoarding big blurb of NTSC/PAL glass. Making the whole TV discussion moot. There was probably a TV room with a more traditional sofa and a large wall embedded CRT TV. Still, in a house with a conversation pit there was no consideration for, nor expectation for a TV to be present in the living room. That is also a post modernist expectation, where screens are ubiquitous, demanded and expected to be present at all times.

    • Masterblaster420
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      233 months ago

      i love floor plans that aren’t centered around a TV. fuck your TV. try talking to people.

    • @grue@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Pretty cool looking, but also pretty impractical with modern buildings.

      It’s funny because it’s literally the opposite: “modern” buildings (read: of the “modernist” style popular circa 1930s-1970s) are the only kind that do have these things.

      It’s buildings that are newer than modern that don’t have them because people realized they’re impractical.

    • @PrinceWith999Enemies@lemmy.world
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      103 months ago

      You don’t need the tv visible from the whole seating area - that seating area is massive. You could put an 80” on a stand either along the side (where the flowers are) or on one of the corners, and still have room for an easy 8 people watching.

      In my experience, you can get 6-8 people coordinated for watching a movie at your house. After that, you have a hard time finding something everyone is going to enjoy, you have bio breaks, and in general people like to just talk. Admittedly, we don’t watch sports, but even so I think rounding up 12-16 people (which would probably fill up this pit unless everyone were very close friends) would be a chore.

      I have a lovely MCM house. It’s nowhere big enough to have a pit like this, but it does have an atrium. We throw parties pretty regularly, and once we get above 6-7 people, most of the time we’re just throwing on some music and letting everyone mingle. If we do put on a movie, it’s more of a background thing, and I honestly think most people prefer a good playlist and ready-to-go cocktails.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      93 months ago

      there would be no place to put a TV screen that’s visible from the whole seating

      Unironically the singular reason these things aren’t built anymore.

    • @GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      Also, there is a coffee table. How the fuck is anyone supposed to serve something in the pit, carry a tray of hot beverages over a wobbly couch? Just shitty design.

      Just discovered the tiny stairs in the background. Guess they thought of that at least

    • @helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Easy, you put 4 TVs on each side. A good signal splitter and some nice speakers overhead and you all enjoy watching tv at a strange angle that hurts your neck. (Also don’t try to do surround sound).

    • BarqsHasBite
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      3 months ago

      TVs and tv shows at the time were shit. Entertainment was talking with people.

  • NickwithaC
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    1003 months ago

    Everyone talking about the pit and I’m just here thinking “housing?”

    • @MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      153 months ago

      The dream is still achievable. My brother and I teamed up with our spouses and bought a home. Between the four of us we were able to buy a house. Just the one.

  • @outer_spec@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    Readers added context they thought people might want to know:

    Either these couches are really tiny, or room in this image is really big. It looks like the room is like six times the size of my college dorm. If the rest of the house is similarly sized, it’s probably also insanely fucking expensive. middle school gymnasium ass room

    • @Branch_Ranch@lemmy.world
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      403 months ago

      Yea, I’m estimating that couch pit is about 15’ square. So that room has to be close to double that in depth. It’s probably a mid century ranch house, all 1 story. You could put a huge hookah in the middle. Or a console pac-man game!

  • Cris
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    373 months ago

    If I recall correctly, I think building codes surrounding tripping/fall hazards and railings may have had something to do with it unfortunately. I may be mistaken though

    • @FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      243 months ago

      That would make sense because I can see a lot of tripping and falling leading to injury in a cocaine lounge.

      • @Obi@sopuli.xyz
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        103 months ago

        To some extent that’s how it is in the Netherlands, at least when compared to countries like UK/US with strict health and safety/codes. Railings to stop your car from falling in the canal? Fuck that if you can’t park within a tiny space without falling into the water you deserve to die.

        • @DrM@feddit.de
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          3 months ago

          same goes for staircases. A student dorm I frequented in NL had a staircase in the library that was super steep, had no railings and if you trip you fall like 10m. Every step was of a different size.

          • @Obi@sopuli.xyz
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            33 months ago

            Ah yes even in most slightly older normal houses you risk your life every time you go to bed upstairs. Friend of mine almost came tumbling down from my attic once, it’s standard.

            • @ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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              23 months ago

              I stayed at a hotel in Amsterdam that was on the fourth floor, so up three flights of stairs but with no landings on each floor, and the stairs were like 4" deep with 10" risers and there were no railings. And I had to drag two rolling suitcases up with me. I couldn’t help but feel like “they don’t really want me here”.

      • @gardylou@lemmy.world
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        23 months ago

        I know I’m boring, but ill take not falling to death at work if they trade off is that I can’t have a pretend fuck pit in my house.

  • @KISSmyOS@feddit.de
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    343 months ago

    Today that place in the middle would be blocked off by drywall and rented out for $1500/month.

  • @A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    323 months ago

    not gonna lie, I always wanted a home with a sunken living room table/couch like this.

    Even today I think its bad ass and interesting… probably a pain in the ass to clean, though.

    • @jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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      103 months ago

      Exactly. I literally see no point in this. You can have the same but elevated and a little entrance.

  • 🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️
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    3 months ago

    When I was an installer for a WISP, I was installing to a lot of big fancy farm owner homes; and one of them had this. That house was swanky as fuck. It was practically custom built for partying. Place had 3 kitchens (2 indoors, and 1 outdoor), bars in nearly every room, etc. I wish I lived there… 😞

  • @Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    So I have some family that lived in a gated community that used to be a resort for Golden Age Hollywood types. Their clubhouse/community building hadn’t been updated much since then, and it had one of these.

    100% certain that a) group sex happened here, and b) at least one person broke their ankle in this thing. 90% sure there was at least one time both happened at once.

    • @BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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      173 months ago

      Probably the person who broke their ankle did it in some wildly adventurous sexual position mid intercourse and kept going until it was complete like a champ.

  • @xantoxis@lemmy.world
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    243 months ago

    IRL they mostly used these for group sex. It would be super weird to have everyone just sitting around talking all at the same time. Cult shit.