• MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      6 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.

  • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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    6 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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      6 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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      6 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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        6 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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          6 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.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      6 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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      6 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.

    • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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      6 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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      6 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).

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 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.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

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

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Silicon Valley horndogs are still absolutely doing this shit. They just do it in a room that’s plastered floor to ceiling with giant TV screens, rather than in a soft velvet-lined passion pit.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Key parties are the most stupid horny rich people shit I can imagine. Group sex without ritual (except maybe a bonfire) is the stupid horny shit of the proletariat

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Gooning is the horny of the worker isolated by industrialized society. Band together to bang it out by a bonfire in honor of the equinox! Unless everyone is cool with you gooning to them doing that, nothing wrong with someone masturbating in the corner of the orgy if that’s their thing.

  • Cris@lemmy.world
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    6 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

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    6 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.

      • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        lol it’s not a ball pit. They always have access points, this one has stairs that kinda blend in with the center pieces of the glass table in the middle.

        • GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Oh I didn’t see the stairs in the picture. Although, I do remember seeing in some movies or TV shows that people were climbing in and out on the cushions because the circle didn’t have stairs.

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 months ago

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

  • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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    6 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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      6 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.

  • antidote101@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    They took your own generations ability to have silly architectural trends - by the banks and Realestate agencies pricing most out of the market, and by refusing to mass build new towns for cheap.

  • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I can only imagine what a pain this would be to vacuum.

    Just use couches facing each other if you want to dedicate space to talking to each other. But I don’t think most people have this much room available anyway.

    • PrimeMinisterKeyes@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      At the time when this was popular, they also had Fake Fur wallpapers. Surely looks and feels nice, but has to be replaced every couple of years because it’s impossible to keep dirt and mold away.

  • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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    6 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.