I'd really hoped the houses were going to be more like what you'd see around the Jeweled Crozier- the Tudor style houses, compact but gorgeous with banners strewn across the roofs house to house.
But the ward we have seems to be just random housing placement that doesn't look attractive at all & like there was minimal thought on the placement of each house.
The house designs themselves I do love though & plan to use them.

The sad part is is that trolls that use the Shirogane houses outside of their own housing ward are going to overcrowd it & make it even worse.
Apart of me wishes you couldn't use a house default outside of the ward- that way the trolls who use the Shirogane houses can't use those ugly houses outside of Shirogane.

I plan to move, since there is a giant ugly Shirogane house that blocks my view of my ward which is full of flowery houses & the timber houses & it's beautiful- then there's that behemoth eyesore shirogane house. I likely won't be moving in Ishgard due to those types of trolls. I just want to be away from every Shirogane house.

I love the gloominess of Ishgard, but the supposed housing ward you can look around in is "empty" it doesn't have the same "warmth" or "Effort" as the NPC areas.