ᐅ Why are most urban villas built with a square floor plan?

In a city villa from the Gründerzeit or Weimar period, a manufacturer, legal advisor, or a specialist medical expert would live. Rectangular floor plans were common, with the house having a main axis or ridge direction.

With the KfW cubes, also known as alternative villas, the main focus is on achieving a cost-effective ratio of living space to external wall area. A side effect of the square floor plans is that they can be rotated 90° on the spot, making them a kind of “one size fits all” in terms of orientation to the cardinal directions.

Nowadays, the share of non-square alternative villas is increasing, mostly for the simple reason that the “leftover plots” still available on the market (or their building envelopes) often do not fit a square at some corner.

Symmetry is only one element contributing to harmonious shapes. It also has the drawback that it tends to demand strict adherence, which usually only works well from about 120 sqm (1300 sq ft) of floor area upwards. In this respect, the plan I welcome

MIA_SAN_MIA__ schrieb:
I think I will plan with at least a length difference of 2 meters

would end up as “ten by twelve” or at least “nine by eleven” — anything smaller will be challenging. To me, it also seems much more important not to mix windows in vertical and horizontal formats carelessly. Especially the combination of very wide horizontal windows and those close to square, or horizontal and those close to square vertical windows, looks, in my opinion, to put it mildly, “an acquired taste.”

MIA_SAN_MIA__ schrieb:
Personally, I like a hipped roof, but on the other hand not a square house...

A classic hipped roof actually requires a ridge, which on a square floor plan would mean different roof pitches on the “long” and “short” sides. Therefore, it is simpler to build a pyramid roof (geometrically a variation of the hipped roof, essentially a hipped roof without a ridge, just as a square is a special case of a rectangle).

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

I think it’s simply a matter of personal taste. I prefer the square city villa over the rectangular one. The rectangular shape with a two-story house and a hipped roof reminds me more of an old school or town hall. However, the most important thing for me is that the design fits well on the plot.

Best regards
Sabine

For me, a townhouse is a house with two full stories, no knee wall, and a relatively shallow hipped roof. The square shape fits this accordingly.

Alex85 schrieb:
To me, a city villa is a house with two full stories, no knee wall, and a relatively shallow hip roof.

That means you belong to exactly the majority that shapes market trends, which is fine. The relatively shallow hip roof without a knee wall in the typical villa alternative is based on three wishes combined under one roof:
1) The "thermal envelope" ideally would have nothing above it at all;
2) The zoning plan requires pitched roofs (and, honestly, I understand the city council here: a "Tuscan" style would look even more modest with a flat roof than it already does);
3) The homeowner wants to be able to store some clutter around the access hatch (like the bobblehead from the Audi 80, etc.)

Alex85 schrieb:
Therefore, the square footprint makes sense.

Exactly (as already mentioned): with a non-square rectangle, the hip roof would either have different roof pitches (shallower on the sides with the shorter base) or it would have a ridge and become a classic hip roof.

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https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

Is there a specific term for houses with a traditional hipped roof?

11ant schrieb:
That puts you in exactly the majority that markets follow.

I was just attempting a definition, based on my impressions of this type of house.
I wouldn’t build something like this myself; we are building a white, flat cuboid.
But I also think there are worse things than "urban villas."