ᐅ Floor plan for a 160 sqm urban villa – Requesting advice!

Hello everyone,

we are planning to build an urban villa with 160 sqm (1720 sq ft) plus a basement in rural Bavaria. Since we are now in the crucial phase of floor plan design, we would really appreciate your opinions and suggestions for improvements.

The following issues concern us the most:
1. Arrangement of the house and garage on the plot: The garage has been deliberately placed on the west side to create distance from the neighbor. To catch the evening sun, the house has been set back. However, I wonder if this looks "good," as I have never seen such an arrangement before. We are also undecided whether the garage should be detached or attached to the house (possibly with access through the pantry?). On the plans, the garage is at the neighbor’s boundary. There is currently no house there.
2. The cloakroom and dressing room seem too small to comfortably place proper wardrobes and move around freely.
3. In general, I feel the overall design could still be improved, including the arrangement of windows.

Here is the questionnaire:

Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: 800 sqm (8,600 sq ft)
Slope: no
Floor area ratio: 0.35
Floor space index: 0.7
Building window, building line and boundary: 3 m (10 ft) to the street
Edge development: garage yes
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of storeys: 2
Roof style: open construction

Homeowners’ requirements
Style, roof type, building type: urban villa, 2 full storeys, hipped roof
Basement, storeys: basement, ground floor, first floor
Number of people, age: two adults, schoolchild, expecting a baby
Space requirements ground floor, upper floor: three bedrooms, spacious living-dining area, separate cloakroom, shower toilet on the ground floor
Office: none
Guest bedrooms per year: none
Open or closed architecture: open
Conservative or modern construction: modern
Open kitchen, kitchen island: yes
Number of dining seats: 4–10 (when guests visit)
Fireplace: yes
Garage, carport: prefabricated double garage
Other wishes / special features / daily routine, also reasons why this or that should or should not be included:
- Cloakroom in a niche
- Shower toilet on the ground floor, later for the teenage daughter
- Large children’s rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the garden
- Dressing room in the master bedroom
- Pantry for yellow bags (recycling waste bags), vacuum cleaner, cleaning supplies, pasta stock, etc.

House design
Who made the plan: planner from a construction company
What do you particularly like? Why?
- Basement: fine as is
- Ground floor: large pantry, L-shaped kitchen/living/dining area
- Upper floor: large children’s rooms
What don’t you like? Why?
- Ground floor: layout of toilet and cloakroom
- Upper floor: dressing room and bathroom possibly too small
- detached garage
Preferred heating technology: undecided so far

If you had to give up something, which details/upgrades would you skip?
- Could give up: access from garage into the house
- Could not do without: pantry, dressing room, cloakroom

Why has the design turned out as it is now? Our wishes were implemented by the planner

We look forward to your advice!!!

P.S.: The red circle is supposed to indicate north, sorry, it couldn’t be done otherwise!

Here is the basement

From which direction do you access the plot? Where do you want to position the house? Could you please mark it on the plan? Rotating the phone is difficult.
The children's rooms are already quite large. Making them a bit smaller could allow the bedroom/walk-in closet to be more spacious.

The T-shaped marking in the bathroom is rather dull and pointless... and yes, the other rooms are also too cramped accordingly.

ypg schrieb:
From which direction do you access the plot? Where do you plan to place the house? Could you please mark it on the plan? Rotating the phone is difficult.
The children's rooms are already quite large. Making them a bit smaller could help relax the bedroom/dressing area.

The T-shaped layout in the bathroom looks rather careless and pointless... and yes: the other rooms are also too cramped accordingly.

Sorry for the missing information. I have now added the site plan, although it is not to scale.

Would it be possible to make the bathroom and bedroom larger by reducing the hallway? I want to keep the children's rooms as large as they are; my daughter currently has 30m² (323ft²) all to herself.

Here are the floor plans again, this time oriented towards the street (north).

Something to think about:

- A pantry without direct access from the kitchen is not really a pantry but more of a storage room. So, create direct access. Otherwise, the pantry offers no added value.
- The master bedroom is too small. With 3.16m (10.4 ft) minus 2 x 2m (6.6 ft), you’re left with only 58cm (23 inches) of passage width. My PC keyboard is almost that wide.
- The hallway is as large as the kitchen. So I assume that besides the kitchen, the hallway is one of your main living areas in the house, right?
- The storage room has only 80cm (31.5 inches) left after subtracting a cabinet and its baseboard?

Just based on these four points, I think the floor plan should be completely redesigned. Especially on the upper floor, if the bedroom and dressing room are rearranged, a lot will look different.

My guess: The general contractor took matters into their own hands and just threw something together for you. No architect has looked at this. Have you noticed what view you get from the new kitchen window? Then you might as well skip the window altogether.