ᐅ New single-family house construction, approximately 174 m² floor area, architectural design

Hello everyone,

After following this forum for quite a while, our own project is becoming more concrete. We have secured a plot of land and have spoken with various general contractors and an architect. So far, my wife and I like the architect’s design best. It is still a draft plan, but it already feels very "right" for us.

Therefore, I would appreciate your feedback. Are there any critical points we might be overlooking? What could be solved more cleverly?

I hope I have included everything needed. If not, I’m happy to provide more information. Unfortunately, the basement is still the old version; it has now been mirrored and the light shafts have been slightly changed. You can see this on the ground floor plan.

Looking forward to your feedback!

Thank you very much! mini

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: 494 m2 (approximately 5313 sq ft); about 20.5 m (67 feet) wide on the street side, 24.2 m (79.5 feet) deep
Slope: no
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: not specified
Building setback: 3 meters (10 feet) from the street, 4 meters (13 feet) from adjacent property at the back
Edge construction: no
Number of parking spaces: 1.5 per residential unit
Number of floors: max. 2
Roof type: gable roof
Architectural style: classic-modern?
Orientation: ridge runs northwest
Maximum height/restrictions: eaves height 6.5 m (21 feet), ridge height 9.5 m (31 feet)
Other requirements: various, planting obligations, infiltration etc., but nothing really unusual nowadays

Clients’ requirements
Style, roof type, building type: classic modern, gable roof

Basement, floors: 2 full stories plus basement
Number of occupants, age: 2 adults in their mid-30s, 2 children aged 2 years
Space requirements on the ground floor: cloakroom, guest WC, utility room, kitchen, living and dining area
Space requirements on the upper floor: 2 children’s rooms, parents’ room, walk-in closets, children’s bathroom, parents’ bathroom
Office: family use plus possible home office about one day every two weeks
Guest beds per year: few; about 3?
Open or closed layout: open
Conservative or modern construction method: We consider ourselves modern but want a classic building shape on the outside. So the interior is rather open and modern, the exterior has a classic form.
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with work island
Number of dining seats: usual 4-6, for events at least 12-16 people
Fireplace: no
Media wall for music/stereo: media wall for TV and books, no stereo
Balcony, roof terrace: balcony for the children
Garage, carport: garage plus carport
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: possibly later
Other wishes/special features/daily routine, reasons why certain things should or should not be included:
- Children’s bathroom
- Balcony on garage/carport accessible for both children (for friends etc. when they are older)
- Utility room next to kitchen on ground floor
- Covered entrance
- Spacious open living and dining area
- Open attic

House design
Planner: architect

What do you like most?
Open and spacious, all our wishes were taken into account. We wanted to keep the building’s main shape as simple as possible and avoid dormers, bay windows, and setbacks.

What do you not like? Why?
Could it possibly be a bit smaller? We don’t have to fully exhaust our budget...
Estimated price according to architect/planner: approx. $600,000
Personal price limit for the house, including fittings: -
Preferred heating system: heat pump with ground collector, possibly supplemented with photovoltaic. Maybe switch to a standard air-to-water heat pump?

If you had to give up something, which details or upgrades would you cut?
Difficult, we don’t really have anything we would cut.

Why did the design turn out as it is now? For example:
We spent a long time thinking about the floor plans, looked at many houses online and from friends/family. We wrote down everything we liked and also what we didn’t want. For example, a clear design without bay windows, setbacks, or similar features was important to us. This is what we took to the builders and the architect. The result is this plan.

What is the most important/fundamental question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
Are there any optimizations in the floor plan that we may have missed? Enough windows/daylight in general?

I like many aspects of the design, such as the staggered combination of garage, carport, and terrace, as well as the clear layout of the upper floor.
The utility room is a bit tight. The ironing board will probably be set up more often in the living area. The kitchen seems relatively small compared to the dining area. With so few overnight guests, I would consider creating an emergency sleeping space in the basement or providing accommodation and a taxi, rather than building an extra room. The space would be more efficiently used for the utility room and kitchen.

I also like the floor plan. The only thing is that the living room feels a bit too shallow at 3.88 meters (12.7 feet), especially compared to the overall size of the house.

I don’t find the orientation of the rooms on the upper floor ideal. If I’m seeing it correctly, one child’s bedroom faces northeast/north and another is on the west side. The first one in particular probably never gets any sunlight. I would consider changing that.

Master bathroom directly above the living room? For this reason alone, if the orientation with the cardinal directions is correct, it would make sense to consider mirroring the upper floor.

I didn’t understand the “wandering light well” at first.

Edit: … until I had read everything. Sorry

hampshire schrieb:

With so few overnight guests, I would set up an emergency sleeping area in the basement or cover the cost for a guesthouse and taxi instead of building a dedicated room.

Hello hampshire, thank you for the feedback! Yes, it probably won’t be enough for ironing. But, for example, it will be useful for clearing away dirty dishes when guests are here and for preparation/storage.
The office in the basement also serves as the guest room. Which room would you cut out?

Wugler1978 schrieb:

The only thing is the living room feels too shallow at 3.88 meters (13 feet), especially compared to the size of the house.

Thank you too, Wugler1978! I’m also concerned it might not feel as spacious as we imagine. Unfortunately, the house width is already maximized according to the plot. Otherwise, we would have to change the garage/carport.
Do you have any ideas on how this could be solved?

Wugler1978 schrieb:

I don’t find the layout of the rooms on the upper floor ideal. If I’m seeing this correctly, one child’s bedroom faces northeast/north and the other is on the west side. Especially the first one never gets sun. I would change that.

The first version was mirrored. But then the garage/carport faced south, resulting in insufficient daylight on the ground floor. Also, we thought the kids could still have evening light on their own terrace in the summer that way. With another orientation, the house would probably be shaded quite early in my opinion.
Would you still prefer a different orientation?

Thanks! mini