ᐅ Improvement Suggestions for a Single-Family Home with 137 sqm of Living Area and a Secondary Apartment
Created on: 3 Jan 2020 18:08
M
Maartina
Hello, we are planning our house, which we want to share with my mother (separate apartment approximately 70 sqm (750 sq ft)). We want to maximize the floor area with 137 sqm (1,475 sq ft). Maybe someone has ideas, suggestions, or improvements. We are grateful for any input.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size 459 sqm (4,940 sq ft), 21.5 * 21.4 meters (71 * 70 ft)
Site coverage ratio 0.3
Building area 15.4 * 13.4 meters (50 * 44 ft)
Building line 3 meters (10 ft) and boundary line 5 meters (16 ft)
1.5 storeys
Roof type: steep roof, minimum 35 degrees
Street-facing gable
Maximum heights / limits 9 meters (30 ft)
Other requirements: max 1.15 meter (3.8 ft) knee wall
Owners’ Requirements
2 storeys + expandable attic
Upstairs: 5 people, including three small children. Ground floor: 1 person, mother
Space requirements ground floor
Mother’s apartment: 2 rooms + living room + open kitchen,
separate office with WC.
Space requirements upstairs: 3 children’s rooms, master bedroom, open living and kitchen area, two bathrooms
Office: home office, possibly for visitors
Conservative construction
36 cm (14 inch) masonry
Open kitchen, kitchen island upstairs
Number of dining seats upstairs 6-8
Possibly a balcony
Garage added later
Staircase to attic with roof window accessible from both households
House Design
Designed by:
- Do-it-yourself
What do you dislike? Why? Dark corridor
Personal budget for house including fittings: 400,000
Preferred heating system: heat pump
Why is the design like it is now?
What do you think is particularly good or bad about it? Maximum size utilized, difficult implementation due to sloping roofs
Thank you, maartina
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size 459 sqm (4,940 sq ft), 21.5 * 21.4 meters (71 * 70 ft)
Site coverage ratio 0.3
Building area 15.4 * 13.4 meters (50 * 44 ft)
Building line 3 meters (10 ft) and boundary line 5 meters (16 ft)
1.5 storeys
Roof type: steep roof, minimum 35 degrees
Street-facing gable
Maximum heights / limits 9 meters (30 ft)
Other requirements: max 1.15 meter (3.8 ft) knee wall
Owners’ Requirements
2 storeys + expandable attic
Upstairs: 5 people, including three small children. Ground floor: 1 person, mother
Space requirements ground floor
Mother’s apartment: 2 rooms + living room + open kitchen,
separate office with WC.
Space requirements upstairs: 3 children’s rooms, master bedroom, open living and kitchen area, two bathrooms
Office: home office, possibly for visitors
Conservative construction
36 cm (14 inch) masonry
Open kitchen, kitchen island upstairs
Number of dining seats upstairs 6-8
Possibly a balcony
Garage added later
Staircase to attic with roof window accessible from both households
House Design
Designed by:
- Do-it-yourself
What do you dislike? Why? Dark corridor
Personal budget for house including fittings: 400,000
Preferred heating system: heat pump
Why is the design like it is now?
What do you think is particularly good or bad about it? Maximum size utilized, difficult implementation due to sloping roofs
Thank you, maartina
Pinky0301 schrieb:
That’s quite a lot you’re planning on such a small area. I find the floor plan too complicated, poorly functional, too small, and uncomfortable.
What does your husband do? What is the office for? Why does it need a shower? Could you maybe skip the office and set up something like a garden shed?
Who is staying as a guest for half a year?
The apartment for your mother: shouldn’t it be at least partly accessible? For example, the bathroom is quite impractical in that regard. Also, there is a terrace, but to get there from the kitchen you have to take a detour, even though it’s right next to it.
Is it going to be a one- or two-story building? What’s the plan? There is still no site plan or zoning plan. Where are the cardinal directions, or did I miss them? Site occupancy index 0.3
Plot size 21.5 x 21.4 m (71 x 70 ft).
Two-story buildings are allowed, with the second floor having to be built with a pitched roof. Maximum ridge height 9 m (30 ft).
No, the cardinal directions were indeed not marked; I have added them now.
My brother-in-law (11 years old) will be a guest for about half a year.
The terrace issue is correct, especially since we removed the door from the hallway to the living room. Maybe we’ll just take out the wall again.
My husband is a bailiff. That’s why we’re not sure whether we really want to invite people home… But he needs a home office anyway. The site occupancy index of 0.3 is already pretty much used up. Does a garden shed count towards that?
Note: We are doing this for your own good when we insist, quite strongly, that you completely discard these plans. They truly are hopelessly ill-conceived and clumsy (and honestly look like someone just took your original plan and rubber-stamped a few minor changes).
And very importantly: gather information (for example, specify the development plan in a format like "Posemuckel No. 234 former sports field" – not as an unwanted link here). There are more than a handful of regular contributors in this forum who can thoroughly read and understand such plans. For instance, a roof pitch requirement is usually given as a range ("from... to") rather than just "minimum" degrees; how many parking spaces are actually required (for example, you need three but are only required to have two—then the third might be "trapped," and the house could be widened accordingly – whether that would be an advantage, the experts here can work out better than your technically inexperienced draftsman).
What is conceptually unacceptable—and definitely cannot be fixed by simply adding bedroom doors for all kids or renaming the guest room—are several severe violations of absolute essentials, starting with the main dwelling unit being pushed into a non-full-height floor. Blunder number three is then dividing this already awkward space into too many individual rooms. Blunder number two was to partition off outdoor seating areas given the extremely tight floor space situation. And tell us how the age and gender mix of your three little ones is. Blunder number four on this open-ended list are the bathrooms that are not stacked vertically.
You absolutely need to redesign this completely—except for maximizing the possible building depth, nothing here is usable. Provide your mother-in-law with an area of grass grid pavers that can be gradually upgraded later; this way, cutting out terrace floor area ratios is already accounted for. Personally, I would never put my bed inside a closet just so the actual wardrobe doesn’t clutter the bedroom. A five-person apartment in such a small attic floor cannot afford a separate dressing room. I would consider splitting the kids into one smaller single room and one larger double room; the largest child might later move into the office when reaching adolescence (if your mother-in-law hasn’t already emigrated to the Canaries with a new partner). With the house as currently planned, you will have no joy—the attic will cause muscle loss from the crampedness, forcing you to shuffle through the corridor like a tightly wrapped mummy. Tonight, before you start on a new floor plan concept, write these three sentences repeatedly one hundred times each:
1. The larger dwelling unit cannot fit into the smaller floor area [possible solution: provide an additional external entrance for the mother-in-law, partition parts of the main apartment on the ground floor]
2. Too many wishes on a limited floor area inevitably lead to a labyrinthine layout.
3. Complex wall and utility runs make a house significantly more expensive than one with larger floor area.
These three statements alone should make it clear why I can tell, practically from Mars with the naked eye, that no experienced independent architect could have come up with this—and I really think I know even the biggest failures in that profession.
@ypg, what does your professional experience say about how many family dramas start in such a cramped box apartment?
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
And very importantly: gather information (for example, specify the development plan in a format like "Posemuckel No. 234 former sports field" – not as an unwanted link here). There are more than a handful of regular contributors in this forum who can thoroughly read and understand such plans. For instance, a roof pitch requirement is usually given as a range ("from... to") rather than just "minimum" degrees; how many parking spaces are actually required (for example, you need three but are only required to have two—then the third might be "trapped," and the house could be widened accordingly – whether that would be an advantage, the experts here can work out better than your technically inexperienced draftsman).
What is conceptually unacceptable—and definitely cannot be fixed by simply adding bedroom doors for all kids or renaming the guest room—are several severe violations of absolute essentials, starting with the main dwelling unit being pushed into a non-full-height floor. Blunder number three is then dividing this already awkward space into too many individual rooms. Blunder number two was to partition off outdoor seating areas given the extremely tight floor space situation. And tell us how the age and gender mix of your three little ones is. Blunder number four on this open-ended list are the bathrooms that are not stacked vertically.
Maartina schrieb:There is only one wall that should be removable: the one between the small living room and the kitchen.
If we live in the whole house later, the walls will be taken down anyway.
Maartina schrieb:That’s part of it, but not the whole story. The unaffordability runs like a common thread through the entire house. The corners (and also the load-bearing wall around the staircase on the top floor, which is not aligned with the one underneath on the ground floor) make the structural engineering complicated. Apparently, the draftsman is not accustomed to thinking in terms of structural bays.
Wall layouts on the upper floor are unaffordable because of all the corners and edges, right?
Maartina schrieb:With the short length, the driveway can’t realistically be made smaller, and I don’t see a garage fitting into the buildable area anymore.
The driveway will be reduced in size. A garage is still planned.
Maartina schrieb:A knee wall (kniestock) of 115cm (45 inches) is fully sufficient to completely replace a knee wall extension. Creating a balcony instead of a storage space eats into the floor area and is actually detrimental to the living space.
We planned the balcony to reduce the sloped ceiling in kid’s room 1 a bit.
Maartina schrieb:Home offices for bailiffs are mostly a formality in practice, and you can largely control how often they are used. There are official office hours at the district court. No bailiff who isn’t close to retirement brings clients unnecessarily into the home—and even then, only selectively those that are convenient.
My husband is a bailiff.
You absolutely need to redesign this completely—except for maximizing the possible building depth, nothing here is usable. Provide your mother-in-law with an area of grass grid pavers that can be gradually upgraded later; this way, cutting out terrace floor area ratios is already accounted for. Personally, I would never put my bed inside a closet just so the actual wardrobe doesn’t clutter the bedroom. A five-person apartment in such a small attic floor cannot afford a separate dressing room. I would consider splitting the kids into one smaller single room and one larger double room; the largest child might later move into the office when reaching adolescence (if your mother-in-law hasn’t already emigrated to the Canaries with a new partner). With the house as currently planned, you will have no joy—the attic will cause muscle loss from the crampedness, forcing you to shuffle through the corridor like a tightly wrapped mummy. Tonight, before you start on a new floor plan concept, write these three sentences repeatedly one hundred times each:
1. The larger dwelling unit cannot fit into the smaller floor area [possible solution: provide an additional external entrance for the mother-in-law, partition parts of the main apartment on the ground floor]
2. Too many wishes on a limited floor area inevitably lead to a labyrinthine layout.
3. Complex wall and utility runs make a house significantly more expensive than one with larger floor area.
These three statements alone should make it clear why I can tell, practically from Mars with the naked eye, that no experienced independent architect could have come up with this—and I really think I know even the biggest failures in that profession.
@ypg, what does your professional experience say about how many family dramas start in such a cramped box apartment?
Pinky0301 schrieb:Freelancers are generally not legally excluded from operating in a residential zone as far as I know. Insurance agents, for example, can discuss policies at the kitchen table as long as the doorbell sign doesn’t become an advertising board. Local officials and bailiffs regularly have additional home offices where official consultations also legally take place. For arbitrators, this setup is even the norm.
One more thing about client visits: is that even allowed in a residential area?
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Maartina schrieb:
1st change "northern area"And does your property fall within the modified area? Please also provide the WA number.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
11ant schrieb:
And does your plot fall within the revised area?
Also, please provide the WA number. Wa19
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