ᐅ Single-family house on an elongated east-west plot of land

Hello everyone,

we are planning a solid brick house:

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: 838 m² (10,000 sq ft)
Slope: no, completely flat
Site occupancy index / building coverage ratio: not applicable, fits.
Floor area ratio / plot ratio: not applicable, fits
Building window, building line, and boundary: building boundary present, but we won’t discuss it here.
Edge development: single-family house, 2 full floors, gable roof, garage on boundary
Number of parking spaces: 2 mandatory
Number of floors: 2 full floors + basement
Roof type: gable roof
Style: free design
Orientation: east-west
Maximum heights/limits: not applicable, fits.
Other requirements:

Owners’ requirements
Style, roof type, building type: gable roof, partly wood cladding on the outside between windows
Basement, floors: basement + 2 full floors
Number of occupants, age: 2 adults + 2 children
Space requirement on ground and upper floors: approx. 100 m² (1,075 sq ft) per floor
Office: home office for an elementary school teacher
Overnight guests per year: rare
Open or closed layout: open kitchen/living/dining area, but closed hallway for better sound insulation between floors
Conservative or modern construction style: somewhere in the middle
Open kitchen, kitchen island: yes
Number of dining seats: space for guests, at least 6
Fireplace: yes, between dining room and lounge
Balcony, roof terrace: balcony on bay window in the study
Garage, carport: yes, double garage on north boundary
Utility garden, greenhouse: not planned yet
Other wishes/special features: we plan a utility room on the upper floor despite having a basement. There will also be a laundry area in the basement. On the ground floor there is a lounge/reading nook with a built-in window seat between living and dining rooms. Terrace is planned on the west side.

House design
Who designed it:
Planner from a construction company together with us and meetings with a recently licensed architect.
What do you like in particular? Why?
Open floor plan on the ground floor, yet retreat areas on each floor. South-facing window seat. Double garage.
What do you dislike? Why?
The distance to the southern property line is not ideal. However, the plot is only 21 m (69 feet) wide, so more space is difficult. We really want the double garage. The west side of the property is very open (no houses nearby), so the terrace faces this direction.
Price estimate: 700,000 €
Personal price limit for the house including equipment: as long as we stay under 5 million €, it’s fine 😀
Preferred heating system: heat pump

What can you do without?
- can do without: possibly the utility room on the upper floor
- cannot do without: pantry with kitchenette, roomy cloakroom

Why is the design the way it is now?
The plot is oriented from west to east, about 39 m (128 feet) long and about 21 m (69 feet) wide. The house also has this orientation (currently 9.5 m (31 feet) wide, 13.5 m (44 feet) long). We like the garage on the north side directly attached to the house. This keeps the west garden area nice and open. There is a neighboring house to the south at a distance of 4 m (13 feet), but no houses to the west (a lot of evening sun). The garage is attached to the house because we wanted to keep the west side free of garage construction to maximize the view. Otherwise, my wife is a teacher (study room as home office).

What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
We would like to hear other homeowners’ opinions. Is there a flaw in the plan? Does something not make sense? Is something too narrow? For example, we hope the space in the dining room is sufficient (3.5 m (11.5 feet) between south window and kitchen island, where the passage to the terrace should also be).

We are open to all suggestions and ideas but also have specific ideas, as you can hopefully see from the floor plan. The planning is actually quite advanced.
Is there anything you think we should keep in mind or do better?

Thank you very much for your support.

Does the garage have to or should it be connected to the house?
If not, perhaps consider something like this:

If yes, with such a generous budget, you could even imagine a garage partially built underneath the house. And that odd balcony appendix on the east side could be replaced by a rooftop terrace above the garage on the west side.

That was my first thought as well. Although there is a desire to keep the west side open, this comes at the expense of the south (4m (13 feet) of space is not much). I would rather try to create some extra space on the south side, especially since the fireplace and living room are located there. If, instead of a solid garage, a more open carport is placed in the northwest, it would also provide more privacy from the neighboring northern property. Perhaps the house could be rotated 15–20° clockwise?

Overall, I like it. However, I consider the workspace in the kitchen to be insufficient.

How does the 42 cm (16.5 inches) wall construction come about? The, let’s say, "emancipated" arrangement of the load-bearing walls (which also seem excessively thick to me) will definitely make the structural engineer scratch their head. And of course, I see plenty of planned construction flaws again. The sliding doors integrated within the walls also do not seem optimally designed to me. The kitchen is, in my opinion, too small, and both the bedroom balcony and the living room projection are costly luxuries. I recommend, although by no means “everything is bad,” a redesign (including separating the building units "house" and "garage").

johannes.spr schrieb:

Planner from a construction company working with us as well as meetings with a newly qualified architect.

How should we imagine this setup? The architect seems to me more than just newly qualified—I would even say still fresh out of the oven—if she hasn’t noticed the many cost-increasing inconsistencies.

johannes.spr schrieb:

The planning is actually quite advanced.

What exactly does that mean?

johannes.spr schrieb:

Is there anything from your perspective that we still need to consider or could do better?

I believe the review by the structural engineer will prompt a reset (unless the 5 million budget really is feasible and you are firmly determined to proceed with it).

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ypg schrieb:

I roughly like it.
However, I think the kitchen workspace is insufficient.

Now, with a bit more time.
The house was expanded according to the needs? In the living room to have more space in the hallway, and in the office because otherwise there would have been no room there either.
These are cost drivers and areas where moisture can potentially penetrate the ground floor in the medium term. Not necessarily, the architect or structural engineer will probably reject it anyway, as long as the house is built and lasts for 5 years 😉
Personally, I also see such expansions as a way to break up the façade; I don’t see any added value here. It looks arbitrary to me, especially the narrow bay window on the south side.
I would rather interpret the upper floor as a cantilevered overhang, which would create a natural shelter.

Now to the essentials:

johannes.spr schrieb:

generous cloakroom

Yes, very nice. That’s how it should be.
Still: despite the pantry, the kitchen workspace is too small. In my tidy two-person household, with storage space in the utility room, I have about half again as much workspace and even had to add on for the coffee machine and various appliances… so it will never be enough here.

Who is the ground floor shower for? It’s so isolated without a bedroom nearby.
Who is the guest room upstairs for? Since you don’t have overnight guests, is it just a placeholder room?
How did the upstairs balcony come about, or what is it intended for?

What really bothers me are the light wells everywhere—even where a terrace or terrace door is planned.
That should definitely be designed differently because it’s not attractive. They also seem quite arbitrarily placed… a flat 5 with a star.

johannes.spr schrieb:

you can do without:
possibly the utility room upstairs

I see the storage room on the ground floor as redundant, since you have a pantry and a large cloakroom where, if needed, shoe care supplies can fit. Since laundry is done upstairs, that is useful up there.
What is the cellar actually for? I would forgo it and adjust the house size accordingly, reducing where less space is needed or increasing in other areas. But the cellar is a personal choice—some build one because they have too much stuff.
And yes, I would also do it like @RomeoZwo, because attached garages always look bulky. If integrated with the house, it also creates a good space for technical equipment and storage.

If the cellar remains, I would plan a nice large light well in the basement for a great communal room or for the office down there.