ᐅ Floor plan for a single-family home with two full stories and a recessed/stepped top floor
Created on: 15 Mar 2021 22:05
S
StephanM
Dear Homebuilding Forum,
As a newcomer to your group, here is the completed profile of our building project:
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 637sqm (6860 sq ft)
Slope: no, completely flat
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.8
Building window, building line and boundary: street frontage 17.6m (58 ft), 3m (10 ft) setback on left and right sides, building window 11.6m (38 ft) wide x 12.5m (41 ft) deep
Adjacent buildings: single-family houses
Number of parking spaces: two possible
Number of floors: 2 full stories plus 1 setback floor with flat roof (minimum 1m (3 ft) recess on all four sides)
Roof type: gable roof & flat roof
Architectural style: many options allowed as long as aligned with design guidelines
Orientation: south-facing
Maximum height/limits: 9m (30 ft)
Other requirements
Homeowners’ Requirements
Style, roof form, building type: simple, timeless, flat roof, cube-shaped
Basement, floors: basement, ground floor, 1st floor, 2nd floor as setback level
Number of people, ages: 2 adults, 4 children between 1 and 6 years
Space requirements ground floor, upper floors: ground floor approx. 105-110sqm (1130-1180 sq ft), 1st floor approx. 100-105sqm (1080-1130 sq ft), 2nd floor approx. 40-45sqm (430-480 sq ft)
Office: family use or home office? 1 home office
Guest bedrooms per year: very rare
Open or closed architecture: open concept
Conservative or modern construction: conservative design
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with island
Number of dining seats: at least 6, extendable to 8-9
Fireplace: maybe, but chimney routing is a bit complicated
Music/stereo wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: balcony on 1st floor to soften the building volume, possibly a roof terrace on the 2nd floor if not too complicated
Garage, carport: originally planned garage on one side including storage and carport on the other side, now tend to only carport as garage affects overall appearance
Utility garden, greenhouse: kindergarten ;-)
Other wishes/special features/daily routine, also reasons for why this or that should or should not be included
House Design
Who designed it:
Do-it-Yourself
What do you like most and why?
That it was possible to arrange spacious children’s rooms and create space for two bathrooms. Public living areas on the ground floor, children’s floor on the 1st floor, and parents’ area on the 2nd floor.
What do you like least and why?
I’m uncertain about the positioning of the bathrooms relative to each other (complexity due to drainage pipes), and which staircase best serves the 1st floor layout. The building volume is still not ideal, but I have no further ideas on how to meet the zoning requirements.
Price estimate according to architect/planner: 640,000 EUR
Personal price limit for the house including fittings: approx. 700,000 EUR
Preferred heating system: geothermal
If you have to give up something, which details or extensions
- can you do without: additional room in the setback floor, terrace in the setback floor, already gave up on double garage as it overly restricted the floor plan :-( possibly external basement stairs
- cannot do without: 4 large children’s/teenage rooms, setback floor because we can’t fit all rooms on just 2 floors, basement as a lot of stuff accumulates with 4 children...
Why is the design like it is now? For example:
Because after many nights of planning I couldn’t come up with a better solution...
What makes it in your opinion particularly good or bad?
It meets our requirements on paper, but I lack the experience to judge whether it will work well in practice, which is why I’m asking for your opinions.
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
How can I best organize the living space (especially but not only the 1st floor) and use the proper staircase design to create a spacious hallway without wasting area?
That was quite a bit of work ;-) I hope this information is useful for the further discussion.
In the next post I’ll share the floor plans and some exterior views (if I manage the attachments...)
Thank you in advance for your time reviewing this and for your honest and constructive feedback on the current design!
Best regards
Stephan
As a newcomer to your group, here is the completed profile of our building project:
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 637sqm (6860 sq ft)
Slope: no, completely flat
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.8
Building window, building line and boundary: street frontage 17.6m (58 ft), 3m (10 ft) setback on left and right sides, building window 11.6m (38 ft) wide x 12.5m (41 ft) deep
Adjacent buildings: single-family houses
Number of parking spaces: two possible
Number of floors: 2 full stories plus 1 setback floor with flat roof (minimum 1m (3 ft) recess on all four sides)
Roof type: gable roof & flat roof
Architectural style: many options allowed as long as aligned with design guidelines
Orientation: south-facing
Maximum height/limits: 9m (30 ft)
Other requirements
Homeowners’ Requirements
Style, roof form, building type: simple, timeless, flat roof, cube-shaped
Basement, floors: basement, ground floor, 1st floor, 2nd floor as setback level
Number of people, ages: 2 adults, 4 children between 1 and 6 years
Space requirements ground floor, upper floors: ground floor approx. 105-110sqm (1130-1180 sq ft), 1st floor approx. 100-105sqm (1080-1130 sq ft), 2nd floor approx. 40-45sqm (430-480 sq ft)
Office: family use or home office? 1 home office
Guest bedrooms per year: very rare
Open or closed architecture: open concept
Conservative or modern construction: conservative design
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with island
Number of dining seats: at least 6, extendable to 8-9
Fireplace: maybe, but chimney routing is a bit complicated
Music/stereo wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: balcony on 1st floor to soften the building volume, possibly a roof terrace on the 2nd floor if not too complicated
Garage, carport: originally planned garage on one side including storage and carport on the other side, now tend to only carport as garage affects overall appearance
Utility garden, greenhouse: kindergarten ;-)
Other wishes/special features/daily routine, also reasons for why this or that should or should not be included
House Design
Who designed it:
Do-it-Yourself
What do you like most and why?
That it was possible to arrange spacious children’s rooms and create space for two bathrooms. Public living areas on the ground floor, children’s floor on the 1st floor, and parents’ area on the 2nd floor.
What do you like least and why?
I’m uncertain about the positioning of the bathrooms relative to each other (complexity due to drainage pipes), and which staircase best serves the 1st floor layout. The building volume is still not ideal, but I have no further ideas on how to meet the zoning requirements.
Price estimate according to architect/planner: 640,000 EUR
Personal price limit for the house including fittings: approx. 700,000 EUR
Preferred heating system: geothermal
If you have to give up something, which details or extensions
- can you do without: additional room in the setback floor, terrace in the setback floor, already gave up on double garage as it overly restricted the floor plan :-( possibly external basement stairs
- cannot do without: 4 large children’s/teenage rooms, setback floor because we can’t fit all rooms on just 2 floors, basement as a lot of stuff accumulates with 4 children...
Why is the design like it is now? For example:
Because after many nights of planning I couldn’t come up with a better solution...
What makes it in your opinion particularly good or bad?
It meets our requirements on paper, but I lack the experience to judge whether it will work well in practice, which is why I’m asking for your opinions.
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
How can I best organize the living space (especially but not only the 1st floor) and use the proper staircase design to create a spacious hallway without wasting area?
That was quite a bit of work ;-) I hope this information is useful for the further discussion.
In the next post I’ll share the floor plans and some exterior views (if I manage the attachments...)
Thank you in advance for your time reviewing this and for your honest and constructive feedback on the current design!
Best regards
Stephan
StephanM schrieb:
Our concern is that it will feel uncomfortable if the hallway leads directly into the kitchen and living room... My worry is that this 3.62-meter-long (12 feet) tube will rather create some discomfort. I also don’t necessarily see both walls as structurally necessary. Not like that. And if they are, then the top floor (setback floor) has to be involved as well.
The walls don’t help; they seem completely arbitrary, as if the planning either hasn’t started yet or stopped abruptly. The offset to the “bay window” on the south doesn’t fit the flow of the walls either. If you use that space by the window in the living room, you end up looking at the wall edge... which doesn’t create a pleasant spatial impression.
That little nook behind the stairs confuses me. Why isn’t the staircase placed bright and open on the west side where it can get proper daylight and adequately reach three floors?
Upstairs, there’s a leftover small room. It’s funny and nice that the shower ended up on the ground floor like this, but I would rather place the stairs on an outer side, where it receives daylight from the upper floors. A shower can be located elsewhere. I wouldn’t insist on this because it doesn’t do the stairs any favors.
Why is there only one window on the west side? I find the windows not harmoniously distributed at all. As it is, the house has the character of a townhouse.
The cloakroom is too small for six people... The front part of the hallway can’t really be used for furniture (bad door position); only the mentioned walls offer space for a sideboard and keys. The doors upstairs are also somewhat arbitrary... at least on the west side they could all use some adjustment 😉
The windows in the setback floor facing south are not sensible either. While it might seem convenient, having a large south-facing window in the bedroom, especially without balanced east and west windows, doesn’t work for me.
What about the excessive boundary build-up? That’s usually not allowed, is it? Or is it?
StephanM schrieb:
We did use this to have our design thoroughly examined by an independent architect. You only have the architect review your design? You’re doing the planning yourselves?
StephanM schrieb:
The general contractor plans 19 cm (7.5 inches) floor construction for each story; the architect says 15-16 cm (6-6.3 inches) should be sufficient. What role does the architect play here? Who hired them? The general contractor or you?
StephanM schrieb:
Can any roofer handle this, or do you need a specialist that a general contractor probably doesn’t have or want to pay for? If you plan to build with a general contractor, you shouldn’t overestimate their skills or those of their subcontractors. Turnkey prices apply to a standard that doesn’t overstretch the interfaces between trades.
If you have other advisers like an external architect encouraging you to build differently, then you probably shouldn’t build with a general contractor.
All the inconsistencies mentioned suggest that it might be better to have the architect do the planning rather than just checking it.
StephanM schrieb:
A brief summary of what has changed since the last floor plan was shared (Post 41).Basically, nothing before the comma :-(I’m unsure whether you have inaccurately transferred the architect’s plans or if the construction method with external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) has now been abandoned. Also, whether in your thread or another one, you have by now read the suggestion, as I recall from @K1300S, to build your attic floor with a lighter construction method.
Ceterum censeo, the planner should come up with a more clever staircase design to avoid those terrible, barely usable knee wall spaces in the lower floors.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Many thanks to all three of you (ypg, haydee, 11ant) for your comments.
- I understand the note about the living room with the two wall projections! An alternative needs to be developed...
- The projecting rooms behind the staircase result from the required setback on all sides of the recessed top floor. On the ground floor, the bathroom with a shower is planned here. Originally, there was another shower bathroom on the first floor for the morning rush hour; now it is only a utility room. Moving the staircase to the exterior wall is not feasible, as it would then end in an unusable space on the recessed floor. An alternative would be a staircase in the middle of the ground floor...
- The western window belongs to a child’s bedroom; the southern child’s bedroom already has a window facing south and therefore does not have an additional window to the west in order to preserve at least two free wall sections for furniture placement...
- Cloakroom: point taken
- Windows on the recessed floor: That’s true, the orientation of the rooms is to the south, which is not ideal in midsummer. We need to develop an alternative arrangement facing west...
- Excessive boundary development: Did you mean “a total maximum of 15 m (49 feet) and a maximum of 9 m (30 feet) in one stretch”?
- The architectural plans were taken over by me, correct, as I currently only have them as pdf/dwg without dimension chains. The client’s representative has so far rejected a timber construction for the recessed floor. Sand-lime brick plus external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) is still planned with a total wall thickness of 32 cm (13 inches).
I will work through your critique and confront the architect with it.
Thank you very much for your time and opinion!
Best regards
Stephan
- I understand the note about the living room with the two wall projections! An alternative needs to be developed...
- The projecting rooms behind the staircase result from the required setback on all sides of the recessed top floor. On the ground floor, the bathroom with a shower is planned here. Originally, there was another shower bathroom on the first floor for the morning rush hour; now it is only a utility room. Moving the staircase to the exterior wall is not feasible, as it would then end in an unusable space on the recessed floor. An alternative would be a staircase in the middle of the ground floor...
- The western window belongs to a child’s bedroom; the southern child’s bedroom already has a window facing south and therefore does not have an additional window to the west in order to preserve at least two free wall sections for furniture placement...
- Cloakroom: point taken
- Windows on the recessed floor: That’s true, the orientation of the rooms is to the south, which is not ideal in midsummer. We need to develop an alternative arrangement facing west...
- Excessive boundary development: Did you mean “a total maximum of 15 m (49 feet) and a maximum of 9 m (30 feet) in one stretch”?
- The architectural plans were taken over by me, correct, as I currently only have them as pdf/dwg without dimension chains. The client’s representative has so far rejected a timber construction for the recessed floor. Sand-lime brick plus external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) is still planned with a total wall thickness of 32 cm (13 inches).
I will work through your critique and confront the architect with it.
Thank you very much for your time and opinion!
Best regards
Stephan
StephanM schrieb:
The small leftover spaces behind the staircase resulted from the required all-around setback of the top floor. [...] A staircase against the exterior wall isn’t feasible, [...] Alternatively, a staircase in the middle of the ground floor... All misunderstandings, but architect continuing education is not part of my unpaid work here. With just a little more thought, he could figure that out himself. Consistently identical staircase layouts and an all-around setback of the top floor (or a roof slope) do not go together. The cause of the unsatisfactory result is not the setback, but the lazy architect.
StephanM schrieb:
The architect currently rejects a top floor made of wood. Is it your house or theirs? Whoever pays also has the right to decide!
StephanM schrieb:
I will work through your criticism or confront the architect with it. Which project phase are you currently in? Around phase 3, just before 4, they will hardly want to go back.
StephanM schrieb:
Many thanks to you three (ypg, haydee, 11ant) for your comments. Glad to help in general, but here I really struggled with whether it’s even worth commenting. I can’t hide that I was quite disappointed: You announced boldly and extensively that you had used the long interim to make significant improvements. The long wait was true, so I had to look back not just in my memory but also in the thread. And what did I see? Instead of a heavy-duty hammer drill, you only picked up a nail file!
Of course, you could build the current intermediate result as it is. But for that, you could have spared us two months of dust settling in the thread—you were already “that far” before :-(
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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