ᐅ Floor plan of a single-family house approximately 300 sqm, plot size 780 sqm
Created on: 17 Nov 2021 16:26
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_MPCAP_
Hello dear forum members!
I recently discovered this housebuilding forum and am impressed by the constructive feedback participants provide when discussing floor plan drafts.
A few months ago, I purchased a plot of land for a detached single-family home in an established residential area on the outskirts of a major German city. The plan is now to build a high-quality single-family house on this plot. The design will be carried out with an architect, and the construction is intended to be managed through separate trade contracts. A construction manager will also be hired.
Over the past few weeks, I have discussed three design drafts with the architect in iterative steps. I am generally quite satisfied with the current third draft. At the same time, I am not a professional and this is my first time building a house. I am sure there are aspects in the floor plan that I overlook or have not yet identified as problematic. I am extremely grateful for any feedback from forum members!
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 780 sqm (8400 sq ft)
Slope: No
Site occupancy index (floor area ratio for footprint): 0.4
Floor space index (total buildable floor area ratio): 0.4
Building envelope, building line and boundary: BUILDING ENVELOPE: 14 meters (46 ft) wide, 15 meters (49 ft) deep; BUILDING LINE 5 meters (16 ft) deep into the plot; BUILDING BOUNDARY 20 meters (66 ft) deep into the plot
Adjacent buildings: Detached single-family houses stand on both left and right sides
Parking spaces: Each side (left and right) will have a garage directly at the property boundary, 3 meters (10 ft) wide each
Number of floors: 1 full floor; the upper floor is restricted to not exceed 75% of the ground floor area
Roof shape: No requirements
Architectural style: (Neo) Classical
Orientation: The plot is oriented east-west (street side facing west, garden side facing east)
Maximum heights / limits: Ridge height 8.6 meters (28 ft)
Other requirements
Homeowners’ Requirements
Architectural style, roof shape, building type: Neo-classical style, detached single-family home
Basement, floors: Fully finished basement, ground floor, upper floor
Number of occupants, age: Planned for a family with three children (currently childless, but the house is planned and built with future family growth in mind)
Space requirements ground floor and upper floor: Three children’s bedrooms, home office, spacious living area, generous walk-in closet
Office: Family use or home office? Home office
Overnight guests per year: Not frequent
Open or closed design concept: Rather open
Conservative or modern building style: More conservative/classical
Open kitchen, kitchen island: Kitchen island
Number of dining seats: 8 to 10
Fireplace: Yes
Music / stereo wall: Yes
Balcony, roof terrace: No
Garage, carport: Yes, two garages
Utility garden, greenhouse: No
Additional wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons for preferences
House Design
Who designed it: Architect
- Contractor’s designer
- Architect
- Do-it-yourself
What do you particularly like? Why? Overall, I already quite like the floor plan
What do you not like? Why? Open question: The master bedroom currently faces the street (however, it is a low-traffic street in a residential area)
Price estimate according to architect/planner: Construction costs about 3,400 EUR per sqm (approximately 316 USD per sq ft) of living space plus 20% additional costs (architect, structural engineer, surveyor, construction manager, etc.) plus land acquisition plus furnishings
Personal price limit for the house, including equipment:
Preferred heating system: Research still ongoing
If you have to give up anything, what details/features
- can you do without:
- cannot do without:
Why is the design like it is now? e.g.
Standard draft from the planner?
Which requests have been implemented by the architect? This is the architect’s third draft. For example, a conservatory was planned in an earlier draft, the kitchen was enlarged, the room program on the upper floor was changed, and other fine-tuning adjustments were made.
A mixture of many examples from various magazines...
What makes it particularly good or bad in your opinion?
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan, summarized in 130 characters?
I AM BASICALLY SATISFIED WITH THE CURRENT FLOOR PLAN FROM THE ARCHITECT (THIS IS THE THIRD DRAFT AFTER MANY REFINEMENTS BY ME), BUT INSPIRED BY THE EXPERTISE IN THIS FORUM AND THEREFORE VERY GRATEFUL FOR ANY CRITICAL FEEDBACK OR OBSERVATIONS.
I recently discovered this housebuilding forum and am impressed by the constructive feedback participants provide when discussing floor plan drafts.
A few months ago, I purchased a plot of land for a detached single-family home in an established residential area on the outskirts of a major German city. The plan is now to build a high-quality single-family house on this plot. The design will be carried out with an architect, and the construction is intended to be managed through separate trade contracts. A construction manager will also be hired.
Over the past few weeks, I have discussed three design drafts with the architect in iterative steps. I am generally quite satisfied with the current third draft. At the same time, I am not a professional and this is my first time building a house. I am sure there are aspects in the floor plan that I overlook or have not yet identified as problematic. I am extremely grateful for any feedback from forum members!
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 780 sqm (8400 sq ft)
Slope: No
Site occupancy index (floor area ratio for footprint): 0.4
Floor space index (total buildable floor area ratio): 0.4
Building envelope, building line and boundary: BUILDING ENVELOPE: 14 meters (46 ft) wide, 15 meters (49 ft) deep; BUILDING LINE 5 meters (16 ft) deep into the plot; BUILDING BOUNDARY 20 meters (66 ft) deep into the plot
Adjacent buildings: Detached single-family houses stand on both left and right sides
Parking spaces: Each side (left and right) will have a garage directly at the property boundary, 3 meters (10 ft) wide each
Number of floors: 1 full floor; the upper floor is restricted to not exceed 75% of the ground floor area
Roof shape: No requirements
Architectural style: (Neo) Classical
Orientation: The plot is oriented east-west (street side facing west, garden side facing east)
Maximum heights / limits: Ridge height 8.6 meters (28 ft)
Other requirements
Homeowners’ Requirements
Architectural style, roof shape, building type: Neo-classical style, detached single-family home
Basement, floors: Fully finished basement, ground floor, upper floor
Number of occupants, age: Planned for a family with three children (currently childless, but the house is planned and built with future family growth in mind)
Space requirements ground floor and upper floor: Three children’s bedrooms, home office, spacious living area, generous walk-in closet
Office: Family use or home office? Home office
Overnight guests per year: Not frequent
Open or closed design concept: Rather open
Conservative or modern building style: More conservative/classical
Open kitchen, kitchen island: Kitchen island
Number of dining seats: 8 to 10
Fireplace: Yes
Music / stereo wall: Yes
Balcony, roof terrace: No
Garage, carport: Yes, two garages
Utility garden, greenhouse: No
Additional wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons for preferences
House Design
Who designed it: Architect
- Contractor’s designer
- Architect
- Do-it-yourself
What do you particularly like? Why? Overall, I already quite like the floor plan
What do you not like? Why? Open question: The master bedroom currently faces the street (however, it is a low-traffic street in a residential area)
Price estimate according to architect/planner: Construction costs about 3,400 EUR per sqm (approximately 316 USD per sq ft) of living space plus 20% additional costs (architect, structural engineer, surveyor, construction manager, etc.) plus land acquisition plus furnishings
Personal price limit for the house, including equipment:
Preferred heating system: Research still ongoing
If you have to give up anything, what details/features
- can you do without:
- cannot do without:
Why is the design like it is now? e.g.
Standard draft from the planner?
Which requests have been implemented by the architect? This is the architect’s third draft. For example, a conservatory was planned in an earlier draft, the kitchen was enlarged, the room program on the upper floor was changed, and other fine-tuning adjustments were made.
A mixture of many examples from various magazines...
What makes it particularly good or bad in your opinion?
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan, summarized in 130 characters?
I AM BASICALLY SATISFIED WITH THE CURRENT FLOOR PLAN FROM THE ARCHITECT (THIS IS THE THIRD DRAFT AFTER MANY REFINEMENTS BY ME), BUT INSPIRED BY THE EXPERTISE IN THIS FORUM AND THEREFORE VERY GRATEFUL FOR ANY CRITICAL FEEDBACK OR OBSERVATIONS.
T
thoughtless8617 Nov 2021 20:05Unfortunately, I have to agree with the others. With the current construction costs, a living area of 300 sqm (3,230 sq ft) plus upscale to very high-end finishes, a six-figure amount is no longer sufficient just for the house itself...
The house is very complex and cramped. The garages look like attached mini wings... if I’m not mistaken, there is a complete lack of an adequate utility room/technical room.
For a project like this with your requirements, I would suggest a redesign. A sketch of the property/site plan would also be helpful...
The house is very complex and cramped. The garages look like attached mini wings... if I’m not mistaken, there is a complete lack of an adequate utility room/technical room.
For a project like this with your requirements, I would suggest a redesign. A sketch of the property/site plan would also be helpful...
S
soneva201217 Nov 2021 20:20Something different! I like that!
Since I have three children myself, a few things come to mind right away.
- With such a large area, I would plan for two living rooms. It’s great to be in the kitchen and keep an eye on the kids, but having a separate room is invaluable—either as a playroom or an adults-only living room where you can relax in the evening without having to clear away a thousand Lego bricks. You could separate the TV area, but it would need a window.
- The kids’ bathroom needs a bathtub! Otherwise, you’ll have to bathe the children in the main bathroom for years.
- ypg already pointed out the issue with dirt in the entrance/stair area—especially in winter, it can be really bad unless you always enter through the garage with the kids.
- Building both garages at the boundary isn’t really my style. But it does look quite impressive. I would plan for a door at the back of the left garage to take out the trash bins. There isn’t enough space through the right garage. Do you have another access to the garden or only through the garage? How will you manage when bigger garden work needs to be done?
- I assume you are building with a basement?
- For a house like this, it’s certainly easy to spend several hundred thousand more.
Since I have three children myself, a few things come to mind right away.
- With such a large area, I would plan for two living rooms. It’s great to be in the kitchen and keep an eye on the kids, but having a separate room is invaluable—either as a playroom or an adults-only living room where you can relax in the evening without having to clear away a thousand Lego bricks. You could separate the TV area, but it would need a window.
- The kids’ bathroom needs a bathtub! Otherwise, you’ll have to bathe the children in the main bathroom for years.
- ypg already pointed out the issue with dirt in the entrance/stair area—especially in winter, it can be really bad unless you always enter through the garage with the kids.
- Building both garages at the boundary isn’t really my style. But it does look quite impressive. I would plan for a door at the back of the left garage to take out the trash bins. There isn’t enough space through the right garage. Do you have another access to the garden or only through the garage? How will you manage when bigger garden work needs to be done?
- I assume you are building with a basement?
- For a house like this, it’s certainly easy to spend several hundred thousand more.
Dear Forum Members,
Thank you very much for the initial feedback. As requested, attached are two images of the site plan – is this the correct document, or did you mean something else? The plot in question is number 274 – currently, an old building marked for demolition is still shown on the maps, which will be demolished soon.
A few brief thoughts on the first feedback and how I understood it from our architect:
1. Regarding lighting in the center of the house, the plan is to install a large glass element in the middle of the roof on the street side (i.e., the west side) of the building. To the left and right of this, two dormer windows are planned, as seen in the design. This glass element would then illuminate the entire air space and thus the center of the house. According to the architect, the light entry from this glass element in the roof is about 8 times higher than that of a regular vertical window. Opinions from the forum on this are very welcome!
2. I have also considered a window on the south side of the living room. The architect advises against this, recommending some degree of visual separation from the neighbor on the south side and believes the living room should already receive excellent light due to the floor-to-ceiling wide window front facing the east garden. Feedback on this from your side would be much appreciated as well!
A few more clarifications/information:
1. A basement is also planned. This will include the utility room/connection room.
2. The room labeled "AB" on the ground floor is somewhat confusingly named – it is intended to be the pantry. The storage room will be located in the basement.
3. The left garage will also have a full roller door on the garden side, so that medium-duty equipment can be driven into the garden when needed for gardening work. In fact, these two garages will be the only access route to our garden, as you can also see on the site plan.
4. The plot is 20m (66 feet) wide and approximately 39-40m (128-131 feet) deep, nearly rectangular.
5. Ideas regarding the cloakroom situation would be very interesting – I thought the architect’s solution was well executed, but there has already been feedback suggesting it’s not ideal. This is an important point of consideration for me!
Best regards!
Thank you very much for the initial feedback. As requested, attached are two images of the site plan – is this the correct document, or did you mean something else? The plot in question is number 274 – currently, an old building marked for demolition is still shown on the maps, which will be demolished soon.
A few brief thoughts on the first feedback and how I understood it from our architect:
1. Regarding lighting in the center of the house, the plan is to install a large glass element in the middle of the roof on the street side (i.e., the west side) of the building. To the left and right of this, two dormer windows are planned, as seen in the design. This glass element would then illuminate the entire air space and thus the center of the house. According to the architect, the light entry from this glass element in the roof is about 8 times higher than that of a regular vertical window. Opinions from the forum on this are very welcome!
2. I have also considered a window on the south side of the living room. The architect advises against this, recommending some degree of visual separation from the neighbor on the south side and believes the living room should already receive excellent light due to the floor-to-ceiling wide window front facing the east garden. Feedback on this from your side would be much appreciated as well!
A few more clarifications/information:
1. A basement is also planned. This will include the utility room/connection room.
2. The room labeled "AB" on the ground floor is somewhat confusingly named – it is intended to be the pantry. The storage room will be located in the basement.
3. The left garage will also have a full roller door on the garden side, so that medium-duty equipment can be driven into the garden when needed for gardening work. In fact, these two garages will be the only access route to our garden, as you can also see on the site plan.
4. The plot is 20m (66 feet) wide and approximately 39-40m (128-131 feet) deep, nearly rectangular.
5. Ideas regarding the cloakroom situation would be very interesting – I thought the architect’s solution was well executed, but there has already been feedback suggesting it’s not ideal. This is an important point of consideration for me!
Best regards!
_MPCAP_ schrieb:
From his point of view, the living room should be very well lit because of the floor-to-ceiling wide window front facing the east garden. Your feedback on this would be much appreciated! _MPCAP_ schrieb:
According to the architect, the amount of light coming through this glass element in the roof would be about 8 times higher than through a normal vertical window. Opinions from the forum are very welcome! _MPCAP_ schrieb:
The glass element would then illuminate the entire open space and thus the center of the house – To repeat: from October to March, i.e., about half a year, there is only diffuse light in the north, east, and west. No direct sunlight. Only the open space benefits from this roof window. And the hallway. For nearly all other rooms, this is not even an emergency solution.
_MPCAP_ schrieb:
The architect advises against this because he recommends some "separation" from the neighbor on the south side in the living area. What exactly does he want to separate you from? They have already separated themselves. Sure, a townhouse automatically separates you since side windows are not possible, but this is rather unacceptable in a higher-end detached house. For privacy, garden walls or hedges at the property boundary serve to create visual screening in the garden.
soneva2012 schrieb:
With such an area, I would plan two living rooms. I would do the same. The TV room or library can definitely use a door for retreat or quiet time with three children. Aside from that, I would rotate the rooms 3 hours clockwise. Perhaps even rotate the entire house.
Overall, the house gains nothing with this size. Likewise, a house does not benefit if you add "ears" on the left and right and then give the rest a townhouse character. Yes, space is tight. But quantity has never been better than quality.
_MPCAP_ schrieb:
Is this the right document or are you referring to something else? That is correct. I would ask you to sketch the plot yourself. Graph paper, 2 squares = 1 cm (approximately 0.8 inch). The backyard can be neglected. Mark the boundary structures with hatching. Then mark the (sunlight) in winter as a pie-shaped section between SE and SW and in summer between NE and NW. In the building area, mark the hashtag symbol, #, as zones of different areas inside the house. You can now mark rooms or seating/furniture where you see them or yourself.
Then add the terrace for summer evening dining. Maybe you want to sit in the shade... you do all this for yourself, because I have the feeling you have not really dealt with the land, only with its representative effect. Reflect on whether a display fireplace will actually be used and if the hallway needs to be a reception hall.
The entrance and a double garage could be placed on the north side of the plot. Perhaps the house could be a bit narrower. If space is lacking, money can also be well invested by planning a large light well with additional living spaces in the basement.
If you find that this design really fits your life, at least consider adding windows to the free walls on the left and right sides.
I will not comment on the cloakroom because I think you would focus only on that then.
Do you already have an exterior view of the house?
ypg schrieb:
I won’t comment on the cloakroom now, as I think you will just focus on that. This is exactly the classic case: the more forgettable the design, the more convinced the proud future homeowners usually are that only a handful of final tweaks are missing ;-)
ypg schrieb:
Overall, the house gains nothing in this size. Also, a house doesn’t gain anything by adding two “ears” on the left and right and giving the rest a row house character. Yes, the space is tight for this size. But quantity has never been better than quality. To me, the design seems to primarily aim at ostentatiously demonstrating: wealthier people live here now. And I can’t help but think a bit of Cinderella: "once you’re queen, you don’t really need to walk much anymore." The blood in the shoe here is “symmetry” (and I mean really thick—this house is the boss on the street).
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
H
hanghaus200018 Nov 2021 08:45May I ask how much the plot of land cost?
The slogan from America doesn’t quite work well here. "Big is Beautiful"? That could definitely be improved. If I’m investing more than 1.5 million, then the result should be something beautiful, not just big.
The slogan from America doesn’t quite work well here. "Big is Beautiful"? That could definitely be improved. If I’m investing more than 1.5 million, then the result should be something beautiful, not just big.
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