ᐅ Floor Plan Design Single-Family House approximately 170 m² plus Attic as a Modern Brick-Faced Home
Created on: 3 Jan 2022 18:41
V
Varrader
Good evening,
as previously silent readers, we (a young family with 2 children) are now slowly reaching the point where we would like to ask for help, critique, and ideas here.
We plan to build a single-family house in early 2023 and have already been working with an architect on the design for some time (so far commissioned for phases 1–4).
Here is the forum questionnaire filled out to the best of our knowledge:
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 560m² (6027 sq ft), cul-de-sac location; parking spaces on the west side, wide pedestrian path on the east side, followed by a field (likely to become building land in 10–15 years)
Slope: none
Site occupancy index (Grundflächenzahl): 0.4
Floor area ratio (Geschossflächenzahl): 0.8
Building envelope, building line, and boundary: 3m (10 ft) all around
Border grouping: no
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2 full floors + attic
Roof type: gable roof
Architectural style: modern brick construction with a simple building shape, no roof overhangs
Orientation: east-west
Maximum heights / limits: ridge height 6.5m (21 ft 4 in), eaves height 10m (33 ft)
Additional requirements: hedge on the left side limited to 1m (3 ft) height, distance from first parking space to street at least 5m (16 ft)
Rooms:
Ground floor: living/dining area with open kitchen, small workspace “corner,” utility/storage room, guest toilet
First floor: 2 children’s rooms, master bedroom (preferably with a separate closet area, main room oriented to the east side of the house!), master bathroom with shower and bathtub, children’s bathroom with shower, small laundry room for washing machine and drying rack
Attic: third children’s room, storage room, hobby/office room
Homeowner requirements
Style, roof type, building type: single-family house with gable roof
Basement, floors: no basement, two full floors, attic to be used as living space
Number of people, age: 2 adults, 2 children (2 & 4 years old, another child planned)
Space needs on ground and first floor
Office: family use or home office? Home office space on the ground floor “close to the main activities,” additional more secluded space in the attic
Guests per year: none expected
Open or closed architecture: open living/dining area
Conservative or modern construction: modern construction
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen, kitchen island optional
Number of dining seats: 6–8
Fireplace: no
Music/sound system wall: space for a large TV (about 1.9m (6 ft 3 in) wide expected, no additional equipment like speakers planned)
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: garage for one parking space plus storage for garden tools and equipment inside
Utility garden, greenhouse: decorative garden
Additional wishes/special features/daily routine, including reasons why certain things are or are not chosen: Our current house has very small windows (timber-frame house), so we especially want more light in the house and attractive sightlines into the garden
House design
Who created the plan:
- Architect
What do you particularly like? Why?
The arrangement of the south-facing rooms on the ground floor and the small study, which can feel connected to the living area when the door is open.
We also like that the staircase on the ground floor faces the living areas rather than the front door.
What do you dislike? Why?
We want to enjoy as much of our garden as possible, so our basic desire was to build a narrow but long house. In this design, however, the current platform staircase is very large and feels overwhelming in the hallway area.
On the practical side, this staircase also allows direct access to the attic with the same stair flight.
Price estimate according to architect/planner: €500,000
Personal price limit for the house, including fittings: €550,000
Preferred heating technology: geothermal heat pump
If you have to give up anything, which details/finishes
- can you do without:
- can you not do without:
Why is the design as it is now? For example:
Which wishes from the architect have been implemented: spatial plan discussed with the architect
A mix of many examples from various magazines...
What do you think makes it particularly good or bad?
We are worried about missing a good idea; we sometimes lack the creative input to find solutions that are a bit outside the box.
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
The arrangement of the staircase and the spatial feeling when entering the house are our main concerns. The staircase shapes the entire concept upstairs.
I’ve attached an alternative ground floor plan, where we try to reach the upper floor with an L-shaped staircase. However, this requires a second stair flight to access the attic, which also takes up space...
We look forward to your critique and suggestions!
Best regards,
Stefan
as previously silent readers, we (a young family with 2 children) are now slowly reaching the point where we would like to ask for help, critique, and ideas here.
We plan to build a single-family house in early 2023 and have already been working with an architect on the design for some time (so far commissioned for phases 1–4).
Here is the forum questionnaire filled out to the best of our knowledge:
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 560m² (6027 sq ft), cul-de-sac location; parking spaces on the west side, wide pedestrian path on the east side, followed by a field (likely to become building land in 10–15 years)
Slope: none
Site occupancy index (Grundflächenzahl): 0.4
Floor area ratio (Geschossflächenzahl): 0.8
Building envelope, building line, and boundary: 3m (10 ft) all around
Border grouping: no
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2 full floors + attic
Roof type: gable roof
Architectural style: modern brick construction with a simple building shape, no roof overhangs
Orientation: east-west
Maximum heights / limits: ridge height 6.5m (21 ft 4 in), eaves height 10m (33 ft)
Additional requirements: hedge on the left side limited to 1m (3 ft) height, distance from first parking space to street at least 5m (16 ft)
Rooms:
Ground floor: living/dining area with open kitchen, small workspace “corner,” utility/storage room, guest toilet
First floor: 2 children’s rooms, master bedroom (preferably with a separate closet area, main room oriented to the east side of the house!), master bathroom with shower and bathtub, children’s bathroom with shower, small laundry room for washing machine and drying rack
Attic: third children’s room, storage room, hobby/office room
Homeowner requirements
Style, roof type, building type: single-family house with gable roof
Basement, floors: no basement, two full floors, attic to be used as living space
Number of people, age: 2 adults, 2 children (2 & 4 years old, another child planned)
Space needs on ground and first floor
Office: family use or home office? Home office space on the ground floor “close to the main activities,” additional more secluded space in the attic
Guests per year: none expected
Open or closed architecture: open living/dining area
Conservative or modern construction: modern construction
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen, kitchen island optional
Number of dining seats: 6–8
Fireplace: no
Music/sound system wall: space for a large TV (about 1.9m (6 ft 3 in) wide expected, no additional equipment like speakers planned)
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: garage for one parking space plus storage for garden tools and equipment inside
Utility garden, greenhouse: decorative garden
Additional wishes/special features/daily routine, including reasons why certain things are or are not chosen: Our current house has very small windows (timber-frame house), so we especially want more light in the house and attractive sightlines into the garden
House design
Who created the plan:
- Architect
What do you particularly like? Why?
The arrangement of the south-facing rooms on the ground floor and the small study, which can feel connected to the living area when the door is open.
We also like that the staircase on the ground floor faces the living areas rather than the front door.
What do you dislike? Why?
We want to enjoy as much of our garden as possible, so our basic desire was to build a narrow but long house. In this design, however, the current platform staircase is very large and feels overwhelming in the hallway area.
On the practical side, this staircase also allows direct access to the attic with the same stair flight.
Price estimate according to architect/planner: €500,000
Personal price limit for the house, including fittings: €550,000
Preferred heating technology: geothermal heat pump
If you have to give up anything, which details/finishes
- can you do without:
- can you not do without:
Why is the design as it is now? For example:
Which wishes from the architect have been implemented: spatial plan discussed with the architect
A mix of many examples from various magazines...
What do you think makes it particularly good or bad?
We are worried about missing a good idea; we sometimes lack the creative input to find solutions that are a bit outside the box.
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
The arrangement of the staircase and the spatial feeling when entering the house are our main concerns. The staircase shapes the entire concept upstairs.
I’ve attached an alternative ground floor plan, where we try to reach the upper floor with an L-shaped staircase. However, this requires a second stair flight to access the attic, which also takes up space...
We look forward to your critique and suggestions!
Best regards,
Stefan
epinephrin schrieb:
Hmm, I know sometimes you have to think a bit outside the box with you, How do you know – are you not exactly "new" here?
epinephrin schrieb:
to understand your well-meaning advice, but I can’t figure out why this particular thread…? They’re not just well "intentioned." Why this one? Simply a small mistake on my part: your predecessor was @Neubau2022, and their house would be a bungalow, but not with 170cm (5 feet 7 inches) square meters, so my suggestion fit better in that regard. But of course, referring to two stories was a misstep.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
E
epinephrin5 Sep 2022 21:1511ant schrieb:
How do you know — aren’t you “new” here at all?Just my impression from reading quite a few threads by now. Your advice is very direct and refreshing. :-)
epinephrin schrieb:
Just my impression from numerous threads I’ve read so far. Your advice is very straightforward and refreshing. By the way, you can find them under the same forum name in all relevant specialist forums (except one that requires real names) 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
As soon as I’m away for a short time, my nice thread gets hijacked here 😀
To answer your question @epinephrin: We’re currently "pausing." The development of the building plot is taking longer than expected; the earliest possible start date for construction is about a year from now.
Regarding costs: Yes, the developments have overtaken us. We started planning back in mid-2020, still aiming for the deadline to receive child benefits (!). After several delays, we now have a plan that, under current circumstances, we would assess differently and probably will revise again.
We’re still waiting on a cost estimate from a general contractor, but of course, that’s just guesswork at this point. Who knows what things will look like in a year.
Since we still expect prices to rise overall, we’ve been looking more critically at the current room sizes.
We like the layout and room sizes on the ground floor as they are. Probably, it wouldn’t even be noticeable if the house were 0.5m (1.6 ft) shorter here.
The biggest potential for adjustment, we see on the upper floor. All the rooms currently feel a bit too “proper” for our taste. The children’s room at 14 m² (150 sq ft) would be enough for us now, and the bedroom could definitely be smaller (actually, we don’t want the planned room divider at all; we prefer just having a nice built-in wardrobe). The bathroom is also very large, around 16 m² (170 sq ft), so there’s probably about 4 m² (43 sq ft) that could be saved there. There’s also room to reduce the children’s bathroom size a bit.
A few weeks ago we visited the Baufritz showroom in Bavaria and looked at two houses, Lichtblick and Heimat 4.0. Great examples of how you can create fantastic spaces with excellent interior design and straightforward architecture/planning, without needing large rooms at all. We found these very inspiring with regard to room sizes.
-> So, there is potential on the upper floor, while we’d prefer to keep the ground floor as it is. A possible measure in our case would be to reduce the main building volume and compensate by enlarging the bay window on the ground floor. Currently, only a small section extends on the south side, but it could be extended to another side as well.
-> Another point that concerns us is that, while the street-side entrance looks absolutely perfect to us, the hallway situation on the ground floor is more complicated because of it. An entrance from the side would allow us to keep the office separate so it wouldn’t have to be accessed through the living room (like in Baufritz’s Heimat 4.0, see attachment). Here, for example, a secondary kitchen or utility room could have access from the hallway.
Challenging times.
To answer your question @epinephrin: We’re currently "pausing." The development of the building plot is taking longer than expected; the earliest possible start date for construction is about a year from now.
Regarding costs: Yes, the developments have overtaken us. We started planning back in mid-2020, still aiming for the deadline to receive child benefits (!). After several delays, we now have a plan that, under current circumstances, we would assess differently and probably will revise again.
We’re still waiting on a cost estimate from a general contractor, but of course, that’s just guesswork at this point. Who knows what things will look like in a year.
Since we still expect prices to rise overall, we’ve been looking more critically at the current room sizes.
We like the layout and room sizes on the ground floor as they are. Probably, it wouldn’t even be noticeable if the house were 0.5m (1.6 ft) shorter here.
The biggest potential for adjustment, we see on the upper floor. All the rooms currently feel a bit too “proper” for our taste. The children’s room at 14 m² (150 sq ft) would be enough for us now, and the bedroom could definitely be smaller (actually, we don’t want the planned room divider at all; we prefer just having a nice built-in wardrobe). The bathroom is also very large, around 16 m² (170 sq ft), so there’s probably about 4 m² (43 sq ft) that could be saved there. There’s also room to reduce the children’s bathroom size a bit.
A few weeks ago we visited the Baufritz showroom in Bavaria and looked at two houses, Lichtblick and Heimat 4.0. Great examples of how you can create fantastic spaces with excellent interior design and straightforward architecture/planning, without needing large rooms at all. We found these very inspiring with regard to room sizes.
-> So, there is potential on the upper floor, while we’d prefer to keep the ground floor as it is. A possible measure in our case would be to reduce the main building volume and compensate by enlarging the bay window on the ground floor. Currently, only a small section extends on the south side, but it could be extended to another side as well.
-> Another point that concerns us is that, while the street-side entrance looks absolutely perfect to us, the hallway situation on the ground floor is more complicated because of it. An entrance from the side would allow us to keep the office separate so it wouldn’t have to be accessed through the living room (like in Baufritz’s Heimat 4.0, see attachment). Here, for example, a secondary kitchen or utility room could have access from the hallway.
Challenging times.
M
Myrna_Loy6 Sep 2022 20:28The second kitchen with its odd layout would be a prime candidate for the chopping block.
Myrna_Loy schrieb:
The second kitchen with its strange layout would be a perfect candidate for the chopping block.What do you mean? 😀Apart from that: of course it’s poorly used, with the second kitchen and the seating area next to the island by the wall. But at least there is definitely enough space for a sufficiently large utility room there.
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