ᐅ House Floor Plan with a Separate Apartment – Suggestions for Improvement?
Created on: 31 Aug 2022 12:31
M
MarlenP
Hello everyone,
we plan to build a house with two residential units on a 472m2 (5,079 sq ft) plot of land (Unit 1: 143.39m2 (1,543 sq ft) / Unit 2: 69.57m2 (749 sq ft)).
The second unit is intended for my parents, while the main unit is for my family, which includes my spouse and three children (ages 7, 13, and 17).
Since our plot is relatively small, we want to build a compact house to maximize the garden space.
We are currently in the final planning stage and would appreciate your feedback on our project.
We have a feeling that we might have overlooked some important aspects or not paid enough attention to certain details because our planning focus was mainly on the compactness of the house.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 472m2 (5,079 sq ft)
Slope: no
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.6
Building envelope, building line, and boundary
Perimeter development: south and east
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2
Roof type: hipped roof
Architectural style:
Orientation: south/west
Maximum heights / limits: 10m (33 ft)
Additional requirements
Client Requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type: urban villa
Basement, number of storeys: no basement
Number of occupants and ages: Unit 1 – 5 people (ages 43, 38, 17, 13, 7); Unit 2 – 2 people, both over 60
Space needs on ground floor / upper floor:
Office: family use or home office? -
Number of guest stays per year: 2-3 times per year
Open or closed layout: open
Traditional or modern build style: modern
Open kitchen, with or without island: open kitchen, no island
Number of dining seats: 5
Fireplace: no
Music / stereo wall: no
Balcony or roof terrace: no
Garage or carport: garage
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Other wishes / special features / daily routines, also reasons why certain features are included or excluded
The house should be compact but still feel spacious.
House Design
Planning by:
- planner from a construction company
- architect: by the architect
- do-it-yourself
What do you particularly like? Why? It is a relatively small house with two residential units.
What do you dislike? Why? Maybe some rooms (children’s rooms and the rooms in the secondary unit) are too small?
Price estimate according to architect/planner: approx. 600,000€
Personal budget limit for house including fittings: 650,000€
Preferred heating system: district heating
If you had to give up something, which details or expansions
- could you do without: basically nothing – we have already minimized everything.
- could you not do without: the planned number of rooms
Why did the design end up like it is? For example:
Standard design from the planner?
Which wishes were implemented by the architect? Yes
A mix 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 in 130 characters?
We wanted the house to be as compact as possible. Maybe we focused too much on compactness and neglected other important aspects.
What do you like about the house, what do you not like so much, and what would be unacceptable?
we plan to build a house with two residential units on a 472m2 (5,079 sq ft) plot of land (Unit 1: 143.39m2 (1,543 sq ft) / Unit 2: 69.57m2 (749 sq ft)).
The second unit is intended for my parents, while the main unit is for my family, which includes my spouse and three children (ages 7, 13, and 17).
Since our plot is relatively small, we want to build a compact house to maximize the garden space.
We are currently in the final planning stage and would appreciate your feedback on our project.
We have a feeling that we might have overlooked some important aspects or not paid enough attention to certain details because our planning focus was mainly on the compactness of the house.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 472m2 (5,079 sq ft)
Slope: no
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.6
Building envelope, building line, and boundary
Perimeter development: south and east
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2
Roof type: hipped roof
Architectural style:
Orientation: south/west
Maximum heights / limits: 10m (33 ft)
Additional requirements
Client Requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type: urban villa
Basement, number of storeys: no basement
Number of occupants and ages: Unit 1 – 5 people (ages 43, 38, 17, 13, 7); Unit 2 – 2 people, both over 60
Space needs on ground floor / upper floor:
Office: family use or home office? -
Number of guest stays per year: 2-3 times per year
Open or closed layout: open
Traditional or modern build style: modern
Open kitchen, with or without island: open kitchen, no island
Number of dining seats: 5
Fireplace: no
Music / stereo wall: no
Balcony or roof terrace: no
Garage or carport: garage
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Other wishes / special features / daily routines, also reasons why certain features are included or excluded
The house should be compact but still feel spacious.
House Design
Planning by:
- planner from a construction company
- architect: by the architect
- do-it-yourself
What do you particularly like? Why? It is a relatively small house with two residential units.
What do you dislike? Why? Maybe some rooms (children’s rooms and the rooms in the secondary unit) are too small?
Price estimate according to architect/planner: approx. 600,000€
Personal budget limit for house including fittings: 650,000€
Preferred heating system: district heating
If you had to give up something, which details or expansions
- could you do without: basically nothing – we have already minimized everything.
- could you not do without: the planned number of rooms
Why did the design end up like it is? For example:
Standard design from the planner?
Which wishes were implemented by the architect? Yes
A mix 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 in 130 characters?
We wanted the house to be as compact as possible. Maybe we focused too much on compactness and neglected other important aspects.
What do you like about the house, what do you not like so much, and what would be unacceptable?
MarlenP schrieb:
Guest toilet under the stairs @Bertram100 has it like that.
MarlenP schrieb:
He had to think about it for a long time first. Unfortunately, nothing came to his mind right away until I gave him the tip. Wow, honestly: an architect doesn’t have to come up with something immediately. A creative person can take a few days to be creative. But if he can excuse himself from his work because the client makes him a suggestion, I have a problem with that. You have already given him the freedom not to have to think… 😱
MarlenP schrieb:
This would expand the open-plan living area for the parents to about 26m2 (280 sq ft) and the staircase could stay where it is. Yes, this results, if I’m thinking correctly, in an unstructured rectangular room that is very difficult to divide.
S
Sunshine38713 Sep 2022 20:38The idea is, of course, a compromise solution that might save you some costs and can be implemented quickly. However, consider how the utility room would be accessible from the street if the garage door is in front of it. I believe that is the main issue. In my opinion, it still doesn’t make sense to build the house with this floor plan. But if you prefer to proceed quickly now, the alternatives are obviously not ideal either. Still, in a few years, you will almost certainly not be able to sell the house as is without significant renovations. At that point, your house will no longer be a valuable asset but a depreciated one.
B
Bertram10013 Sep 2022 20:41Yes, the guest toilet is large enough to use the toilet comfortably (even for stand-up urination :cool 🙂 and has space for a hand basin. I have no complaints. It’s not a luxury showpiece room (just wait, I’ve ordered tiles 😀), but it’s perfectly fine. I would design it the same way again.
Think this through carefully, especially if you have three children and the staircase leading upstairs is practically right next to the sofa. Children grow into teenagers, have visitors, including in the evenings, and so on. So rotating the staircase is not really the best solution in my opinion.
And, a utility room in the garage... consider the connections for bathrooms and the routing of pipes and cables.
And, a utility room in the garage... consider the connections for bathrooms and the routing of pipes and cables.
kbt09 schrieb:
And, the utility room in the garage... think about connections for bathrooms and routing of pipesThen again, you need alternative rooms for the washing machine and so on... Honestly? First, it was the visitor brother's room, now the utility room is becoming the center of the disaster...
The planning process is a constant back-and-forth of compromises. The priorities keep changing, for example, “Brother never ever in the main apartment” to “Brother in the main apartment is perfectly fine.” Now, they want to stick to the building permit / planning permission because any change causes too many additional costs.
If the utility room (HAR) is relocated to the garage, in my opinion a new application is also required. Extending the building envelope to the garage secretly is not possible either, because then the parking spaces would be missing, which are already barely sufficient.
If the utility room (HAR) is relocated to the garage, in my opinion a new application is also required. Extending the building envelope to the garage secretly is not possible either, because then the parking spaces would be missing, which are already barely sufficient.
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