ᐅ Own floor plan design for a 180 sqm urban villa with double garage – feedback requested

Hello everyone,

after being an active silent reader here for quite some time, I decided it was time to register.
A few weeks ago, we applied for a building plot with our local municipality and have now received the approval for the land. Although we plan to start building at the beginning of 2024, we are already putting a lot of thought into how our house might look. We have created a rough floor plan draft ourselves. I would like to ask you for feedback and suggestions.

Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 576 sqm (6,200 sq ft)
Slope: no
Site occupancy index (floor area ratio for ground coverage): 0.3
Floor space index (floor area ratio for all floors): 0.6
Building envelope, building line and boundary: building boundary as per development plan
Edge development: see attachment
Number of parking spaces: at least 1.5 parking spaces
Number of floors: 2 full stories
Roof type: hip roof, gable roof, pitched roof, saddle roof
Architectural style: -
Orientation: see attachment
Maximum height / limits: eaves height 7 m (23 ft)
Other requirements: -

Homeowners’ Requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type: single-family house with two full stories and a hip roof
Basement, floors: no basement, two full floors
Number of people, ages: 2 adults, 2 children (2 1/2 years and newborn)
Room needs on ground floor and upper floor:
Office: family use or home office? Two offices (ground floor + upper floor)
Guest bedrooms per year: -
Open or closed layout: open living and dining area
Traditional or modern construction: modern
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen, kitchen island not necessarily required
Number of dining seats: 6-8
Fireplace: no
Music/stereo wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: double garage with storage space; carport with shed also possible
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Other wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons why certain things are preferred or avoided: -

House Design
Who designed it:
-Do-it-Yourself
What do you particularly like? Why? Two offices; open living and dining area with cozy sofa corner; children’s rooms facing south; master bedroom facing north; utility room with access to the garage
What do you not like? Why? Overall, we like our design. We want to maximize the use of our garden area on the south side. To get more out of it, the house would need to be narrower and longer (currently 11 x 10.5 m (36 x 34.5 ft)). In our designs, this always failed because the rooms become too narrow and elongated. As laypersons, we probably overlook major planning mistakes. So, we ask here for constructive criticism and suggestions.
Cost estimate according to architect/planner: -
Personal budget limit for the house, including fittings: 500,000
Preferred heating technology: -

If you have to give up one or more details/additions,
-what can you do without: garage, the second office/guest room
-what you cannot do without: -

Why did the design end up like this? E.g.
-Collection of ideas from catalogs and internet searches

What is the most important / fundamental question about the floor plan, summarized in 130 characters?
The main question is whether we have sensibly planned the layout and arrangement of garage, house entrance, and rooms in relation to the plot and its orientation. Is the design coherent overall?

The attached image with the house on the plot (Entwurf.jpg) is a draft from the responsible planning office for the building area. We want to build the house and garage aligned in the same way. However, the house will be placed at the front building boundary and the garage shifted towards the rear plot boundary.

PS: We created the design with a rudimentary online tool. Unfortunately, the tool does not allow adjusting room names (therefore “playroom” instead of “children’s room,” etc.), but I think you understand what is meant.

I look forward to your feedback 🙂!

Welcome to the forum – one thing that immediately stands out to me:
Where is the utility room (heating, ventilation, electrical, plumbing, telecommunications, etc.)?
Living room depth is 4m (13 feet), upper floor room depth is 3.5m (11.5 feet),
meaning the stairs are not aligned vertically, so neither are the room walls, and the stairs also seem very short.

The staircase also seems too short to me. How long is it drawn?

What floor-to-ceiling height is planned? This is also important for the staircase design.

Thanks for the welcome and your reply!

The storage room equals the heated living area and is 10.8 m² (116 sq ft). We believe this should be enough space for the technical equipment and a small laundry area.

I hadn’t actually considered that load-bearing walls need to be aligned vertically. However, that makes sense to avoid shear stress. So we will have to adjust the layout here. This will make the bathroom/office on the upper floor a bit smaller—and the children's rooms unnecessarily large. We will have to come up with a solution for this.

Stairs: I overlooked that they are not aligned between the levels. For the length, I followed the recommendation from the checklist of 3.60 m (11 ft 10 in).

dimba234 schrieb:

Thanks for the welcome and your response!

The storage room is the heating room (HTR) and has 10.8m² (116 sq ft). In our opinion, that should be enough space for the technical equipment and a small laundry area.

I hadn’t really considered before that load-bearing walls have to align vertically. But it makes sense due to the shear forces that would otherwise occur. So we’ll have to adjust something here. This will make the bathroom/office on the upper floor a bit smaller – and the children’s bedrooms unnecessarily large. We need to come up with a solution for that.

Stairs: I overlooked that they don’t line up on the different levels. For the length, I followed the advice from the questionnaire with 3.60m (12 ft).

Well, that’s nonsense. Typically, there are no load-bearing walls on the upper floor; the roof structure rests on the exterior walls and supports itself. But since the position of your stairs on the upper floor doesn’t work, none of the rooms there fit either.

With 3.6m (12 ft) and 15 steps, you have a tread depth of 24cm (9.4 inches), which I believe is already borderline.

And you’re building around 180m² (1,938 sq ft) (180m² x 2,500 EUR/m² = 450,000 EUR + additional building costs + interior furnishings + landscaping). With a budget of 500,000 EUR this will be tight, but I’m sure you’ll hear that a few more times here.

I don’t want to go into details and consider what has been shown more as a conceptual sketch. Kerstin has pinned a useful collection of examples for stairs here (which, of course, need to be adapted to your floor height), and here I also see a major weak point: the floor plan seems to only work conceptually “thanks to” the questionable staircase design. For further attempts, please always start fresh, don’t just patch the original version! As a note regarding the adjoining room, the pipes should not be covered by any construction (in this case apparently by the garage).

dimba234 schrieb:

I hadn’t actually considered before that load-bearing walls need to be aligned vertically. But logically, this is necessary to avoid shear stress.

Finally, a questioner himself points out this essential connection—thank you very much!

However, given the dimensions of this building on the upper floor, I don’t see any need for load-bearing walls; my predecessor (even if briefly) already provided the reasoning. It is definitely important, though, to keep an eye on the walls on the ground floor because of downpipes, ceiling openings, and similar features. The best thing to do is to check the explanations on bauen-jetzt under "Plan change: from concrete to wooden ceiling" (where you will also find information about the priority of the upper floor and lightweight walls).

Your development plan suggests that a later construction phase is planned behind your garden—who really knows about that?

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