Hello everyone,
we have purchased a quite challenging sloped plot and have now received the first draft from our architect. I have personally revised it to address some weaknesses that arose due to my requested changes. The exterior dimensions are relatively fixed. I am fairly satisfied but would appreciate some additional feedback before sending it back to the architect.
Development Plan/Restrictions
Plot size: 731 sqm (7870 sq ft)
Slope: Yes, steep slope; the street runs north down into the valley and the garden is elevated on the mountain to the east
Building envelope, building line and boundaries: 3 m (10 feet) to neighbors/street
Orientation: Garden east, street west
Maximum heights/limits: still uncertain. According to the preliminary building inquiry, about 9.50 m (31 feet) from basement slab
Other requirements: according to § 34
Client Requirements
Style, roof type, building type: Modern, flat roof
Basement, floors: Basement plus 2 full floors
Number of occupants, ages: 4 persons (41 years, 29 years, 3 years, 1 year), possible third child later
Space needs on ground floor: Living-dining-cooking area, storage/pantry, guest WC, office
Space needs on upper floor: Bedroom, dressing room, master bathroom, utility room, 2 children’s bedrooms, children’s bathroom
Space needs in basement: Secondary apartment as office and fitness area, technical room, entrance/wardrobe, storage, technical room, garage
Office: Family use or home office? 2 home office rooms
Overnight guests per year: 2 weeks per year
Open or closed layout: Very open living-dining-kitchen area; rest more closed
Conservative or modern construction: ?
Open kitchen, kitchen island: both desired
Number of dining seats: 8-10
Fireplace: rather no
Music/sound wall: if possible
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: Large garage with double door
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Additional wishes/special features/daily routine, also reasons why something should or should not be included: very different daily rhythms, husband goes to bed late and sleeps accordingly long. Basement office for undisturbed work.
We would like the garden level to be as high as possible above street level since the plot borders a nice meadow that is currently about 1-2 m (3-6 feet) above garden level. However, the house cannot be set too high because otherwise the garage entrance would become too steep.
House Design
Planner: Architect, with interior adjustments by myself
What do you particularly like? Why? Open, spacious living area, bay window
What do you dislike? Why? Unfavorable cloakroom situation when arriving from the garage. Long dirt zone through which you have to pass to reach the office.
Price estimate by architect: over 1 million
Personal price limit for house, including features: basically already stretched at 1 million, possibly up to 1.1-1.2 million
Preferred heating technology: Heat pump, underfloor heating
If you have to give up something, which details/extensions
- Can you give up: Installation of the basement office as a separate apartment, but desired for tax reasons
- Cannot give up: Basically everything is in some way desired/important
Why does the design look the way it does? For example:
Due to the challenging slope of the plot, many factors are more or less predetermined. There was already an approved building application from another architect, which independently resembles this design closely.
I fell in love with the kitchen bay window in a show home, which unfortunately means the pantry cannot be used as the direct extension of the kitchen as originally planned... Since the kitchen is very large, the room will probably function more as a storage pantry.
On the upper floor, the second children’s bedroom is located in the northwest rather than the southwest because the higher neighbor's house stands directly to the south, and to the north there is a great view of the green valley.
we have purchased a quite challenging sloped plot and have now received the first draft from our architect. I have personally revised it to address some weaknesses that arose due to my requested changes. The exterior dimensions are relatively fixed. I am fairly satisfied but would appreciate some additional feedback before sending it back to the architect.
Development Plan/Restrictions
Plot size: 731 sqm (7870 sq ft)
Slope: Yes, steep slope; the street runs north down into the valley and the garden is elevated on the mountain to the east
Building envelope, building line and boundaries: 3 m (10 feet) to neighbors/street
Orientation: Garden east, street west
Maximum heights/limits: still uncertain. According to the preliminary building inquiry, about 9.50 m (31 feet) from basement slab
Other requirements: according to § 34
Client Requirements
Style, roof type, building type: Modern, flat roof
Basement, floors: Basement plus 2 full floors
Number of occupants, ages: 4 persons (41 years, 29 years, 3 years, 1 year), possible third child later
Space needs on ground floor: Living-dining-cooking area, storage/pantry, guest WC, office
Space needs on upper floor: Bedroom, dressing room, master bathroom, utility room, 2 children’s bedrooms, children’s bathroom
Space needs in basement: Secondary apartment as office and fitness area, technical room, entrance/wardrobe, storage, technical room, garage
Office: Family use or home office? 2 home office rooms
Overnight guests per year: 2 weeks per year
Open or closed layout: Very open living-dining-kitchen area; rest more closed
Conservative or modern construction: ?
Open kitchen, kitchen island: both desired
Number of dining seats: 8-10
Fireplace: rather no
Music/sound wall: if possible
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: Large garage with double door
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Additional wishes/special features/daily routine, also reasons why something should or should not be included: very different daily rhythms, husband goes to bed late and sleeps accordingly long. Basement office for undisturbed work.
We would like the garden level to be as high as possible above street level since the plot borders a nice meadow that is currently about 1-2 m (3-6 feet) above garden level. However, the house cannot be set too high because otherwise the garage entrance would become too steep.
House Design
Planner: Architect, with interior adjustments by myself
What do you particularly like? Why? Open, spacious living area, bay window
What do you dislike? Why? Unfavorable cloakroom situation when arriving from the garage. Long dirt zone through which you have to pass to reach the office.
Price estimate by architect: over 1 million
Personal price limit for house, including features: basically already stretched at 1 million, possibly up to 1.1-1.2 million
Preferred heating technology: Heat pump, underfloor heating
If you have to give up something, which details/extensions
- Can you give up: Installation of the basement office as a separate apartment, but desired for tax reasons
- Cannot give up: Basically everything is in some way desired/important
Why does the design look the way it does? For example:
Due to the challenging slope of the plot, many factors are more or less predetermined. There was already an approved building application from another architect, which independently resembles this design closely.
I fell in love with the kitchen bay window in a show home, which unfortunately means the pantry cannot be used as the direct extension of the kitchen as originally planned... Since the kitchen is very large, the room will probably function more as a storage pantry.
On the upper floor, the second children’s bedroom is located in the northwest rather than the southwest because the higher neighbor's house stands directly to the south, and to the north there is a great view of the green valley.
The room sizes in the house are planned to be very generous. In this context, I noticed the staircase after the main entrance in the basement level, which in my opinion starts too close to the wall, requiring you to practically turn a corner right at the beginning. With such a spacious design, the staircase layout should allow for a smoother flow.
A terrace of 70 square meters (750 square feet) can be attractive, but size alone does not guarantee that; therefore, I would already consider its intended use and design in advance. What I also find missing is the style and resulting exterior appearance of the house with this kind of roofed area.
Intuitively, I would have expected a different ceiling height at this scale.
The bedrooms on the upper floor seem somewhat modest considering the overall concept. Is there a specific reason for the consistently used door width of 80 centimeters (31.5 inches)?
A terrace of 70 square meters (750 square feet) can be attractive, but size alone does not guarantee that; therefore, I would already consider its intended use and design in advance. What I also find missing is the style and resulting exterior appearance of the house with this kind of roofed area.
Intuitively, I would have expected a different ceiling height at this scale.
The bedrooms on the upper floor seem somewhat modest considering the overall concept. Is there a specific reason for the consistently used door width of 80 centimeters (31.5 inches)?
Skya2020 schrieb:
And now the first draft from our architect is back. I have modified it myself again and smoothed out a few weaknesses that arose due to my expressed requests. The exterior dimensions are relatively fixed. I am quite satisfied already but would like a few more opinions before I send it back to the architect. If this was done by an architect without quotation marks, I suspect the "modification" consists of cramming in small rooms (and chasing a corner bonus). The maze could already be rented out as an escape room.
Skya2020 schrieb:
Further specifications: according to § 34 My late grandma (bakery sales specialist, zero semesters of building law) would already doubt the fulfillment of the insertion requirement with this alien body, even wearing the wrong glasses.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
H
hanghaus202314 Jan 2025 15:49nordanney schrieb:
ok. You can't argue against that.Actually, you can, because they do work in America.H
hanghaus202314 Jan 2025 16:03Skya2020 schrieb:
I’m renting it to my husband ;D And for his purposes, he would prefer a room without windows. We also have the issue that the window in this room would be located above the terrace. Currently, however, one is planned. 1. A window is mandatory in any habitable room.
2. If you know a terrace will be there, you plan it differently.
Skya2020 schrieb:
So the external dimensions should be roughly right, give or take a few centimeters (inches). What exactly makes you doubt it? For example, I made some changes like moving the staircase 60cm (24 inches) and altered some walls on the upper floor. You kindly keep the building envelope intact? Then your view is incorrect. The continuous lintels are never shown in any floor plan. The bay window (kitchen) is also not visible in the elevation.
You moved some things around? Please show the original plans. Ideally also the very first draft.
Skya2020 schrieb:
You have actually already looked into the plot 😉 https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/fertighausbau-mit-massivhaus-grundriss-sinnvoll.48133/page-10 Then I can take a look at how your house fits there. At least it does not fit the surroundings.
Arauki11 schrieb:
The room sizes in the house are planned to be very generous. In this context, I noticed the staircase right after the entrance in the basement, which in my opinion starts too close to the wall, so you almost have to turn a corner. With such a spacious design, the staircase circulation should be smoother.You’re right. Originally, the basement was planned with a ceiling height of 2.40m (7 ft 10 in). At that time, there was 1.50m (4 ft 11 in) of space to the wall (the architect had the entrance door there – see graphic). However, we want to keep the garden as high as possible and are now considering increasing the story height to 2.80m (9 ft 2 in) in the basement. But then there would only be a 1m (3 ft 3 in) passage. We have not yet had a meeting with the architect to address this issue, so in my “trial” I simply took the middle ground and assumed a story height of 2.65m (8 ft 8 in) with an additional step, which results in about 1.25m (4 ft 1 in) clearance. It’s not perfect, but nothing is fixed yet. I’ve thought about whether it would help to turn the staircase downstairs again towards the cloakroom, almost like a Z-shape. But it probably won’t provide any benefit and would be very inconvenient when coming in from the garage.Arauki11 schrieb:
A terrace of 70 sqm can be nice, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be just because of its size; so I would already think about its use and design in advance. What I also find missing is the type of roof and the resulting appearance of the house with this canopy.For us, it’s important here that the canopy is an integrated part of the house. If it were only partially covered, it might look strange, right? In the current design draft, unfortunately, it was not implemented this way but as an attached roof. Also, we want the garden to be slightly raised compared to the terrace, with a few steps up to the garden, contrary to her representation.Arauki11 schrieb:
From the feeling of it, I would have expected a different ceiling height for this size. The bedroom upstairs seems rather small considering the overall concept. Is there a reason for the consistently used 80cm door width?How high exactly? Currently, the ground floor and upper floor are already increased, right, at 2.70m (8 ft 10 in)? The bedroom is intentionally small. We only use it for sleeping. The rest of the master area is quite large. It’s more important to me that the children’s rooms are bigger.
Oh, I just used the program’s standard doors (I actually hadn’t thought about that yet. What is the usual standard door width?).
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