Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size 537 sqm (5780 sq ft)
Slope no
Site coverage ratio 0.35
Floor area ratio
Building area, building line and boundary 14.42/15.00 × 13.52/17.56 meters (47.3/49.2 × 44.4/57.6 feet)
Edge development Garages are allowed within the side setback areas
Number of parking spaces 3
Number of floors 2
Roof type gable roof
Architectural style modern, simple
Orientation south
Maximum height/limits ridge height 10.5 m (34.4 ft)
Clients’ Requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type 2 full floors, classic gable roof
Floors 2
Number of occupants 2 adults over 40 + 2 children (3 and 16), separate apartment: 1 person under 70
Ground floor room requirements: living/dining + L-shaped kitchen, guest toilet, utility/technical room
Upper floor: 3 bedrooms, 2 offices, 2 bathrooms, laundry room
Separate apartment 3 rooms: living/dining, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, small guest room
Office: 2 home offices
Overnight guests per year: separate apartment 10 times
Open or closed architecture
Conservative or modern design
Open kitchen with island: semi-open, not directly visible from living area
Number of dining seats 6
Fireplace no
Music/soundproof wall no
Balcony, roof terrace
Garage, carport at least 1, preferably 2
Utility garden, greenhouse desired
Additional wishes/special features/daily routine separate terraces; both want sunlight
House Design
Designer: Architect
What is particularly liked? The bright kitchen in the separate apartment
What is disliked? Long narrow hallway, living/dining area in the main residence
Estimated cost according to architect/planner: 650
Personal price limit for the house, including fixtures: 700
Preferred heating technology: heat pump
If you have to give up something, which details/extensions
- can be foregone: the second garage
Hello everyone,
After reading a lot here and planning for three months now, I’m trying to get some help.
The plot is complicated, maybe a bit narrow to also fit a separate apartment on the ground floor.
We are unsure how to “split” the plot.
Who should get the west or east side?
Which street should the house face?
The 5.5 m (18 ft) setback area on the north side suggests itself as the driveway/parking area. Also, no one wants a north-facing garden.
We all want sunlight somehow, but with further construction progress on other houses (marked in red) and the low sun angle, hardly any sun reaches the southern area.
The separate apartment really only needs a sunny terrace (because mowing the lawn will get harder with age).
I’ve simply added the architect’s two drafts here.
Plot size 537 sqm (5780 sq ft)
Slope no
Site coverage ratio 0.35
Floor area ratio
Building area, building line and boundary 14.42/15.00 × 13.52/17.56 meters (47.3/49.2 × 44.4/57.6 feet)
Edge development Garages are allowed within the side setback areas
Number of parking spaces 3
Number of floors 2
Roof type gable roof
Architectural style modern, simple
Orientation south
Maximum height/limits ridge height 10.5 m (34.4 ft)
Clients’ Requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type 2 full floors, classic gable roof
Floors 2
Number of occupants 2 adults over 40 + 2 children (3 and 16), separate apartment: 1 person under 70
Ground floor room requirements: living/dining + L-shaped kitchen, guest toilet, utility/technical room
Upper floor: 3 bedrooms, 2 offices, 2 bathrooms, laundry room
Separate apartment 3 rooms: living/dining, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, small guest room
Office: 2 home offices
Overnight guests per year: separate apartment 10 times
Open or closed architecture
Conservative or modern design
Open kitchen with island: semi-open, not directly visible from living area
Number of dining seats 6
Fireplace no
Music/soundproof wall no
Balcony, roof terrace
Garage, carport at least 1, preferably 2
Utility garden, greenhouse desired
Additional wishes/special features/daily routine separate terraces; both want sunlight
House Design
Designer: Architect
What is particularly liked? The bright kitchen in the separate apartment
What is disliked? Long narrow hallway, living/dining area in the main residence
Estimated cost according to architect/planner: 650
Personal price limit for the house, including fixtures: 700
Preferred heating technology: heat pump
If you have to give up something, which details/extensions
- can be foregone: the second garage
Hello everyone,
After reading a lot here and planning for three months now, I’m trying to get some help.
The plot is complicated, maybe a bit narrow to also fit a separate apartment on the ground floor.
We are unsure how to “split” the plot.
Who should get the west or east side?
Which street should the house face?
The 5.5 m (18 ft) setback area on the north side suggests itself as the driveway/parking area. Also, no one wants a north-facing garden.
We all want sunlight somehow, but with further construction progress on other houses (marked in red) and the low sun angle, hardly any sun reaches the southern area.
The separate apartment really only needs a sunny terrace (because mowing the lawn will get harder with age).
I’ve simply added the architect’s two drafts here.
kbt09 schrieb:
Why ... @Hausmma had once mentioned somewhere that for the granny flat, having morning coffee on the terrace is actually important. And this east-facing terrace of the granny flat also receives southern sunlight. What about that? Do I have it wrong?
kbt09 schrieb:
What about this? Do I have it wrong in my mind?If it’s placed farthest south at the bottom, there should be sunlight in the morning, right?Ah, yes, it’s tricky. We need to discuss this again.
Hausmma schrieb:
And what I just don’t like is the long, dark, narrow hallway – don’t you have another idea for that? Maybe a different staircase design? Hausmma schrieb:
Okay, you’re right, I would have added a small wall between the kitchen and the hallway. Yes, and with that small wall to the hallway, you get your long, dark, narrow hallway! It has to be said: you can’t have it both ways.
Hausmma schrieb:
If it’s placed all the way south at the bottom, wouldn’t there be sunlight in the morning? May I ask which days and times you mean? I assume the mother is active and uses her day, which means in summer and winter she sits at the breakfast table around 7 or 8 a.m. And yes, in winter it’s still dark then and she’s sitting inside. In summer, she probably also eats inside but likes to go outside sometimes.
Hausmma schrieb:
Her biggest wish: dining table by the window to have breakfast with sunshine in the morning.
(She currently lives in an old, dark house of about 80 square meters (860 square feet) with a large garden that she uses a lot) The sun rises in the northeast in summer, so you might have to consider that.
I don’t read that she’s a terrace-breakfast person as I mentioned earlier, but that she enjoys the morning sun. And that means: the east side!
Hausmma schrieb:
Oh… yes, difficult… we need to sit down again. I find it very difficult to improve a design when hardly anything comes from the original poster except comments about long, narrow, dark hallways.
You want a chill-out area in a corner or niche, a separate kitchen, a short hallway, but lots of space.
You can’t have all of that – not within your budget, not in the building plot, and not on this property. And not with your mother involved.
Accept that and make your compromises. All the designs are good, feasible, and quite developed, even if some aspects remind me of Tetris. But if you want a niche for everything, it’s not going to work.
However, you also need to say what you dislike or like. We are showing you designs on the tablet that were not made in an hour. And Madame says: “Oh yes, difficult.”
Be more specific. Tell us what you find bad, what you don’t understand, what could be great.
So far, you have always pulled back on one aspect or another.
My advice would be not to build yet. You don’t know what you want and can’t decide.
Is it your mother or mother-in-law?
ypg schrieb:
In the northeast, the sun rises in summer, etc., so you might need to consider that.
I don’t read anywhere that she is an early riser on the terrace, as I mentioned earlier, but that she likes morning sun. And that means: east side! Yes, that’s right, it was like that... all the more reason it has to be the east side. If the granny flat is on the west side, there won’t be any morning sun, at any time of the year.
So, I think the plan from post 79 actually meets all the conditions initially stated.
One also has to realize that 537 sqm (5,773 sq ft) with the desired room layout, 2 terraces, and 3 parking spaces requires a considerable plot size. And 537 sqm (5,773 sq ft) is not exactly small, but not very generous either.
I’ll summarize the plans again:
Site Plan:
First of all, the plot is surrounded by roads on three sides. The west side appears to be a larger road, while the east side looks more like a residential street.
Plan 1
Granny flat on the east… however, the summer morning sun in the granny flat is mostly blocked by the garage.
In the main apartment, the combined room is harder to furnish because the room width is about 550 cm (approximately 18 ft), which is actually too wide for a TV area and too narrow for cooking/dining.
Plan 2
Granny flat on the west:
The garage is in the south, actually intended for the granny flat, but access to the main apartment’s garden area is only through this garage. Also here, the kitchen in the main apartment is more like a small two-room apartment kitchen — very small. The living area in the main apartment feels awkward, with a lot of free space that doesn’t seem functional.
By the way, I think the utility room is too small in both plans, since the washer and dryer are also planned to be located there. Especially in Plan 1, it could be too small.
Plan 3
Plan by @ypg
So, we’ve thought it over for a few nights and only had a brief chance to discuss it.
I’m trying.
My first compromise is already giving up a large garden and a two-car garage.
I could also live with the kitchen not being directly adjacent to the garden/terrace.
My mother—she has an even harder time deciding.
She simply can’t imagine something like this.
And she’s less willing to compromise than I am.
Well, to the west and north there’s the new development street / 30 km/h (20 mph) zone.
And to the east, there’s only a 3-meter (10 feet) wide pedestrian path.
But all three sides will need to be made private with fences or hedges that block the view.
That was intentional. The utility room should serve only as a heating/technical room.
The washing machine will be in the bathroom of the granny flat (that bathroom was sometimes planned too small).
And in the main house, the washing machine will be on the upper floor.
“We all want sun all day.”
Of course, she is more active during the day as a retiree, but in midsummer she no longer stays in the midday sun. Still, she really worships the sun, and for example, she uses every sunbeam in autumn.
Her current house is quite dark with only a few small windows—that’s probably why she now wants so much sun (or rather brightness).
That reminds me:
Because the neighboring house to the south has now been built, no sun reaches the plot at midday or in the afternoon during autumn—and that worries me a bit.
In summer there was only a small shadow, and I don’t mind the view of the house or the garage wall. That can be softened nicely with plants or by looking in the other direction.
But there are also houses with a north-facing garden that have happy owners, right?
ypg schrieb:
make your compromises
I’m trying.
My first compromise is already giving up a large garden and a two-car garage.
I could also live with the kitchen not being directly adjacent to the garden/terrace.
ypg schrieb:
You don’t know what you want and can’t decide.
Is it your mother or mother-in-law?
My mother—she has an even harder time deciding.
She simply can’t imagine something like this.
And she’s less willing to compromise than I am.
kbt09 schrieb:
Site plan:
It is clear that the plot is bordered by roads on three sides. The west side looks like a larger road, while the east street seems more like a residential street.
Well, to the west and north there’s the new development street / 30 km/h (20 mph) zone.
And to the east, there’s only a 3-meter (10 feet) wide pedestrian path.
But all three sides will need to be made private with fences or hedges that block the view.
kbt09 schrieb:
By the way, I think the utility room is too small in both plans, since the washing machine and dryer are also planned there.
That was intentional. The utility room should serve only as a heating/technical room.
The washing machine will be in the bathroom of the granny flat (that bathroom was sometimes planned too small).
And in the main house, the washing machine will be on the upper floor.
ypg schrieb:
I don’t read that she is someone who likes breakfast on the terrace, as I wrote above, but that she likes morning sun. And that means: east side!
“We all want sun all day.”
Of course, she is more active during the day as a retiree, but in midsummer she no longer stays in the midday sun. Still, she really worships the sun, and for example, she uses every sunbeam in autumn.
Her current house is quite dark with only a few small windows—that’s probably why she now wants so much sun (or rather brightness).
That reminds me:
Because the neighboring house to the south has now been built, no sun reaches the plot at midday or in the afternoon during autumn—and that worries me a bit.
In summer there was only a small shadow, and I don’t mind the view of the house or the garage wall. That can be softened nicely with plants or by looking in the other direction.
But there are also houses with a north-facing garden that have happy owners, right?