ᐅ Challenging Floor Plan, Plot, and Historic Building – Section 34
Created on: 11 Feb 2025 21:44
B
buttyhome
Dear Forum,
First of all, we would like to introduce ourselves. We are a family of four and have now found a nice sloped plot in NRW. We are aware that it is considered a "challenging plot" in terms of buildability, but we have fallen in love with the location and the view. It is a total of 390 m² (4200 sq ft) of building land, with green space extending behind the plot. Currently, it is occupied by two buildings, the front one of which is a listed monument requiring renovation. The rear building is in such poor condition that it must be demolished. Of course, the monument must not be significantly disturbed within its ensemble, so a modern flat roof is unfortunately not possible. However, I am hopeful that we can connect the monument with our planned new building by a joint or gap.
First, the current situation: the front house is the monument, which I intend to renovate and use as a home office/guest room.
The front house currently has two floors, but ceiling heights no longer meet our needs due to our height, so we plan, as far as possible, to remove some walls and the ceiling between floors to expose the beams.
Now to our planned new build. We are working with an architect we really trust, who has designed and renovated some truly excellent houses within our circle of friends.
Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: buildable - 390 m² (4200 sq ft), with green space behind
Slope: yes, ascending towards the rear, with an incline between 8 and 12 %, so the house will sit at the lower part of the slope. Unfortunately, the view into the valley can only be enjoyed from the upper floor due to buildings on the opposite side of the street.
§34 construction: “mixed neighborhood”, single and two-story buildings with flat and pitched roofs, some 2.5-story pitched roofs
Edge development: apparently quite common in the neighborhood. My architect is more optimistic than I am that edge development will be allowed.
Number of parking spaces: 1
Number of stories: two full floors + pitched roof
Roof type: pitched roof
Style: must integrate with the half-timbered monument for an overall harmony (please no historicism, I prefer modern architecture, perhaps with wooden cladding)
Orientation: The architect insists on building the eaves side facing the street because of window areas. I am unsure if this is possible due to boundary constraints, so I suggest a gable orientation as an alternative. I am particularly interested in your ideas here! We are still in the very first planning phase.
Maximum height / limits: 2.5 stories
Client requirements
Number of occupants: 2 adults + 2 children
Ground floor space needs: master bedroom, 2 children's bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, separate cloakroom, either at the rear (slope) or in the basement: laundry room, storage, building services
Upper floor: large open-plan kitchen and living area with garden access, fireplace, guest toilet
Office: combined with guest room
Occasional overnight guests per year
Open or closed architecture: open plan
Traditional or modern design: modern
Open kitchen with island
Minimum dining seats: 8
Fireplace: yes
Music/speaker wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Carport
House design
Not yet available, we are still assessing the basic buildability
Designer: architect versus own ideas
Personal budget for house including fittings: initially open, we want to see what is possible
Preferred heating system: heat pump
If you had to give up something, which details or features
- can you do without: -
- cannot do without: large window front facing the garden with direct garden/terrace access
Here is the architect’s first concept. She assumes basic buildability including edge development and therefore wants to place the new build with the eaves side directly adjacent to the neighbor. I would prefer a longer joint/gap, but that would make the edge building length disproportionate. I find that unfortunate as I would like the new building positioned further back in the plot to create a larger front courtyard. This is the first idea currently being checked for feasibility by the building and monument authorities:
The extension toward the garden is optional and designed with a flat roof.
My idea would be to extend the building joint further, placing the entrance and cloakroom there, with the new building accessed above. This new building would be rotated to face with its gable. Because it would extend far into the slope, the ground floor would effectively become a basement, and the upper floor would have direct garden access at ground level. I would also need to encroach on the neighboring boundary, but I imagine this might be simpler as I am only planning a single story there. Would the house then have enough windows? You don’t want to orient large window fronts too much towards neighbors, but at least toward the garden I would like to have a large gable window area.
Thank you very much for your suggestions! What do you think is feasible? What are the pros and cons?
I am also still looking for a contour map. All the maps I find online are somewhat coarse. Is there an online resource for NRW? What options should I select in the NRW geoportal to get a good detailed representation?
First of all, we would like to introduce ourselves. We are a family of four and have now found a nice sloped plot in NRW. We are aware that it is considered a "challenging plot" in terms of buildability, but we have fallen in love with the location and the view. It is a total of 390 m² (4200 sq ft) of building land, with green space extending behind the plot. Currently, it is occupied by two buildings, the front one of which is a listed monument requiring renovation. The rear building is in such poor condition that it must be demolished. Of course, the monument must not be significantly disturbed within its ensemble, so a modern flat roof is unfortunately not possible. However, I am hopeful that we can connect the monument with our planned new building by a joint or gap.
First, the current situation: the front house is the monument, which I intend to renovate and use as a home office/guest room.
The front house currently has two floors, but ceiling heights no longer meet our needs due to our height, so we plan, as far as possible, to remove some walls and the ceiling between floors to expose the beams.
Now to our planned new build. We are working with an architect we really trust, who has designed and renovated some truly excellent houses within our circle of friends.
Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: buildable - 390 m² (4200 sq ft), with green space behind
Slope: yes, ascending towards the rear, with an incline between 8 and 12 %, so the house will sit at the lower part of the slope. Unfortunately, the view into the valley can only be enjoyed from the upper floor due to buildings on the opposite side of the street.
§34 construction: “mixed neighborhood”, single and two-story buildings with flat and pitched roofs, some 2.5-story pitched roofs
Edge development: apparently quite common in the neighborhood. My architect is more optimistic than I am that edge development will be allowed.
Number of parking spaces: 1
Number of stories: two full floors + pitched roof
Roof type: pitched roof
Style: must integrate with the half-timbered monument for an overall harmony (please no historicism, I prefer modern architecture, perhaps with wooden cladding)
Orientation: The architect insists on building the eaves side facing the street because of window areas. I am unsure if this is possible due to boundary constraints, so I suggest a gable orientation as an alternative. I am particularly interested in your ideas here! We are still in the very first planning phase.
Maximum height / limits: 2.5 stories
Client requirements
Number of occupants: 2 adults + 2 children
Ground floor space needs: master bedroom, 2 children's bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, separate cloakroom, either at the rear (slope) or in the basement: laundry room, storage, building services
Upper floor: large open-plan kitchen and living area with garden access, fireplace, guest toilet
Office: combined with guest room
Occasional overnight guests per year
Open or closed architecture: open plan
Traditional or modern design: modern
Open kitchen with island
Minimum dining seats: 8
Fireplace: yes
Music/speaker wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Carport
House design
Not yet available, we are still assessing the basic buildability
Designer: architect versus own ideas
Personal budget for house including fittings: initially open, we want to see what is possible
Preferred heating system: heat pump
If you had to give up something, which details or features
- can you do without: -
- cannot do without: large window front facing the garden with direct garden/terrace access
Here is the architect’s first concept. She assumes basic buildability including edge development and therefore wants to place the new build with the eaves side directly adjacent to the neighbor. I would prefer a longer joint/gap, but that would make the edge building length disproportionate. I find that unfortunate as I would like the new building positioned further back in the plot to create a larger front courtyard. This is the first idea currently being checked for feasibility by the building and monument authorities:
The extension toward the garden is optional and designed with a flat roof.
My idea would be to extend the building joint further, placing the entrance and cloakroom there, with the new building accessed above. This new building would be rotated to face with its gable. Because it would extend far into the slope, the ground floor would effectively become a basement, and the upper floor would have direct garden access at ground level. I would also need to encroach on the neighboring boundary, but I imagine this might be simpler as I am only planning a single story there. Would the house then have enough windows? You don’t want to orient large window fronts too much towards neighbors, but at least toward the garden I would like to have a large gable window area.
Thank you very much for your suggestions! What do you think is feasible? What are the pros and cons?
I am also still looking for a contour map. All the maps I find online are somewhat coarse. Is there an online resource for NRW? What options should I select in the NRW geoportal to get a good detailed representation?
B
buttyhome16 Feb 2025 23:10K a t j a schrieb:
What are the exterior dimensions of the monument?I roughly calculate 3.52 x 6.70 m (11.5 x 22 ft), which fits quite well with the plans from @ypg . His site layout and building design match my idea very closely. However, a lot of earthwork would be required. But with the floor area, I think I could definitely accommodate all our requirements.Once we have more information about the possible development, the next step would be a soil survey, right? Just so I better understand how the architect approaches this.
buttyhome schrieb:
The closed building style in the neighborhood is always single-story, as far as I can see. So, building on the boundary might possibly mean a stepped upper floor. Freestanding, it could also mean two stories.
I quickly put this together with my software, which doesn’t handle slopes (so please disregard software errors):
buttyhome schrieb:
With its floor plan By the way, this is Yvonne.
buttyhome schrieb:
That would require a lot of earthworks I haven’t fully understood the current situation on site yet. Am I correct in thinking that the "tear-down house" at the front is one and a half stories, with a single-story flat roof extension at the upper floor at the back? Or is the entire building constructed on a single level?
The first question would be: what remains after clearing everything? Or do you leave part of the structure as support? I wouldn’t be in favor of keeping old structures in this case. Too much old material.
I could imagine you might build again in a similar way to avoid moving so much earth. So, two stories at the front and only one story plus a roof at the back, but this time built as a single unit. That will be quite tall, but you did want the view. I do have some doubts about the rear building due to the distances to the neighboring property.
K a t j a schrieb:
Am I correct in understanding that the "tear-down house" is one and a half stories at the front, with a single-story flat-roof extension at the back on the upper floor? Or is the entire building constructed on one level?ypg schrieb:
Is this now a single-story extension, at the same level as the front yard? Or would this already be the (planned) upper floor?Here is the builder’s response:buttyhome schrieb:
Currently, it is still at ground level.B
buttyhome17 Feb 2025 17:17K a t j a schrieb:
By the way, this is Yvonne.Oh, hello Yvonne, thank you very much for your effort! Until now, I only knew YPG as a Kurdish liberation organization. Those are really good suggestions!haydee schrieb:
How large is the footprint of the house to be demolished?The footprint is almost exactly 60 sqm (645 sq ft).The sun was shining today, and I visited the site again. The photos were taken at 3:45 p.m. Actually, I was somewhat surprised at how much the house is built into the slope. I never noticed this at first. The plot especially seems to lie significantly lower compared to the southern neighbor. I think that’s a retaining wall, not just a boundary fence. Unfortunately, I can’t get a good view onto the neighboring property. @ypg At first, I found your small terrace on the south side very charming! But I can’t stand this prison-like wall right in front. I’m curious if it would be possible under building regulations (building permit / planning permission) to extend the connection between the listed building and the main house and thereby place your terrace one floor higher on the roof. Then it could be really nice. What do you think?
Now the views: just before 4 p.m., the sun reaches the courtyard facing the street. There isn’t much traffic, but you’re naturally very visible. If the courtyard is nicely designed, for example paved with large pots framing the seating area, it could be really attractive:
Now let’s go through the gate on the right. I think the wall on the right side (at least in the rear section) also supports part of the neighbor’s slope. The south terrace was planned here, but unfortunately, that won’t work.
Here’s the rear part of this suspicious wall facing the neighbor’s plot to the south (I’m standing behind the house looking directly at it):
The view in the same direction behind the house. Obviously, the slope was excavated for this extension. A shame. But the “basement” could be placed here; the first floor would then end higher. This is also where the sun begins (well, a taller house means more shade):
At the back of the plot, the barrier to the neighbor is thankfully no longer so high (but still there, as seen from above):
Now the side facing the northern neighbor. The possibility to park cars there and make the garden accessible by vehicle seems attractive to me. I also believe this can be done with moderate effort once the house is removed.
The truly nice parts of the plot are up the slope, but that’s irrelevant for construction at this point...
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