ᐅ Floor Plan & House Positioning Single-Family Home with a Curved Layout
Created on: 6 Mar 2020 23:33
H
hausnrplus25
Hello dear forum members,
we have tried to prepare the questionnaire and the attachments carefully and thoroughly.
If there are still any open questions – please feel free to ask.
We appreciate your time in considering our building project and welcome constructive criticism, ideas, and suggestions =)
Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: 610m² (6565 sq ft)
Slope: no
Floor area ratio: 0.3 (exceeding this is possible through fully greened roof surfaces)
Building envelope, building line and boundary: 3m (10 ft) building boundary on west and east sides, detached building
Number of storeys: 1 full storey
Additional requirements: soundproofing (noise level category II)
Client requirements
Style, roof type, building type: classic detached house / somewhat country house style; preferably with a third gable; timber frame construction; gable roof
Basement, storeys: no basement; 1.5 storeys (currently ground floor approx. 95m² (1023 sq ft) + utility room); current knee wall height 1.00m (3 ft 3 in) → would like to increase to 1.10–1.15m (3 ft 7 in – 3 ft 9 in) actual height
Number and age of inhabitants: currently 2 adults, 0 children; planning for 1–2 children
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor:
Ground floor: cloakroom, utility room (also a “craft corner”), office (see below), kitchen (see below) with small pantry, guest WC with shower (size/possibility for a closet → should later be a children’s bathroom), living room and dining room (family focal point for meals and e.g. game nights with friends)
Upper floor: bedroom, walk-in closet (separate room), 2 children’s rooms (approximately equal size), bathroom with shower and bathtub and toilet behind sliding door, storage room with washer/dryer
Office: family use or home office?: desk, PC, files etc.
Number of overnight guests per year: very rare (1–2 times a year)
Open or closed architecture: rather closed, but without feeling cramped
Open kitchen, cooking island: closed kitchen → preferably short routes to dining room and terrace; preferably U- or G-shaped kitchen, or L-shaped with island
Number of dining seats: fixed 4 seats, extendable to 6–8 desired (also space for a larger table for occasional special gatherings)
Fireplace: desired, but uncertain if space and budget will allow; if yes, then a classic fireplace on a wall, preferably not as a room divider
Garage, carport: double carport desired
Utility garden, greenhouse: classic low-maintenance family garden
Other wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons why something should or should not be: we want a closed staircase with a landing;
we prefer a slightly more complex layout, sometimes an angled wall, as it feels cozier (we don’t like everything square, open, and white);
we want a house for our future family with plenty of storage space and practicality; it should naturally look good inside and out, but it is primarily for use, not a design piece;
covered house entrance;
optimize plot area for house and garden, minimize front garden;
use cardinal directions/sun positions sensibly
House design
Who created the design: combination of DIY (room plan / partial room arrangement / staircase preference) and design by preferred house company (house exterior dimensions / staircase location / partial room arrangement)
What do you particularly like? Why?: rooms, orientation of rooms, staircase / use of stairwell
What do you not like? Why?: unsure about the route from kitchen to dining room/terrace; size of some rooms
Estimated cost according to architect/planner: €370,000 (approx. $400,000) including carport, turnkey (excluding extra costs for site work, exterior landscaping, plastering and flooring (tiles included))
Preferred heating system: currently air-to-water heat pump (monobloc with outdoor unit) with underfloor heating and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery; photovoltaics undecided
If you had to give up details / expansions:
- What could you live without? potentially an internal staircase
- What can you not give up? we would not be open to suggestions on this point and would not participate in the project otherwise; but basically the design mostly meets all our must-have wishes; bedroom access via a walk-in closet is not acceptable for us → so two separate accesses
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
House positioning? (allow only 0.5m (1 ft 8 in) space to neighbor to the north with utility room? House would be about 3.5m (11 ft 6 in) away, so office windows under carport? Or carport offset from house? Or angled placement but then cardinal directions regarding floor plan change? Any other ideas?)
Knee wall height?
Room sizes? → we feel everything is a little tight, or does it just look like that in drawings? We want a cozy, homely house without huge entrance or open gallery, but it should not feel cramped...
Price estimate?
PS: arrows indicate that plot boundaries are slightly angled, no slope; blue = building boundaries; all plans are oriented north
we have tried to prepare the questionnaire and the attachments carefully and thoroughly.
If there are still any open questions – please feel free to ask.
We appreciate your time in considering our building project and welcome constructive criticism, ideas, and suggestions =)
Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: 610m² (6565 sq ft)
Slope: no
Floor area ratio: 0.3 (exceeding this is possible through fully greened roof surfaces)
Building envelope, building line and boundary: 3m (10 ft) building boundary on west and east sides, detached building
Number of storeys: 1 full storey
Additional requirements: soundproofing (noise level category II)
Client requirements
Style, roof type, building type: classic detached house / somewhat country house style; preferably with a third gable; timber frame construction; gable roof
Basement, storeys: no basement; 1.5 storeys (currently ground floor approx. 95m² (1023 sq ft) + utility room); current knee wall height 1.00m (3 ft 3 in) → would like to increase to 1.10–1.15m (3 ft 7 in – 3 ft 9 in) actual height
Number and age of inhabitants: currently 2 adults, 0 children; planning for 1–2 children
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor:
Ground floor: cloakroom, utility room (also a “craft corner”), office (see below), kitchen (see below) with small pantry, guest WC with shower (size/possibility for a closet → should later be a children’s bathroom), living room and dining room (family focal point for meals and e.g. game nights with friends)
Upper floor: bedroom, walk-in closet (separate room), 2 children’s rooms (approximately equal size), bathroom with shower and bathtub and toilet behind sliding door, storage room with washer/dryer
Office: family use or home office?: desk, PC, files etc.
Number of overnight guests per year: very rare (1–2 times a year)
Open or closed architecture: rather closed, but without feeling cramped
Open kitchen, cooking island: closed kitchen → preferably short routes to dining room and terrace; preferably U- or G-shaped kitchen, or L-shaped with island
Number of dining seats: fixed 4 seats, extendable to 6–8 desired (also space for a larger table for occasional special gatherings)
Fireplace: desired, but uncertain if space and budget will allow; if yes, then a classic fireplace on a wall, preferably not as a room divider
Garage, carport: double carport desired
Utility garden, greenhouse: classic low-maintenance family garden
Other wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons why something should or should not be: we want a closed staircase with a landing;
we prefer a slightly more complex layout, sometimes an angled wall, as it feels cozier (we don’t like everything square, open, and white);
we want a house for our future family with plenty of storage space and practicality; it should naturally look good inside and out, but it is primarily for use, not a design piece;
covered house entrance;
optimize plot area for house and garden, minimize front garden;
use cardinal directions/sun positions sensibly
House design
Who created the design: combination of DIY (room plan / partial room arrangement / staircase preference) and design by preferred house company (house exterior dimensions / staircase location / partial room arrangement)
What do you particularly like? Why?: rooms, orientation of rooms, staircase / use of stairwell
What do you not like? Why?: unsure about the route from kitchen to dining room/terrace; size of some rooms
Estimated cost according to architect/planner: €370,000 (approx. $400,000) including carport, turnkey (excluding extra costs for site work, exterior landscaping, plastering and flooring (tiles included))
Preferred heating system: currently air-to-water heat pump (monobloc with outdoor unit) with underfloor heating and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery; photovoltaics undecided
If you had to give up details / expansions:
- What could you live without? potentially an internal staircase
- What can you not give up? we would not be open to suggestions on this point and would not participate in the project otherwise; but basically the design mostly meets all our must-have wishes; bedroom access via a walk-in closet is not acceptable for us → so two separate accesses
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
House positioning? (allow only 0.5m (1 ft 8 in) space to neighbor to the north with utility room? House would be about 3.5m (11 ft 6 in) away, so office windows under carport? Or carport offset from house? Or angled placement but then cardinal directions regarding floor plan change? Any other ideas?)
Knee wall height?
Room sizes? → we feel everything is a little tight, or does it just look like that in drawings? We want a cozy, homely house without huge entrance or open gallery, but it should not feel cramped...
Price estimate?
PS: arrows indicate that plot boundaries are slightly angled, no slope; blue = building boundaries; all plans are oriented north
hausnrplus257 Mar 2020 11:5911ant schrieb:
Tell me, the model that is said to be closely related to this design can only be similar in its external dimensions or layout.
The company starts from a blank sheet of paper, and none of the example floor plans even come close to ours. Attached is again an approximate drawing of what the company’s original design was (bay window and dormer included, which I didn’t quickly add).
On the ground floor:
However, the living room was too narrow with that layout, and the WC window next to the entrance has already been widely discussed here, and we are also against it. Therefore, the WC was moved to the north side = more space for the living room.
Furthermore, the front door can be shifted somewhat more centrally under the bay window.
The front door should ideally open to the left, so the office and hallway were swapped. The WC was then placed next to the kitchen due to existing plumbing connections (also, no window option next to it because of the utility room).
On the upper floor:
We simply swapped bedroom/dressing room and bathroom/utility room 2, since we prefer to sleep in the northeast rather than the southeast.
____
Our original idea was the staircase in the south (see attachment). We really like it upstairs, but downstairs it breaks up the south side and the office loses the evening sun. Unfortunately, it also creates long corridors. See pictures.
The rooms don’t need to be larger; the ducts need to be removed.
Different stair position, different hallway, not centered straight through. Everything completely rethought.
Office, WC, cloakroom — no ducts; kitchen closer to dining or terrace.
Upstairs, you can swap the bathroom and bedroom.
We have sloped ceilings in our second apartment — should be similar to yours — I have bumped my head so many times in the bedroom, and the toilet in the bathroom hangs a bit lower.
Having the kitchen completely separate from dining and living areas is not ideal with children. You can’t be in two places at once.
Cooking and dining together allows you to combine housework with supervising homework or playtime.
A large sliding door to the living area lets you connect or separate the rooms as needed. There’s a reason the open-plan concept is popular.
A kitchen facing the terrace isn’t just convenient for quick breakfasts outside; it also significantly reduces the distance to the snack cupboard, coffee machine, and beverage station.
Kids, if allowed, live mostly outdoors. With mild winters like this one, the outdoor season never really ends.
The original floor plans are not very impressive either.
Different stair position, different hallway, not centered straight through. Everything completely rethought.
Office, WC, cloakroom — no ducts; kitchen closer to dining or terrace.
Upstairs, you can swap the bathroom and bedroom.
We have sloped ceilings in our second apartment — should be similar to yours — I have bumped my head so many times in the bedroom, and the toilet in the bathroom hangs a bit lower.
Having the kitchen completely separate from dining and living areas is not ideal with children. You can’t be in two places at once.
Cooking and dining together allows you to combine housework with supervising homework or playtime.
A large sliding door to the living area lets you connect or separate the rooms as needed. There’s a reason the open-plan concept is popular.
A kitchen facing the terrace isn’t just convenient for quick breakfasts outside; it also significantly reduces the distance to the snack cupboard, coffee machine, and beverage station.
Kids, if allowed, live mostly outdoors. With mild winters like this one, the outdoor season never really ends.
The original floor plans are not very impressive either.
hausnrplus25 schrieb:
Suggestion for a solution without significantly increasing the size of the house (due to budget and floor area ratio)? A design. Discard your floor plan. A floor plan alone does not equal a full house design.
If you have already discarded so much yourselves and ended up with this, you should probably leave it to the professionals. The problem now is that your thinking is too fixed in patterns. Your approaches will very likely have repeated mistakes, so nothing good will come out of it.
I think you are taking on more than you can handle. Surely, you have better skills.
hausnrplus257 Mar 2020 13:55haydee schrieb:
The rooms don’t need to be bigger; the ducts have to go.
Different staircase position, different hallway, not running through the center. Everything completely reconsidered.
Office, toilet, coatroom—no ducts there, kitchen closer to dining area or terrace.
Upstairs, you can swap bathroom and bedroom. Where to put the staircase? In the middle of the house? Your idea was putting it in the corner, but you didn’t respond to the triangular landing. Or how do you fit a staircase into a corner? And as I said, only one skylight in the bedroom?
The hallway has to be in the middle if the main entrance is in the middle.
Main entrance facing north? That was also an idea, then you get a west-facing room, but with the laundry room in the north, the kitchen loses a window side.
Rearranging everything without changing the useful positioning related to the cardinal directions? That is exactly our problem. Hence our participation here. We realize the ducts are problematic. That needs to change, but we don’t know how!
Upstairs: bathroom and bedroom are as desired now. We swapped them according to the builder’s drawings.
haydee schrieb:
We have sloped ceilings in our second apartment—it should be similar to yours—I’ve bumped my head so many times in the bedroom, and the toilet in the bathroom is installed a bit lower, Sorry to hear about you and your head. As I said, no problems here for six years.
haydee schrieb:
Kitchen completely separated from dining and living areas is suboptimal with kids. You can’t be in two places at once.
Cooking and eating together lets you combine housework with helping kids with homework or supervising play.
A large sliding door to the living area allows you to connect or separate spaces as needed. The open-plan trend has its reasons. With children: Definitely something we consider. But an open kitchen, although not desired, only for the 4-5 years when you have toddlers?
Trends? They’re a matter of taste… urban villas? Anthracite window frames? Concrete-look tiles? Black floor tiles in the bathroom? Open tiled shower? Handle-less black kitchens? All white walls? … I could go on forever. All trends, but none for us.
I’m not saying the open-plan trend doesn’t have its reasons. It’s just that we have different priorities.
haydee schrieb:
Kitchen to terrace is not only convenient for quick breakfasts outdoors, it greatly reduces the “sand dunes” around the candy cupboard, coffee machine, and drink station.
Kids, if allowed, live outside. With mild winters like these, the outdoor season never ends. Quick breakfasts on the terrace aren’t really our thing. The point about dirt is valid, though! Supports having a terrace door near the kitchen.
You could put the terrace entirely on the east side. But then there’s the long-discussed topic of the “optimal terrace” location. Ideally, a terrace all around the house, depending on the season and weather/temperature.
What do you think? Terrace only on the east for better connection to dining/kitchen, or east-south terrace for more flexible sun exposure and temperature control?
I want to thank you again for your input here. In general, it’s only helpful if there are alternative proposals.
A (to exaggerate) "put all rooms on the south side" just isn’t feasible… so, for example, the staircase would be awkward there: where else to put it?
Do you think a different staircase design (that would break our hearts) would bring the ultimate solution? ....
hausnrplus257 Mar 2020 13:59Pinky0301 schrieb:
Why do you want to position the house like that on the plot? I would have instinctively built it along the northern boundary, so that the terrace and long side of the house face south. As I said: mainly for privacy. With the house at the front by the street and some smart landscaping in the southwest, our garden won’t be easily overlooked by anyone!
By placing the house to the north, we only have a south-facing garden. With an east-south-facing garden, we hope to have a pleasant spot for different temperatures and sun conditions.
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