ᐅ Floor plan of a single-family home with a daylight basement on a hillside?

Hello, as I mentioned before on the forum, due to the sloped site (and the fact that we need a basement anyway) we will probably omit the upper floor.

Now we plan to develop the basement as a fully functional living area with a large glass front. We spent several hours working on the floor plan and wanted to ask an architect for their opinion, but unfortunately all three architects I contacted are currently too busy with other projects.

So I’m asking for your help.

It was important to us that you can go directly from the ground floor down the stairs to the terrace, and otherwise to have as few square meters wasted on hallways as possible. The ground floor (above) is mostly open except for a small guest toilet and an office.

The staircase is separated by a large built-in wall cabinet. The terrace above partly extends the carport and partly will have a wooden structure to bring the terrace size to about 12–14m² (130–150 sq ft). The house is oriented southwest.

Thank you very much for any advice!
Pit

Ground floor:
An interesting concept; I like having cooking, dining, and living areas aligned. The practical implementation also depends on the structural engineering. The staircase doesn’t work, making the entrance area and possibly a guest toilet obsolete.

Basement:
Fortunately, the staircase changes everything here. The hallway is too dark, enclosed rooms are problematic, and the narrow access corridor to the bedroom is pointless. The access makes the bedroom uncomfortable, and the bathroom layout is unattractive.

Other:
Section drawings would be helpful due to the terrain slope.
Could it be that the architects dismissed the project because they didn’t want to be limited creatively or just act as rubber-stampers?

Regards,
WD

Hi, sorry, but this all looks very awkward and extremely unclear. The rooms are laid out in a chaotic way, and the access routes even more so. The structural engineering seems very questionable to implement. Dividing rooms with cabinets is probably not a great idea either. The back panels of the cabinets would likely need to be custom-made, and how tall are the cabinets supposed to be? The passageways are almost everywhere far too narrow – it looks like a hamster cage with long, narrow corridors.

My suggestion would be to take the external dimensions and your requirements to an architect for an initial design. Then put that up for discussion.
Good luck!

You want short distances between the terrace and the ground floor? But the terrace is drawn on the ground floor plan, right? If you go down the stairs, where do you end up? A section view would be helpful; I don’t understand where each terrace is supposed to be.

I would also say: go over it again. In my opinion, the basement is pretty much "ruined," if I may say so. A 22 sqm (237 sq ft) bedroom that practically only fits the double bed—that is a no-go in my view (as well as the narrow corridor access leading into it). The 16 sqm (172 sq ft) children's room also seems oversized to me.

Hello and thanks first of all to everyone for the feedback!

To make progress, I have a few follow-up questions regarding the comments and some more information from my side:

- The staircase doesn’t work? How could it be made to work?

- Hallway too dark, okay I intentionally extended the hallway all the way to the window front so that light can come in from the front and so you can get upstairs directly to the terrace below without detours. Currently, the rooms are somewhat built around the hallway. The hallway is there because I did not want to place the staircase too far from the entrance (which is supposed to be under the carport). How can I get more light into a basement hallway?

- Bathroom layout unattractive -> Are you referring to the proportions?

- Could it be that the architects refused because they didn’t want to be creatively restricted or just to rubber-stamp the design? -> As mentioned, I created the draft after the rejections came in. I am still very flexible if the rooms can be arranged properly.

- The structural calculations seem very doubtful to implement -> Is the room too large? I was thinking about adding columns here and there? As I said, I was considering at least a partially open roof structure, so no ceiling in the living room?

- Narrow corridors -> Okay, but how wide should a corridor be, for example, to get from the staircase to the terrace without wasting too much space?

- A cross-section would be helpful, I don’t understand where the terraces are located. -> There is the terrace in front of the basement and another terrace on the front part of the basement-level carport on the ground floor.

- Also, the 16 m2 (172 sq ft) children’s room, which in my opinion is oversized -> 16 m2 (172 sq ft) too large for a children’s room? This should also be used during teenage years, so I don’t find it that big!?

I will try to make something out of the previous feedback, but the more specific the better.

Thanks in advance!

Pit