ᐅ Single-family house floor plan of approximately 150 square meters on a plot located behind other properties

Hello,

a beautiful plot in a rare location. It would be a shame not to take advantage of the location’s benefits:

• Secluded from the road, private entrance
• No building allowed to the east
• View of the canal or towards Erlangen from the upper floor (the railway embankment is about 3 meters (10 feet) high)

A rough suggestion for the room layout (roof pitch 45 degrees, knee wall 1.4 meters (4.6 feet), setback from the western boundary 3.5 meters (11.5 feet)).

Ground floor:

• Entrance northwest
• Office northeast
• Guest WC west
• Kitchen east
• Dining southeast
• Living southwest

Upper floor:

• Children’s bathroom northwest
• Bathroom west
• Master bedroom southwest
• 3x children’s rooms northeast, east, southeast, all with access to the roof terrace

Garage 9 meters (30 feet) by 4.5 meters (15 feet), gate width 3.7 meters (12 feet).

If one of the children’s rooms can be used as an office, a basement is not necessary. The office on the ground floor will be converted into a utility/technical room.

Best regards

I agree with 11ant that the basement is a luxury and not strictly necessary. However, on the upper floor, you could definitely use the space for your four bedrooms.

derdietmar schrieb:

But that would be a north-south ridge, right? I would also prefer that orientation since the unobstructed south-facing gable could be used for windows. Nowadays, many prefer to increase their photovoltaic capacity and therefore opt for an east-west ridge, as mentioned by the OP in the initial post. According to §34, it should be allowed; the neighbor to the north also has three.

Hi, here is the creator of the plan 🙂.

Before my better half responds, I would like to share some background on the thought process behind it.

Orientation and layout:
First of all: the south is not guaranteed to remain unobstructed. In fact, the bungalow is roughly the same age as all the houses around it. It is quite possible that a house will be built on the neighboring property behind the bungalow. Direct car access wouldn’t even be necessary. There are ways to address that separately. It’s actually fairly likely that a house will be built there eventually, since property prices in this area are so high that such lots are usually not sold as complete units. Hardly anyone can afford the land costs here. So the free, unobstructed view to the south is not as certain as assumed here. If or when a house gets built there, we don’t know yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
There is also a version of the plan where the house is rotated, with the ridge running north-south. In that layout, the children’s rooms and living/dining area face south, the kitchen is east, and the office is northeast, etc. That’s nice too, but then we measured the plot with tape and string, and there simply wouldn’t be enough space on the south side if someone were to build their house just 3m (10 feet) from the boundary. That’s why I rotated it—to gain a bit more distance there.
It might also be important to know that there are quite a few trees along the railway line to the east, and because of the elevated position, the sun doesn’t arrive until relatively late.

House size:
We know that neighbors had issues getting approval for the size, knee wall height, etc., even though their architect believed it fit the regulations. The size of this design was based on the buildable footprint that neighbors were finally approved for after long negotiations. I also contacted the city’s building authority to check compliance with building regulations regarding dimensions and similar details. We received a response indicating that it fits in. Although it’s not legally binding, it is at least a good first indication.

Basement:
Yes, the basement is explicitly needed. There are no pointless rooms there; the statement was only that we haven’t yet decided how to divide it. Using and needing the space is beyond question.

Office:
The office will be full-time workspaces. I would even say this will be the most used room in the house on weekdays outside of vacation periods, which is why the orientation had to be carefully considered (and was).

Living/Dining/Kitchen:
I find a narrow rectangular layout awful and absolutely do not want one. Also, no closed kitchen. That pretty much leaves only an L-shape layout, which then has to be placed cleverly 😉. The alternative would be to mirror the entire thing so the kitchen is in the northeast, but then the office would be southwest, and the entire living area wouldn’t get any light from the west. Plus, the staircase would have to move further west, unnecessarily enlarging the upstairs bathroom.

Upstairs bathroom:
Yes, it’s not very large, but it doesn’t need to be. I grew up in a house with a 12sqm (129 sq ft) bathroom, and apart from having enough room to lie in the middle, it didn’t offer any significant advantages. The cut-out with the "laundry basket tower" was more of an idea. I’m also convinced that something like that behind the door would be a pretty cool storage space. What is true, though, is that the height from the step to the ceiling is 2m (6 ft 7 in)—that should be increased. Also, 1.2m (4 feet) depth is simply too much, and the wall thickness is 0.21m (8 inches). The internal dimension of 0.45m x 0.65m (18 in x 26 in) seems feasible, also considering headroom by the stairs. But somewhere there has to be space for something like a laundry basket. The second bathroom downstairs has the bathtub, because we simply don’t use it often. I don’t see any real sense in making the bathroom bigger just to fit an item that’s rarely used. There is enough space for that downstairs.

Master bedroom:
I think it was already mentioned: the smaller room, so parents’ bedroom 2, will get a dormer, and the room will gain 30cm (12 inches) more space from parents’ bedroom 1. These won’t be needed if a 1.5m (5 ft) wardrobe fits there. Something along those lines—the walls at the dormer would of course not have any overhangs, etc. It’s not huge, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s for sleeping and dressing, and in about 20 years at the latest, the larger rooms will be ours 🙂

Overall, the plan was created by thinking about how we use and move through spaces. I also considered what I/we find important. For example, someone wrote that new builds should have double-leaf terrace doors. In my whole life, I have never thought a single-leaf terrace door is unwelcoming or wished there was a double door instead, not at relatives, friends, or homes where I’ve lived. Also, the lack of terrace access from the kitchen is often criticized. I have never thought much about that, so it wasn’t a high priority. In daily life, that’s a minor issue compared to, for example, a narrow rectangular layout or a separate kitchen. I just don’t like those.

K a t j a schrieb:

Ah, the same old story: "We are so undemanding, we don’t need all that" or "we’ve never had it before." But I like this one even better:

Or this one is good, too:

You inevitably have to wonder if you have ever actually seen the interior of a modern single-family house? I strongly recommend visiting a show home park.

Oh, I grew up in three different houses, two of them built around the turn of the millennium, the other one later. I have also lived in a 200m² (2,150 sq ft) apartment with five people, in my lovely 2-room 80m² (860 sq ft) apartment, as well as in a 34m² (370 sq ft) 2-room second home. Oh, and our 117m² (1,260 sq ft) 5-room apartment as a couple, and now our 4-room apartment with four people. Likewise, I have looked at, measured, and visited countless houses, apartments, and show homes.

Yes, I know quite well how we use things, why we use them that way, and what we really need. Just because something is labeled "modern" doesn’t automatically mean it makes sense for us. We are not undemanding; we just have different priorities.

Who deleted @K a t j a's post? Then left it in the quote?