ᐅ Floor Plan Optimization for a Single-Family Home of Approximately 150 sqm on a Small Plot
Created on: 18 Aug 2020 20:31
Y
Yaso2.0
Hello everyone,
After what felt like forever, we finally received the floor plan (without exact dimensions) today from our preferred general contractor. Although the planner noted our requests during the meeting, some of them don’t seem to have been fully incorporated.
The price offer will be prepared once the floor plan is finalized, especially if the size increases.
I would like to share the floor plan with you and hear your suggestions for improvements!
Development plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 389sqm (4187 sq ft)
Sloping site
Site coverage ratio 0.35
Floor area ratio 0.70
Building envelope, building line, and boundary
Edge development
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2
Roof type
Architectural style
Orientation
Maximum heights / limits
Additional requirements
Client requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type: City villa
Basement, number of stories: 2 stories, no basement
Number of occupants, ages: 3 persons (44, 38, 9)
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor
Kitchen, living room, guest WC, utility room, and if possible, a small office
Office: family use or home office?
Guests for overnight stays vary widely
Open or closed architecture partly/partly
Conservative or modern style: a healthy mix of both
Open kitchen, kitchen island: semi-open kitchen, kitchen island not mandatory
Number of dining seats: 6–8
Fireplace: possibly
Music / stereo wall
Balcony, roof terrace
Garage, carport
Utility garden, greenhouse, garden for pleasant evenings
Additional wishes / special features / daily routines, including reasons why certain elements are wanted or not
We want a larger but semi-open kitchen because I cook and/or bake daily. A pantry would be great but I would also give it up if it means more counter space in the kitchen.
Ideally, I would like a laundry room on the upper floor since all the laundry tasks happen upstairs.
House design
Planner:
- Planner from a construction company
What do you particularly like? Why? Pantry room,
In the upper floor, the bedroom does not directly adjoin the children’s rooms
What do you dislike? Why?
Kitchen accessible only through the living room, hallway seems like wasted space??, kitchen counter size too small,
Cost estimate by architect/planner: still open, to follow after floor plan and house size are finalized
Personal budget limit for the house including fixtures and fittings:
Preferred heating system:
If you had to compromise, on which details / additions
- Could you do without: walk-in closet
- Could you not do without: “larger” kitchen
Why is the design the way it is now?
The general contractor’s planner asked about our preferences and created the floor plan accordingly. Apparently, an office didn’t fit. The requirement was that we ideally don’t want more than 150sqm (1615 sq ft), a kitchen size of at least 13sqm (140 sq ft) would be nice, and if possible, no straight staircase.
What makes it particularly good or bad in your eyes?
The hallway seems to take up too much space without much utility, the kitchen feels too small.
The walk-in closet is “enclosed” and should be accessible via the corridor.
We like that the children’s rooms are exactly the same size. The future child planning is currently flexible.
What is the most important / fundamental question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
How can we make the kitchen accessible through the hallway and semi-open, without making it too small?
Would a different staircase allow for a better layout?
Or are our wishes not feasible within 150sqm?
Thanks in advance!
After what felt like forever, we finally received the floor plan (without exact dimensions) today from our preferred general contractor. Although the planner noted our requests during the meeting, some of them don’t seem to have been fully incorporated.
The price offer will be prepared once the floor plan is finalized, especially if the size increases.
I would like to share the floor plan with you and hear your suggestions for improvements!
Development plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 389sqm (4187 sq ft)
Sloping site
Site coverage ratio 0.35
Floor area ratio 0.70
Building envelope, building line, and boundary
Edge development
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2
Roof type
Architectural style
Orientation
Maximum heights / limits
Additional requirements
Client requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type: City villa
Basement, number of stories: 2 stories, no basement
Number of occupants, ages: 3 persons (44, 38, 9)
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor
Kitchen, living room, guest WC, utility room, and if possible, a small office
Office: family use or home office?
Guests for overnight stays vary widely
Open or closed architecture partly/partly
Conservative or modern style: a healthy mix of both
Open kitchen, kitchen island: semi-open kitchen, kitchen island not mandatory
Number of dining seats: 6–8
Fireplace: possibly
Music / stereo wall
Balcony, roof terrace
Garage, carport
Utility garden, greenhouse, garden for pleasant evenings
Additional wishes / special features / daily routines, including reasons why certain elements are wanted or not
We want a larger but semi-open kitchen because I cook and/or bake daily. A pantry would be great but I would also give it up if it means more counter space in the kitchen.
Ideally, I would like a laundry room on the upper floor since all the laundry tasks happen upstairs.
House design
Planner:
- Planner from a construction company
What do you particularly like? Why? Pantry room,
In the upper floor, the bedroom does not directly adjoin the children’s rooms
What do you dislike? Why?
Kitchen accessible only through the living room, hallway seems like wasted space??, kitchen counter size too small,
Cost estimate by architect/planner: still open, to follow after floor plan and house size are finalized
Personal budget limit for the house including fixtures and fittings:
Preferred heating system:
If you had to compromise, on which details / additions
- Could you do without: walk-in closet
- Could you not do without: “larger” kitchen
Why is the design the way it is now?
The general contractor’s planner asked about our preferences and created the floor plan accordingly. Apparently, an office didn’t fit. The requirement was that we ideally don’t want more than 150sqm (1615 sq ft), a kitchen size of at least 13sqm (140 sq ft) would be nice, and if possible, no straight staircase.
What makes it particularly good or bad in your eyes?
The hallway seems to take up too much space without much utility, the kitchen feels too small.
The walk-in closet is “enclosed” and should be accessible via the corridor.
We like that the children’s rooms are exactly the same size. The future child planning is currently flexible.
What is the most important / fundamental question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
How can we make the kitchen accessible through the hallway and semi-open, without making it too small?
Would a different staircase allow for a better layout?
Or are our wishes not feasible within 150sqm?
Thanks in advance!
Yaso2.0 schrieb:
something I would never have thought of before. How does someone come up with that who has never built before? Because it affects every room with a window. That’s just normal life combined with the ability to observe.
Yaso2.0 schrieb:
having an architect who thinks ahead and contributes their own ideas to the floor plan. That is their job. It’s not a nice-to-have or optional—creativity is part of an architect’s responsibility.
Yaso2.0 schrieb:
At the moment, the general contractors we visited (all reputable local GCs) kept trying to push their standard catalog floor plans on us. I thought the woman was hired externally by you? Then she should do the work she’s being paid for. But it really seems like you come to her every day with minor changes. That won’t work. You let a draft settle, note pros and cons, and discuss that list with the architect. The poor woman is probably already quite anxious about making another mistake.
Shiny86 schrieb:
You probably also have a draftsman.
In hindsight, I would have preferred to choose a functional floor plan from the catalog that I liked, that also fits our room orientation, and make only minimal adjustments. It will never be perfect. I worked on my floor plan (I almost hesitate to say it) for 6 months, and the plan is just standard. I completely blocked myself. But it is what it is now.
By the way, my draftsman eventually stopped putting in effort, and then, for example, the ceiling openings were no longer accurate, etc. But you know my famous thread. I’ve also been fiddling with it since February... I didn’t even upload any of the earlier floor plans.
This one matches our room preferences.
The staircase will be mirrored, and a storage room will be placed underneath it.
The east-facing window in the bathroom will be removed. The north-facing windows in the bathroom and bedroom will be combined into one window.
The floor-to-ceiling windows in the wardrobe and utility room will also be removed; instead, the other two small windows will be changed to “regular” windows. The front door will be enhanced with glass side panels.
The east-facing window in the children’s room will be moved slightly closer to the staircase.
The access from the dressing room to the bedroom will be relocated to the other end of the wall.
I will revisit the bathroom layout again regarding the furnishing.
Do you still remember on which page of your thread your final floor plan is posted? Maybe I can find more improvements there. They really are quite similar.
ypg schrieb:
Because it concerns every room with a window. That’s just normal life with observational skills.
That is her job. It’s not a “nice to have” or something optional – creativity is the architect’s responsibility.
I thought the woman was hired externally by you? Then she should do the work she is paid for. But it really seems to me that you come to her every day with changes of minor details. That’s not how it works, of course. You let a design take effect, note pros and cons, and discuss this list with the architect. The poor woman is probably already quite scared she did something wrong again. She is hired externally by us.
She wants feedback as soon as something catches our attention, that’s what she told me. I then collect everything and send it to her at once.
So now I have such an architect. Either we come up with a reasonable floor plan, or it won’t work out anymore. Maybe I’ll take @Shiny86’s advice, and look for a standard floor plan that mostly matches our ideas.
As I said, I haven’t even posted everything I’ve received here because it hardly matched our expectations at all. This floor plan at least has the rooms arranged in a way we want to build upon.
We only widened the living area windows to 1.76 meters (5 ft 9 in). I’m not sure if I already posted that here. Otherwise, everything is exactly the same. No changes since May, although I have occasionally asked about it here and in the forum. Honestly, I don’t have anything else to change at the moment. But surely there will be some changes later once I’m living there. That’s probably normal.
Feel free to share your design here once it’s ready.
Feel free to share your design here once it’s ready.
Yaso2.0 schrieb:
I congratulate everyone who has either a general contractor or an architect who thinks along and contributes their own ideas to the floor plan. I’m afraid only relatively few homebuilders end up here. Most discuss the floor plans with family and work colleagues and then go straight to construction. The big awakening comes later when everything is already set in concrete and they experience the problems firsthand. Your issue is that you want to keep things “small.” In standard general contractor designs, they simply make the house about 20 sqm (215 sq ft) larger, and that somehow “solves” the problem.
With General Contractor 1, we had a qualified architect as the planner, whose designs were beautiful at first glance but, upon closer inspection, were quite impractical—too focused on design. General Contractor 2 only had a draftsman whose designs, in my opinion, were just mutated versions of already built houses. They were full of odd walls, recesses, etc. Everything that didn’t fit was forced to fit.
What I’m trying to say: it was a long and rocky road!
Shiny86 schrieb:
I spent almost six months working on my floor plan (I’m almost ashamed to admit it), and the plan is just a basic, run-of-the-mill design. I really blocked myself. But it is what it is now. Alternatively, I could have hired a "real" architect. Today, I would gladly pay a good architect a generous fee. Yep, we were there live. Sometimes the appeal lies especially in simplicity. Just because something has worked a thousand times doesn’t mean it’s bad—at least if it suits the plot.
You get what you pay for. Except for a few exceptions here in the forum, everyone wants to get the maximum house for the given budget. Generous fees for architects are not planned—that’s supposed to be included for free by the general contractor. It’s the same system as expecting independent advice from a bank “advisor” without wanting to pay for it.
Overall, I do see similarities with our own design now. Just keep going and don’t give up. We also took about a year from initial contact to signing the contract, with around 20 design revisions, it felt like.
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