ᐅ Single-family home on a south-facing slope, floor plan approximately 160 m², including basement and garage

r19freak schrieb:

In the basement, there is a frequently used guest area and a very often used sports/yoga room. Both are very important spaces for us.

hampshire schrieb:

Yes, larger windows bring natural light into the office. I don’t know how the office will be used. For occasionally opening mail, doing tax returns, and working from home a few hours now and then, the office is fine for me. But as a regularly used workspace it’s not suitable. If I spend a large part of my life there, I want it to be pleasant – with good light and a nice view.

Here, an open-plan space refers to a living area that includes (at minimum) cooking, dining, and living functions. The area between the kitchen and the dining table is purely a passageway and relatively large compared to its practical use – I would call that a waste of space. I also see no aesthetic benefit to this area with an opening to the upper level.

The idea of directing heat from the stove upwards makes physical sense at first. The positioning and type of stove are important in such considerations – but I see no conceptual integration here. In the end, you have the disadvantages of a noisy upper floor with no significant aesthetic or thermal benefits, plus you have sacrificed expensive building space that could be better used in a more compact design.

hampshire schrieb:

I’m fine with the garden access from the living area on the ground floor. Attractive rooms with great potential for living space are created downstairs. I see these areas as underused, even though a guest is tucked away in a “generous side space.”

Given your site, I think about a central entrance leading to a gallery, from which you can see the living area below, which – except for the kitchen – has a double ceiling height. A free straight staircase up and down in open space (no stairwell). Office above the kitchen, small guest room, coatroom. Bedrooms upstairs, with technical rooms and a cold storage room in the basement behind the living area. This would give a much better sense of living and daily enjoyment through a "wow factor" in the house. The office would be a true living space, far enough from the main activity but still suitably located. Of course, this concept has impractical aspects – for example, groceries have a long distance to the kitchen/storage, and getting from the bedroom to the breakfast table requires descending two flights of stairs.

haydee schrieb:

What bothers me a lot is the garden not being directly connected to the house.
Without reason, you don’t plan a staircase between kitchen and dining/living area.
Generous guest area. The office is even too small for me, the gallery and relatively small bedrooms.
The nicest room is the guest room.
The budget is quite tight. What exactly is included in the price?

RomeoZwo schrieb:

The floor plan shows a compact "standard house" without a basement (the tiny office was the utility room), and underneath a living basement with generous space was added. So everything kind of doesn’t fit together...
My concept would be:
Basement: open-plan room (living, dining, kitchen) with terrace
Ground floor: master area, office, guest room (which seems important and could also be a second living room, e.g., TV room)
Attic: children's area

Alternatively, if the living space must be on the entrance floor, swap basement and ground floor, and move the guest room to the attic.

ypg schrieb:

More important than the open-plan living area, where you spend most of your time (except for sleeping)? The garden is also additional living space in summer. I don’t see that here. It may be nice to give the separate apartment access to the garden, but it should be more easily accessible from its main living space than by a long route over stairs and terrace.

When you have a child playing in the garden, you are nearby, doing the beds or flowers or sitting by the swing/sandpit. Then the child wants a snack from the kitchen, and what do you do? Either a slalom route over stairs, terrace, and large dining area or through the separate apartment/yoga room, across the basement, up the stairs, and into the kitchen... and the child? During this time, they’re unsupervised and might run into the street or trip, whatever...

ypg schrieb:

If I had such a great plot, I would enter through the front door and be greeted by a stylish staircase in the void, leading down to a bright open-plan space in the basement. Everything else could involve compromises – but the open-plan space welcomes you and provides high-quality living.

Personally, with a sloping site, I would avoid a gabled roof with a perpendicular pitch and rather adapt the roof shape to the slope, but of course, that is a matter of taste: those who want a gabled roof or a half-hipped roof often remain quite fixed on these choices.

r19freak schrieb:

The captain’s gable was not a requirement from us at all. It is necessary to create space for the staircase on the upper floor. What other options would there be here?