Avoid mistakes in the second house: Home construction company or architect?

I would take the tip next time to make more use of the building envelope and build somewhat more elongated. Thanks for this hint, @ WilderSueden.

I don't think my tip was to build more elongated, even though square house shapes tend to create a lot of dead space in the middle. That's OK as long as half of the living room is occupied by the Duplo train, but later on it's just dead space. I personally also find our open-plan room in L-shape quite nice and practical, but of course that doesn't allow for as many other rooms on the ground floor.

Hmm, I’m wondering whether I would really save square meters if I had made several different rooms out of our bedroom—which consists only of one large (multi-functional) room, whose functions can repeatedly be adapted to the new everyday life (also with children). I rather believe that then you have more traffic area, more walls, more doors, more nooks and crannies. Please correct me if I’m wrong. But that’s what’s behind our wish to prefer large multi-functional rooms rather than lots of wall space in smaller rooms.

One could, in the extreme case, save even more walls by installing extractor hoods over the shower and toilet and also integrating them into the loft. However, the view would then sweep across a single huge surface, on which you would perceive even more than in this example...

But our common room is a rectangle with a net area of 5.50 x 10 m. And it’s fully furnished. I would be glad to have one square meter of "air," where no piece of furniture stands but simply nothing or maybe only a carpet lies.

... you would perceive every tiny crumb as a disturbance of the "pure emptiness." Spanning this surface without supports would also be a great opportunity to spend even more budget on reinforced concrete than you already did with your (failed) panoramic window. However, with the room concept "as much common room as possible for every stakeholder of family living," I would then have granted the children treehouse-suitable rooms. The more defenses I read from you for the "basically you can call anything an afterthought concept" of your house, the more clearly I take back my advice to plunge into the building adventure again. If you cannot properly decide to do differently next time what people with different living tastes classify as "errors" in your current house (and you do too, otherwise you wouldn’t be unhappy with it) or maybe rather do it the same again, then a new attempt offers hardly any chance for a better overall result. According to my current assessment, your Stockholm self would at least build the same house again with a pitched roof and fewer posts in the window front, possibly with an uneven rectangular floor plan. Already at the thought of such an inefficient effort-gain ratio, Pareto would turn in his grave. But maybe your children will say, you should do it after all for treehouse rooms.

Now now, , don’t make our house worse than it is. Of course, there are things we don’t like and that we would plan differently today. That’s why this thread exists. But if everything about our house were as bad as you write and as you might feel, every day here would be marked by overwhelming suffering. I can tell you, that is not the case. To pick up on something else: How do you find the right architect? One who brings creative ideas and also thinks completely outside the box. For us, the first design was relatively quickly decided upon, and it mostly stayed that way. I believe the first design was also very influenced by our (really very first amateurish) considerations. And then it was always: "Yes, you wanted this or that." You know what I mean? How can you test that without having to pay an incredibly high architect’s fee right away? I also once heard that you can have two architects essentially compete against each other, a bit like a public tender. Is something like that common for private building projects as well?

To pick up something different again: How do you find the right ? One who brings creative ideas and also thinks completely new from time to time.

For question 1: you find him by searching yourself. Or by having a consultant* search for him, who himself has none and represents your interests. In any case, not through a builder, who has his own interests. *) but in this case, in the service of my health, please not me For question 2: by not trying to influence his creativity and letting him think freely, which also includes ...

For us, the first draft was ready relatively quickly, which basically remained that way. I believe the first draft was also very much shaped by our (really very first amateurish) considerations.

... politely leaving one’s own amateurish considerations in the poison cabinet – at least until the architect has explained his design and one has slept on it several times.

How can you test that without immediately having to pay an incredible amount of architect’s fees? Somewhere I also once heard that you can let two architects battle each other, kind of like in a public tender. Is that also common in private construction projects?

Battle. Competition. Casting. *toootlach*. No, that is *not usual* for a single single-family house *ahem*. An incredible amount of fees, no. For module A we are talking about 9 percentage points of the HOAI fee. Or you ask the countless student architects and candidate architects who would rather earn money with this than waitressing or driving a taxi. Then you can look for the inexpensive " next super architect".

I have now read the entire thread for the second time and I can't shake the feeling that you are starting to look in the wrong place.

Point 1:

However, we are not completely satisfied for various reasons and are considering possibly building again. But we want to take our time with that (time horizon 5-10 years), so that we are really sure what exactly we want to change.

What are the points that you are not satisfied with? Please list them and illustrate them using the current floor plan. I only ever read that the bedroom turned out great. Does everything else not fit? If you want to tweak things, you must first be clear about what you want to achieve. Do you even know that?

Point 2:

Create a list of requirements of what a new house must be able to do and what your needs are, such as:
- one or two home office workplaces?
- additional separate guest room or combined with office?
- number of children's rooms and number of bathrooms
- separate dressing room?
- etc.

With this information, it is then the task of an architect and not a draftsman to design a floor plan...

For module A we are talking about 9 percentage points of the HOAI fee.

How much would that be for a house costing, for example, 800k? It is correct that the fee is calculated from the house price, right?