City Villa Floor Plan - Feedback Desired

The house is designed to be exceptionally spacious and focuses on the pleasant parts of life: sitting together, cooking, putting your feet up... I suspect that you have compiled many ideas of a good life and visual highlights with a lot of thoughts into a floor plan. At the same time, you seem to have given somewhat less thought to the practical daily routes and tasks to be done in the house; those aspects still need to be incorporated somehow. Functionally, the floor plan requires some compromises, some of which have already been mentioned:

1. Noise in the house due to the open construction. We have lived for the past 18 years in a townhouse with an open staircase. The children grew up there. When the children were small, it was no problem; small children also sleep even if it is a bit louder. With school time, that changed, as we often had to be quiet. Especially with guests, a good night's sleep for the children was out of the question. In the teenage years, guests come—and go—and come—and go. The open layout prevented privacy. I would not want to do it that way again or would solve it in such a way that the children have their own wing—but the budget does not allow that. You can also box in the open spaces with glass to decouple the levels acoustically.
2. You bring groceries in, take out the trash, wash laundry, iron, say good night, change fresh diapers... There are many recurring activities. The design makes some of these routes quite long. This is no problem if one does it consciously. If it happens by accident, one can constantly be annoyed later. Consider paths together once more. I would give the utility room more space.
3. People get older. Older people need more "aisle width." The routes in the private area of the "parents" will eventually become painfully narrow. That is no problem if you do not plan to grow "old" in the house anyway. If so: reconsider the dimensioning of the paths. Aging also changes the perspective on point 2.
4. Storage space. Needs here are very different. Expect that the children will eventually grow up and develop hobbies. Musical instruments, sports equipment, vehicles. The ratio of living and open space to the room for the children to develop gives children in a really big house only limited opportunities for development.

I would not build like this—but I am not a benchmark. Nobody builds like this anyway.

I wouldn't build like that either - but I'm not a standard. Nobody really builds like that.

Don't say that. Your concept is well thought out. It's just that hardly anyone builds with children who are almost fledged and then on this subtle slope with the soil class

Ouch. I enter the house and stand in an entrance hall over one hundred square meters in size. To the right, the single-flight straight staircase, which unfortunately does not exude generosity when it stands there pressed against the wall as if for execution. Above me, no moon from Wanne-Eickel, but an airspace (which does not create any spaciousness, but merely reliably drives away coziness). To my left, two gigantic broom closets, starting under the stairs (!) the door to the wing with the tiny bedroom. The bay window does not widen the view at all, but narrows it (because I see from the front door to the corner at the dining table), to the left behind what urban planners call a fear corner lurks the kitchen. Upstairs, then, (relatively) tiny chambers get lost again in the corners of a huge dance floor; the airspace does not widen the ground floor, but is a hole in the upper floor. Of the parking spaces, I would not cover one, and suddenly the ensemble becomes a whole octave more elegant. The structural effort of the L-bay window is even more wasted money than the cut-out floor areas of the upper floor. To avoid misunderstandings, I mention in passing that I write this criticism in the best possible mood.

Wir hatten vor wenigen Wochen einen ähnlich eingeteilten Grundriss mit einem Elterntrakt an der Seite.

I suspect the one meant by , roughly from page 60 onwards.

Functionally, the floor plan demands some compromises, some of which have already been mentioned:

Thanks for the comments

On the right, the straight staircase running in one direction, which unfortunately does not radiate generosity when it stands there like being placed against the wall for a firing squad.

Maybe I just lack imagination at the moment, but where else would a staircase stand if not against the wall?

Above me not a moon from Wanne-Eickel, but an open space (which does not create spaciousness, but merely reliably drives away coziness).

Do you mean the one above the dining table or in the entrance area? Why do you think it does not create spaciousness?

The bay window does not widen the view at all, but narrows it (because I look from the front door to the corner at the dining table)

Yes, good point.

The blue area is the building window. It has a width of 18m at the front. Subtract about 6m for the double carport in the edge development. On the other side, 3m. As discussed, 9m remain for the house. But maybe it can reasonably be allowed to become wider again behind the carport.

The thought would be to question whether your desired house shape is the right one. Simply question it and try something different. As I already said: I don’t see a city villa in a square or similar. And if so: clever planning would make the house turn out differently anyway. A double carport certainly offers more usable space than two singles. By the way, for such problems it is advisable to have your house planning done by an architect. You can afford a professional, so why put only layman’s knowledge into the house planning?

Maybe I just lack the imagination right now, but where else would a staircase be if not against the wall?

thinks that the staircase is somewhat lost stuck to the wall in the (too large) hallway area. Its location there really doesn’t make sense.

Do you mean the one above the dining table or in the entrance area? Why do you think it doesn’t create spaciousness?

Air spaces do not arise by simply leaving out the floor on the upper floor, but by planning an opening in the ceiling on the ground floor so that a special visual axis is created, both from top to bottom and from bottom to top. Preferably then also staged with a lamp or a large picture. 18sqm is not a deliberately set air space. If you look at yours: it extends over the dining/living room corner and reaches the kitchen. You are thus sitting almost without a ceiling above the sofa on the right. The intersection with the bay window will also look strange there. The front air space reaches the cloakroom. In your 80sqm open-plan room you thus have 30sqm of area without a ceiling, which hardly has positive qualities. The generous room on the ground floor thereby acquires something of a hall. The walls or the structure of the room are thus suspended. Do you understand what I mean? By the way, I think I see that the fireplace is not positioned vertically above each other.

I suspect the one meant by , roughly from page 60 onwards.

True, the parent corridor stuck on the right reminded me of something the whole time. There, the problem was rather too few square meters for the wishes. Here, I have more the impression that there is a surplus in places where it is not needed, and it gets tight where it is necessary. I don’t know if I have ever seen a floor plan with so many square meters and open spaces and for example the living room is still so "tight". It’s supposed to exude spaciousness, but it doesn’t. It has already been written. I agree with Yvonne’s opinion. The house also does not fit the plot. Which brings me to the question of whether, in combination with the already recognized (?) crutches of the floor plan, it even makes sense to tinker with it or if it might be more effective to go back to the beginning and start again with a blank sheet of paper!? (Ok, graph paper would be better )