Creative ideas for new construction

Hello community,

my wife and I would like to start planning and building a single-family house (basement/ground floor/upper floor) this year. The associated plot is 800 m² and is located on a moderate slope, therefore the basement should be accessible at ground level from one side. The living space should be about 150 m². We have a daughter (19 months old), another child is planned. From numerous conversations, I have already picked up many good ideas for the project. But I am sure there are many more suggestions that we might consider. And surely we would like to adopt one or the other.
I am thinking, for example, of things like:
- Using rainwater for toilet/washing machine
- Ridge orientation east/west for later solar retrofit
- Toilet/shower in the basement (as mentioned, accessible at ground level on one side) so that children do not always bring dirt into the living space after playing
- Planning a niche for wood next to the tiled stove
Who is creative and contributes more ideas? For those who have already built, what would you do again without fail or what would you think about next time?

Thanks in advance!
Christian

- a tip that my uncle gave my parents 10 years ago (we will implement it now): the bedroom and the master bathroom are located on the ground floor in our house, since none of us are getting any younger... so we already have everything on one level for later times! Also in case something worse should happen (God forbid!) like, for example, a wheelchair...

- the fireplace has a water jacket

- oh, and we also have an exhaust system without heat recovery, it is better than the one with recovery because fewer pipes need to be installed, thus avoiding what is probably a very expensive pipe cleaning

well, I can’t think of anything else spontaneously... my husband always takes care of the technical things

hope that was helpful

best regards

Wheelchair is the keyword,

which I also keep in mind during the current renovation. Since I have been building on the side for 15 years now, I more or less expect that the body will "take revenge" one day for everything.

Whether new construction or renovation, but a few things can be planned from the beginning so that in a serious case there is not too much hassle with conversions, except for stairlifts and various handles, wheelchair-accessible washbasins in the bathroom, etc.:

- same floor level, no high thresholds between rooms.
- sufficiently wide doors, especially avoid narrow doors to the bathroom
- in kitchen planning, do not allocate too much space only in tall cabinets
- plan a walk-in and driveable shower, which seems to be currently "in fashion" anyway (which I personally don't care about, I would have installed it anyway)
- for a sloping plot, rather create a curved driveway with as little incline as possible instead of dozens of stairs or steep paths

One more thing about the water fireplace:
I suppose that it is planned to the heating circuit via buffer storage together with a gas/oil boiler. Unfortunately, the heating circuit feed only works via a circulation pump; in case of power failure, it stops working. But so that you still don't sit in the cold, in my opinion you should make sure that the water pockets can also be switched off, so that the fireplace can function as a pure room heater. Therefore, it should be able to release all of its output optionally as radiant heat into the room. In normal operation, take a look at the distribution of the power output: most fireplaces I know fire mainly into the water (e.g. 70%) and little into the air. Such a 24 kW furnace might have heated 1,000 liters of buffer storage in one hour; afterwards it might be blown off. I personally prefer a balanced ratio of power output. The buffer heating takes a little longer, but the living area is heated more quickly directly by radiant heat. Everyone must decide for themselves what is most important to them.

Regards