DIY floor plan design for 2 people

In all respect to your hobby motivation, but architecture is a course of study. They learn to combine light incidence, sightlines, spatial requirements, technical specialist planning, and energy or building physics. I would do as Katja and ypg have already suggested, put your wishes into a written! requirement and then give the architect free rein.

Be open to new things and ideas, then something really great can come out of it. If the roof shape is important, it will be included later in the design process.

Basically, you should currently calculate at least €3500 net per m2 if you don’t want to experience unpleasant surprises later. Note well, this is only the building without sauna/pool/Gaggenau etc.

Also go to the architect with this and openly communicate what your budget is. Even if you believe you don’t need to worry about it, you will be amazed how quickly the seemingly inexhaustible volume is used up and suddenly the architect comes around the corner with fees, development work (slope!) and unforeseen things (e.g. photovoltaic on your roof will be less easy).

Do yourselves a favor, invest a lot of passion in a planner who suits you personally as well as conceptually, and start your project completely neutrally.

I join the general criticism - too many doors / walls / corners / complicated walking routes / missing sight lines - of all things the kitchen without a window to nature - too many windows on the roof etc etc.

In my opinion, what is missing is the possibility of separate bedrooms - which is indispensable in my view considering age and its ailments as well as illness. Just because one of them suffers from senile bed escape - wants to read for an hour every night at 3 a.m. or due to increasing noise levels, the other does not have to suffer along.

I was very happy about your contribution (since I am in a similar situation and would like to follow your further development). I chuckled at the comments, since you have been reading here for a while you must have expected that. Architects are popular in the forum, the costs are often set very high, and if someone says the floor plan is too convoluted, another says they like the angles. If you want to "plan for later," someone will write, "then better build your next house later." A lively (and therefore endearing) forum indeed.

A tip, not only for you: trust no one and always get multiple opinions and, if necessary, offers. This applies especially to the architect, who will have a significant influence on your build. And what I’m about to write will probably provoke some disagreement: it’s not about liking the architect or having a "good feeling." That’s nice, and then the architect is a good salesperson. Better is a huge architect’s a** who then properly plans your dream house (of course: ideally, you also like the really good architect). You can, for example, ask for five houses the architect has planned (and where similar requirements were given). Then make a few friendly visits—many builders are happy to show their pride. And if HOAI is mentioned regarding costs: what matters is what you have to pay, and in my case the costs varied extremely.

Architect is of course fixed, we are still at the very beginning and wanted to try it ourselves first. It's just a hobby of mine...

...unfortunately, you fall in love with and lose yourself in your own hobby planning, which is, after all, amateur planning without any experience or expert knowledge.

For example, you can also see that in the wellness area the roof is not open up to the ridge, the room height is about 3.50 m.

Whether this concerns the sauna or elsewhere... (for that, the design is not mature enough at all for me to look at details)... I read something about 8.30... if the ground floor level is 3 meters, then I calculate 5 meters in the tip and that’s it. Who wants to go up there and suck away the cobwebs? Or brush off the soot that the stove blows black in there after a year?

Admittedly, we are already convinced by the open roof design

Fine, then build like that... but open roof design does not necessarily mean adding a tip/hall construction. A bit of aesthetics and homely components can be well presented and combined with an open space. An open space and skylight should rather support spaciousness and not narrow the room by giving it more height than width. The roof shape is intended for large areas... not for "small" compact houses to make them grow upwards.

A continuous access to the garden obviously has its charm, but at the moment I can’t imagine how that should work with a sloping plot like ours when taking the natural terrain into account and not wanting to completely bury the basement.

That’s what the architect is responsible for. That’s exactly the point, not to start as a hobby planner if you don’t have the ideas and professional knowledge to implement it. In my opinion, a slope _always_ belongs in the hands of an architect – right from the start and in the basic concept. From the initial idea of _WHERE_ the house is placed (plot connection), because the terrain will surely not be absolutely even.

We now have direct access from the kitchen and from the hallway/wellness area to the south/east terrace, do you find that too little?

Personally, it would be too little for me, yes. You are basically locked in your own house. Besides, I also find the accesses not present and reachable enough at all to be able to walk around the corners of the property on short paths. It rather has a penthouse flair. In my opinion, a pity for the plot.

What do you mean by 4 doors from the sauna to the toilet, of course we also use the guest toilet ourselves and don’t always run through the dressing room into the main bathroom.

Yes, exactly. But who wants to open 2 doors there? You are basically building a toilet within a toilet, i.e. a toilet room within a toilet room... and wellness in your case is not mentioned as secondary, but is supposed to be a regular thing in everyday life – for that I find it insufficient. Imagine the partner has guests and you want to do a sauna session during that time. Do you then go to the terrace in front of the guests in the dining area or walk through the kitchen to rest in the bedroom or living area?

About the terrain: my approach would be,

- first have the architect determine the best point for the house location. Maybe you already did that, but apparently the west is closer to the entrance height than the east?

- do without a basement, i.e. one level below the living level.

- Possibly work with split level (short stair sections are often easy to manage even in old age and a good exercise)

- Integrate the open space or roof so that a guest level with office also emerges there. Main level then plan somewhat bigger for technology and possibly sauna (with quiet pool connection).

- Skylights or roof shape must absolutely be included in the _interior design_ and not just "functionally" distributed on the roof.

- Accessibility: can be planned. But then pay attention to a clean room structure, where rooms transition into each other. Possibly avoid roof constructions that require intensive cleaning.

Fundamentally, you can currently calculate at least €3500 net per m2

Only in the absolute luxury segment. Prices are currently coming back massively (for many weeks and months already) - and so are the availabilities. And especially the availabilities of companies/craftsmen, who can no longer charge any price they want. Some of them are happy today if they even get enough orders for next year. With €3,000 per sqm, you can currently build very well.

I would also join the others. Because such a beautiful plot should be planned by architects, even if you, which I understand very well, see yourself as the best planner. And you should not just settle for one architect's design but get several. Because not every architect draws the perfect floor plan for your plot and can and knows everything. So have your private architect competition and compare different designs. However, I do not agree that the living levels should be swapped or that the basement must be buried. You can also solve that cleverly, for example, by having an L-shaped balcony from the bedroom that then becomes a terrace on the left side of the house. Because this feeling that you can step out from as many rooms as possible is enormously important (especially with such a budget). And for the entrance area, I would plan with an open space so that the roof also comes into its own. This generosity should definitely be there…