Floor plan design for a hillside house with 5 children's rooms

I am missing the measurements in the property sketch. Because: I would probably design the house a bit narrower and longer, due to the location, north/south plus slope, so that the living/dining rooms can benefit each other.

I would also put the children on the ground floor, a utility room where washing is done as well (I know households where 4 machines stand side by side) and then a proper children's bathroom - keeping it clean is already a challenge without laundry. Upstairs, I would plan the kitchen with a panoramic window facing the garden/terrace to the north, the dining area in the middle, and the living room with panoramic view to the south. It’s no use, the situation must be considered as a whole, nevertheless the dining area can benefit from the sunlight in the south - the other way around is less feasible, because direct access to the terrace/garden from the kitchen is more sensible. has already mentioned this. A spacious storage room upstairs can also serve as a pantry. ... Perhaps the sofa area could be placed somewhat in a niche... Bathrooms should definitely be one above the other, that should be possible as well. I would place the staircase closer to the entrance so that a later division is possible.

Regards, Yvonne

Haydee, what advantages would there be in giving up open living and dining?

Oh, and many thanks already to everyone for your suggestions so far. It really helps us to critically question things!

I could imagine that retreat options are missing. The little ones are playing on the terrace, one is practicing the piano, another comes home from school in the afternoon and wants to eat in peace. I would have kept cooking and dining together, at least separated living by large sliding doors.

I am an amateur, but I could imagine that the extra cost for a proper staircase and a finished attic is less than achieving square meters through a larger footprint. Retaining wall and earthworks cost.

Thank you so so much!! So many great ideas! Tonight, if the gang hopefully goes to bed early, I will redraw!

Earthworks: there is sand-loam soil. The house starts at plus 30cm above street level at the front. The slope rises from the street to about 20m depth to about 2.5m. The house will be about 10-11m deep.
Can you roughly estimate the earthwork costs based on this data? And the disposal? Would about 20,000 be enough? (The single tree in the building area does not need to be calculated, it is estimated at 1300 including root disposal.)
The excavation is to be partly stored behind the slope house and further up in the garden behind L-walls. Does that make sense?

On the topic of architect versus general contractor and house fittings: we already had a great floor plan from the general contractor, but it was optimized for a different plot. So I assume they can manage that again here. But we also want to plan well ourselves so that it really fits in the end.

The fittings are fine with us, except for underfloor heating and vinyl instead of laminate and gas heating with solar for domestic hot water instead of the planned air heat pump. And then at KFW 55 level. But that was already included in the price anyway.
Walk-in showers are also without extra charge, might they make sense?
Windows, tiles, etc. don’t matter much. We are quickly satisfied there. It’s really just about the kids having space in the garden and living area and everyone having a little private space.

Instead of a garage, there will probably be a bicycle and stroller shed next to the house and a large garden shed in the garden for tools, workbench, garden furniture, etc.
The budget is overall between 430,000 and 450,000. The plot including additional costs is about 88,000.
I hope this will be feasible overall.

Can I actually also post a plan for the plot design here? Or is it better to create a separate thread for that?

Can I actually post a plan for the property design here? Or is it better to have a separate thread for that?

Tastes may vary. One person doesn't like twenty-page threads, another doesn't like having to piece a project together from three threads. I personally "hate" it when someone asks about a detail and you have to scroll back a year and a half in their post history to figure out which house it even belongs to. Or in the floor plan topic, someone refers to something that was said in the property thread. That's almost as "tedious" as when someone uploads .PDFs.

The GU team had the better ideas and above all better feasible and more realistic ones. What I want to say is: The GU does not have to have a bad architect/planner. That can also be a good option.

I agree with my predecessor. Architects often get tangled up in aesthetic ideas, while planners from the BU have little problem with building square, practical, and cheap. That's what you need. A practitioner.

Neither client-mandated architects necessarily have too much imagination, nor architects employed by the contractor necessarily too little. "Partisan for one party" does not necessarily mean "bad for the other." If one understands the respective interests, one can handle both. The more overlap of interests there is, the better one can work with the contractor’s architect. It is simply a difference in principle; of course, exceptions exist everywhere.

I am missing the measurements in the site plan.

One grid square represents half a meter; as a wireframe model, i.e., wall thicknesses must be added mentally.

Because: I would probably design the house a bit narrower and longer due to the location, north/south plus slope, so that living/dining mutually benefit.

My approach is the opposite: as small as possible in the dimension of the main slope direction, to have less height difference in depth between front and back.

I'm a layman; I could imagine that the extra cost for a decent staircase and finished attic is less than achieving square meters through a larger footprint.

Laymanship cannot be borrowed
In my opinion, this principle question does not arise like that: a full staircase and finished attic are related; but the purpose of the finished attic itself rather depends on the room program: if the room program can be sensibly divided into two equally sized portions, a two-and-a-half-story is no gain (and where it is not needed due to floor area ratio reasons, the attic can be omitted without pain – at least as a living floor).