Floor plan design for a semi-detached house 17x10m - Best space utilization?

Why don't you plan a house with a [Einliegerwohnung] that could be rented out? That way you would have a bigger garden, rental income, and wider rooms? Even a double garage would fit...

Cool! I didn’t get around to it last night, but I had vaguely thought about trying something like that. mm-paper and pencil are already ready, maybe I’ll manage it today.

I don’t actually think it’s that cool. You only ever have 3 sides with light, in a semi-detached house. The wide main light side is to the north (or south). If you put the entrance there, important rooms inevitably end up at the "dark wall." That’s rubbish. Therefore, in my opinion, the entrance must always be on one of the sides adjacent to the dark wall. The garden side is also out – only the street side remains for the entrance.

The plot is ridiculously expensive and you actually only want to use and buy half. I understand that. But if you’re not satisfied with the usual layouts of semi-detached houses, I see little chance for the big happiness.

Would, for example, two-family houses be possible? A granny flat has also been mentioned.

Floor area ratio = 0.35 x 479 = 167.65 / 10 = 16.7. Do we still have to cut off 30 cm? How thick is such a wall in the middle? What about parking spaces, terrace and paths?

So, I checked again, the development plan says nothing about that. Except that such ancillary facilities should be constructed to allow infiltration and the ground should not be sealed. Could that be right? How is that regulated then? For the terrace, we are anyway considering a wooden deck with a step down because of the terrain topography... We are currently calculating 7+9 meters, so 16 in total. Then you would have 3.50 on each side. Squeezing by somewhere forever is really annoying too.

or we close the exit downwards.

If the basement is not to be included in the thermal envelope, then definitely. The separating door can be at the top or bottom. You can’t see around the landing corner anyway, so I might possibly include the exit visually towards the top. Or you let the basement exit at the top appear like a storage room door.

Another dividing line wouldn’t make much sense

Certainly not stepped multiple times, but maybe slanted.

But I don’t know if the variant with 2 full floors and attic as an expansion reserve for the higher floor wouldn’t fail due to the max FH of 9.50 m...?

I don’t know either, that has to be calculated specifically.

Would it look stupid to put the entrance at the front on one half and on the side on the other?

No, that’s actually quite common for "classic" semi-detached houses on corner plots, and with unequal halves that would even be my "first choice". They usually aren’t suitable for mirrored cloning of the layout anyway (instead, for the north half, the west side is often taken as the preferred side).

We haven’t even talked about the other half yet.

Indirectly yes: at first, equal-sized halves were planned, which should only differ in the standard. Therefore, I would already have expected a mirror clone there out of “imaginative economy.”

Podium again - but entrance at the front.



2 upper floors: From a construction point of view, the bathroom above the WC on the ground floor would be ideal. However, then the bedroom would end up next to the child's room, which is not so nice. Therefore, alternatively, a somewhat elongated bathroom, whereby the disposal would have to be planned through the pantry.

Here is another idea from Bien-Zenker for the entrance on the side:


For me, however, the hallway would be too narrow. The WC would be removed and the technical room would be divided half and half between the WC and the pantry.

Pieps: we still exist, as does the project. We have commissioned a community of architects with a concept study so that we a) get a planning basis that fits us and the property perfectly and b) all general contractors can calculate on the same basis. Katja, during the consultation your above ideas with the podium staircase were mentioned. The architect found them "very solid." There are worse judgments, right? Thanks anyway for the input so far. I will get back to you when we have results.