Floor plan design of a 170m² passive house with garage

Hello forum,

now it's our turn to start with the topic of house building. After a long search, we have found a nice plot of 520m2 that is completely flat. The plot is the last one that is not built on. So we can definitely approach things concerning the neighboring buildings with certainty. Everything around is open (max. 1.5 stories), no trees and therefore no shading, ideal for passive house construction.

What we want: Passive house with 2 children's rooms and 2 offices (1 small office is enough for me, but not for my wife!). A double garage was also a must with access to the house, preferably through a pantry. A straight staircase would also be nice and a direct view from the front door into the garden. An open living area with kitchen + living room + dining room was very important to us. We are building without a basement (for cost reasons). After a few visits to prefabricated house centers and talks with various architects, we decided on the following floor plan. It should roughly stay like this, but we are open to useful tips from you. Maybe we have totally overlooked something... definitely ;)

In the house views, the garage was already extended towards the garden to get more storage space. We are not yet agreed on the position of the terrace, it will probably run over the south/southwest corner and be covered in the kitchen area (practically adjacent to the garage towards the garden).

So have fun giving feedback and thanks in advance!

First of all, what immediately catches my eye: The cloakroom is dark. Why don’t you put in a small window here and place the wardrobe on the other side? I find the children’s rooms too small in relation to the rest of the house. I find the wardrobe space on one side of the bed disadvantageous because someone is always disturbed when one wants to sleep in longer. I also find it disadvantageous that all the doors on the upper floor open directly against the wall. It would be better if there were space behind the door for a wardrobe. This further restricts the furnishing of the small rooms. But with this floor plan, it won’t be any different. I find the bathroom with the sauna planned too large. Where do you spend more time? In the bathroom, the sauna, or the children’s room? But okay, if you want a sauna... I find the entrance area almost too small despite the nice cloakroom corner. Do you have children? If yes, how old? I think it’s very good that the utility room and technical room are separate. We have that too. I think it’s bad that a technician or water meter reader etc. has to walk through the whole house or the garage first. Our technical room is located right next to the entrance. The hallway on the upper floor has no natural daylight. Ours actually doesn’t either, but we made skylights above the bathroom doors so that at least a little daylight comes into the hallway. Overall, I find the floor plan okay. You can see that you’ve put thought into it.

Hello, I also find the floor plan quite successful. Unfortunately, the living space suffers from the large utility area. Hallway with 7.5 + wardrobe I find appealing and proportional (I am not a fan of wasted hallway space) Something has already been said about moving the wardrobe cabinet inward. I find 14.5 sqm for the children's room okay – but you parents actually allow yourselves a lot more space (due to the dressing room and offices). The children get nothing from this, because based on the above statement, I cannot imagine that the larger office will ever be used as a playroom or TV room for the children. Instead, there is a large double garage with storage space – a large technical room and a practical utility room... the children definitely have less space than your cars :( Unusual: the bathroom in the south! Size with sauna is fine, but still not for all the departments (my opinion). Generosity looks different; there is no space for a small armchair to rest after the sauna. Also, the sink position with the window area at the back is not exactly ideal. The T-layout here again is not the optimum for the bathroom, but I also see no alternative given the shape. The roofed area will keep your kitchen dark (I assume that the roofed area is closed...) I would adjust the windows on the ground floor in the south to match the windows on the upper floor – namely so that the left window frames align at top and bottom (dining area and kitchen) Overall, I would feel comfortable there (ground floor), less so upstairs. Nevertheless, here the living space takes a back seat to the utility area – personally, I would design the house larger and reduce the utility area (shift about 10-15 sqm, so to speak), accordingly add one more room downstairs and more space upstairs for the children, either for their rooms or as a communal room :) What is passive about the house now? The large windows on the east confuse me...

Should the corner bathtub be in the bottom right of the bathroom?? It is drawn way too small?!

:) Thanks first of all for the suggestions! The wardrobe issue is really a topic that can be changed without much effort. We will take it into account.

Since the hallway has no daylight, we were possibly thinking of solving that by installing glass doors in the offices. We will reconsider the layout of the bathroom, especially the position of the bathtub, which we do not want to implement as a corner bathtub. We envision placing the bathtub so that you can look out into the green/garden. The size is debatable, but after the mini bathroom in the current apartment, it is comfortable for us, though I can understand that it meets with incomprehension on your part! The entrance area is deliberately kept so "small"...

Regarding the size of the children's rooms: we have looked at exactly this size in the house positioning and with acquaintances and believe it is sufficient. There are no children yet anyway... We will indeed have to revisit the position of the doors. It really is not very well chosen. The position of the windows is also a good hint. We will change that.

Passive house and east windows are not exclusion criteria, are they?! I will discuss that again with the architect and the energy consultant. In any case, thanks again for the feedback.

Do you have the possibility to install a door between the entrance and living area on the ground floor? In winter, it would feel too drafty to me if one person comes home and the other is sitting at the kitchen counter. We have also planned a sliding door, of course it won't keep out the extreme cold, but at least you are not sitting/standing directly in the draft.