Floor plan EFH165 sqm first draft - Architect dissatisfied

Hello everyone,

since we are not quite happy with the first draft from our architect, but find it difficult to implement our wishes into a draft ourselves or some things maybe are not compatible with each other, we are grateful for suggestions and tips.

Development plan/restrictions
Size of the plot: 954 sqm
Slope: sloping about 1 m from the street over the entire length
Floor area ratio: 0.4
Building window, building line and boundary: see architect’s plan

There is indeed a development plan, but all exceptions that we want are easily approved or have already been approved for our street.

Requirements of the builders
Style, roof shape, building type: gabled roof, single-family house possibly with a bay window
Basement, floors: slab on grade, 2 full floors with correspondingly high knee wall, small storage space under the roof
Number of persons, age: currently 2 adults and one toddler, planned for one more child
Space requirements on the ground floor and upper floor:
Ground floor: combined technical and utility room, entrance area, wardrobe niche, guest bathroom with shower, office, living-dining-cooking area. Pantry, storage room under the stairs
Upper floor: 2 children’s rooms at least 15 sqm, bedroom with dressing area, family bathroom with walk-in shower and 2 sinks, hallway with daylight preferably space for an armchair or small table for a sewing machine
Office: family use or home office? Home office almost daily
Overnight guests per year: hardly any
Open or closed architecture: semi-open
Conservative or modern construction: modern
Open kitchen, cooking island: semi-open (protected from view) with attached island
Number of dining seats: 6
Fireplace: no
Music/stereo wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: either double garage or garage with carport

Further wishes:
Stairs either straight or with landing, not winding
Living-dining-cooking area not arranged in a row without visual protection, all areas with view into the garden
Preferably additional access from garage/carport via utility room
Parents’ bedroom oriented top left on the plan, bed with view from floor-to-ceiling window into the garden. Access to the bedroom preferably through the dressing room or dressing room behind the wall behind the bed (head end).
Children’s rooms preferably not wall-to-wall with parents’ bedroom
I will link a plan for the kitchen, where we really liked the kitchen in the show house
Stairs preferably lit
Living room at least as large as in the current plan

House design
Who designed the plan: architect
What do you particularly like? Why? The ground floor except kitchen and dining area, especially living room well "separated" and without direct view of the kitchen. Dining area seems a bit cramped, kitchen should be more wide than long, as it is now the attached island looks very lost
What do you not like? Why? Kitchen and dining area, dressing room cramped in the niche, bathroom too large, upper floor corridor without window. Window area in bedroom and also in dining-cooking area too large, wardrobe niche too small
Price estimate according to architect/planner: none yet, meeting to present the draft is still pending.
Personal price limit for the house, including equipment: without plot with all ancillary costs, surveying and soil report we still have a budget of 600,000. It should be a prefabricated house, possibly painting work and partial flooring in own work, outdoor facilities also mostly in own work and not immediately
Preferred heating technology: air-water heat pump with photovoltaic system

If you have to do without, which details/extensions
-can you do without: children’s room can be next to bedroom, storage room and office could move upstairs if necessary, utility room and technical room separated, second access not essential, access to pantry directly from kitchen as well as via utility room not essential, bay window not essential, if it still does not become too open
-can you not do without: stair design, space program, location of the bedroom, "semi-open" living-dining-cooking area, wardrobe housed in niche

Why is the design as it is now?
There was a site visit where afterwards brainstorming was done on paper. This more or less resulted in the current design, but not yet final with measurements, size etc., so e.g. the problem with kitchen and dining area was not recognizable. We have informed on-site about the negative points regarding the upper floor and actually expected a new alternative afterwards.

I think all relevant information is included above, if anything is missing I will gladly provide it.

The dining table does not have to be in front of the kitchen, it is purely about the arrangement of the kitchen itself.

Many thanks in advance for all tips!

... your attachments are missing the ground floor and elevations. Please check if there is a north arrow anywhere in a floor plan drawing.

Thanks for the hint! Here comes the ground floor. The thing with the north arrow is unfortunately not that simple, as it is exactly above the architect's logo, which of course I do not want to show. I have uploaded the site plan again with an arrow, but unfortunately cropped at the bottom. As information, there is no neighboring development so far.

Oh dear! May I ask what idea this draft is based on? I don’t see your wishes taken into account, and on top of that there are fundamental planning issues that are completely off here. What other specifications were there? Is the budget so low that it isn’t sufficient for a proper plan? How do you turn a nice technology/laundry room into a passageway without added value? Give it three doors and place them so that a wall becomes useless. And how do you squeeze sanitary fixtures into the bathroom that you also want to use? Phew!

Thank you already for your feedback! We hadn’t really considered the utility room/technical room so far, but you’re right, because of the walking paths and the additional window, you can’t really put anything there.

As I said, the draft was created after the on-site meeting as a brainstorming session between the architect and us. Based on our room program with approx. sqm specifications that we had submitted beforehand, he prepared a first sketch. We then expressed what we liked and didn’t like, and based on that he started drawing while we intervened again and again if something didn’t fit at all or if we made our own suggestions. That’s how the ground floor was created, which we actually (in rough drawing) liked quite well; the upper floor we already criticized at that point. We assumed that he would revise the whole thing significantly, check for plausibility, and if necessary, reconsider everything again based on all the wishes and dislikes he learned about in the conversation (which were also noted by the secretary), in case the whole thing didn’t fit.

Fixed specifications are actually only the room program, the budget, ridge direction parallel to the street, staircase form straight-run or with landing, position of the master bedroom, living-dining-cooking area towards the garden, and at least the living room somewhat separated or without a view of the kitchen, kitchen with attached island from which you can look into the garden.
We have seen many things in show homes or catalogs that we liked, but which are partly incompatible, and about which we also don’t know what they cost, so we found it difficult to express more specific wishes.

Do you mean planning according to HOIA? We have agreed on draft planning with 2 changes at a fixed price. We wanted to skip the one according to HOIA or it was too opaque for us, maybe a mistake.

I can only agree with . You can get a lot more out of the available space. For me personally, there are also too many corners (both inside and outside). If you remove the one recessed wall from the living room and make the house rectangular, you will gain several square meters and the layout will also be simpler.