Floor plan hillside location - city villa / bungalow tips

Hello,

I would also like to post our planned floor plan here for criticism.

First about the building project itself:
We bought a property with an old building 3 years ago. The property is on a slope, south-facing, about 1000 sqm.
Originally, we wanted to demolish the old building, but it could be made habitable very cost-effectively, and we have now been living in it for 2 years. (Basement with kitchen + study with access to the terrace, ground floor living room + bathroom + entrance at street level, upper floor bedroom, a total of 60 sqm on 3 levels)
Next year, however, we want to build a new house on the property, the old building is at the very top, the street is also at the top, the new building is to be built in front of (i.e., south of) the old building. When this is finished, the old building will be demolished except for the basement, and garages will be built on the basement.

The house should have 2 full floors, toward the garden it should look like a city villa, toward the street like a bungalow, the roof should be a hip roof.
There is no development plan, it is building within an existing structure, the building authority agrees in principle with the idea and currently sees no problems.
At street level will be the ground floor of the new building, and the garages will be on the basement of the old building.

I might still try to make a sketch for this

About the floor plan itself:
- We are currently two, but children are already a topic for later, hence the 2 bedrooms in the basement, for the first time the study could of course be swapped with a bedroom in the basement.
- Kitchen in the basement: I prefer the stairs (e.g., carrying groceries downstairs is acceptable) and then have direct access to the terrace.
- For old age, two apartments could be made from basement and ground floor, the left bedroom in the basement can be equipped with a front door and the stairs can possibly be closed off. On the ground floor, the study can be converted into a kitchen, the living room could then serve as dining and living room.
- Does the dressing room make sense like this? A dressing room is not a must. Since the toilet is separate, bath and bedroom can also merge more, but I am still missing a few ideas on that.
- Access to the toilet via windbreak: I find 2 doors to the toilet from the living area simply provide better privacy.
- Basement corridor might be dark, but I also had that in the attic corridor at my parents’ and it never bothered me. Maybe a bit of daylight can be brought in there with frosted glass inserts in the doors.

Thanks for your tips,
Andreas

Planning houses on a slope is a very demanding task, but it can also result in very appealing designs. Here, the planning is further complicated by the later division into two residential units. The DIY planning is only helpful insofar as it helps you clarify things for yourself, but in the end, a capable planner must take over the matter in cooperation with the builder. The final result then looks different, which is also a good thing in this case. The existing floor plans constantly fluctuate between waste of space and cramped conditions, the lighting may be okay for you, but for others it reduces the rental value. The wardrobe is too small for four people, leaving a maximum of 40 cm per person, and what about guests? The living room is far too wide and serves as a distribution area, it is uncomfortable and inefficient. Sleeping - dressing - bathroom is arranged practically, but sleeping in the south is unpleasant and even with a narrow bed, use in old age is hardly possible. In the basement, cooking and eating is again inefficient, the hallway is dark, and the children's bathroom is far too small. With an estimated width of 1.2 m minus plaster, pre-wall element, and toilet, less than 50 cm remains to get into the shower, and where should a parent have space to help? Long narrow rooms are always inefficient due to the high proportion of circulation area; see utility room. Overall very sobering with a realization value far off, your room layout must also be critically questioned. Perhaps that is why it is better to directly hire an architect after all, I once wrote something about step contracts... WD

Thank you, just as I expected
These are rough plans that an architect will certainly need to optimize, but the basic idea should remain the same.
On the ground floor I changed the proportions of the vestibule, so it now has space for a larger wardrobe. The dressing room has been removed from the bedroom, storage space barely changes but there is significantly more room to move. What is so bad about sleeping facing south? We are going to do it now; it’s definitely nicer to look out at the landscape from the bed than at the garage or the neighbor’s wall. And above all, it’s also quieter.
The living room stays as it is; the black box in front of the stairs is 3m wide and about 2.20m high and contains a screen (there is no traditional TV) plus a hi-fi system; on the back wall facing the stairs there is a display cabinet.
In a previous rental apartment, we had an open living room of this size, and when playing Wii or Connect you simply need the space. What still needs to be considered is separating the living room from the hallway, which however leads again to the issue of daylight upstairs.
In the dining room and kitchen, I don’t know where much space would be wasted. A table for 10 people simply needs space, and even then it isn’t a huge capacity; it already gets tight on birthdays...
I changed the hallway, now with daylight (the window could even later become the front door for the second apartment). The bathroom has been moved to the corner; the utility room and connection room is small (heat pump compact unit on the left, washing machine on the right), but this only has to accommodate the heat pump and possibly the ventilation unit; electrical, media, and water connections are located in the basement of the old building.

Hello ah-Hof,

please mentally imagine what it is like when you as a couple are in the living room and your children (maybe a bit older, in their teenage years or older) have guests, the gang wants to go outside and then come back inside. Or the other way around: your kids are having a DVD evening and your guests, maybe a nice dining group in the kitchen, have to pass by them every time to go to the guest bathroom.

Have you ever considered this problem?

We also have the stairs in the living room, but no children. And if an adult child ever needs to seek refuge, they are sent to the room at the entrance, so they do not have to pass by the TV or sofa.

I have already thought it through, teenage years in and out - in an emergency, I would use the basement via the utility room. Guests in the dining room would probably use the bathroom on the ground floor rather than going upstairs. A separate staircase and hallways somehow just tear the integrity of the house apart.

I’ll try again with your answers to my food for thought.

Teenagers "if necessary through the side entrance".... are you really building so that half the family and their peers are allowed to constantly use the "emergency exit" for coming and going? That can easily be 3 to 5 times a day with lively young adults going to their meet-ups, receiving people... not to mention going to the next bus stop for a smoke... Can you really plan it like that? Surely it can be done better.

For your guests, you probably mean the bathroom in the basement instead of the bathroom on the ground floor .... So who is the bathroom on the ground floor actually meant for - who will use it?

Anyway, dithering about the actual issue of your floor plan: it doesn’t really work. At least not with the entrance component combined directly with the living room and the stairs.
The hallway is far too narrow at 4 sqm, make it about 7 sqm, then you can put on your jacket there more comfortably, even with two people. If you receive guests, you don’t have to open the door to the living room to let them in.
A living room used as a passage room is always a tricky thing and works satisfactorily only if a spatial division separates the retreat area from the traffic area. If the stairs here are designed as open (that’s how I understood it), then movement there is just a disturbing factor.
The stairs leading down facing a wall - that’s not nice!
Integrating common rooms as traffic areas, i.e. having few hallways, only works if you just brush past the rooms. Here you have to go through them, which can be exhausting over time.
I can understand the argument to go out to the garden level directly from the kitchen, but in the long run, it will likely be tedious to carry your groceries in the direction of the kitchen, especially when it comes to several bags or cases of drinks, etc.
Perhaps consider swapping the kitchen and living room and create a level transition from the kitchen to the outside by raising the ground.
In my opinion, a city villa is the worst solution for building on a hillside plot.
A slope offers so many possibilities, of course it must also be affordable, but you shouldn’t limit yourself to a standard building shell on such a plot, rather think outside the box — that’s what an architect is for.

Regards, Yvonne

P.S.: constructive criticism does not have to come with initial solution proposals, but it can.
There is no such thing as constructive criticism — it is just criticism, nicely packaged. Constructive criticism is supposed to encourage the originator to rethink things, situations, or facts. For solutions, professionals are the best contacts.
Worse are those who do not engage mentally in the discussion at all, but instead just hang on the responses of interested parties — ultimately they have no imagination to implement the existing criticism, let alone the initial situation. Due to current circumstances — thanks for reading!