I also found a very early one with zero-width walls and a later one with a huge upper floor hallway:
That’s almost something you can work with: “almost” because this incomplete glimpse into the history of the design process sheds only weak light on the ability of the co-discussants to follow along. Helpful information in this regard would be: how many designs were there in total, and how many evolutionary stages were there between the “middle-old” and the opening post design?
At least the “middle-old” version already included the more practical and cheaper non-lift-and-slide terrace doors. From my Baugott*LOL* toolbox, I can share the cheap trick with you: I also make sketches with zero-width walls “when it’s got to go fast,” but I keep in mind (like in third-grade math class) to reallocate one meter twenty each from the house width and house depth budget to a special “walls” account. Applied to “middle-old” with its approximately 162 sqm of floor area (so about 130 sqm of usable floor space after walls), this resulted in a zero-width plan of approximately 9.70 m depth and 13.60 m width (result about 132 sqm—the units digit is due to rounding differences, so trial calculation checked). Of course, as an old hand, I never switch early to the image level.
Of course, pursuing wishes is risky because they may not correspond to what one would actually appreciate later. But even the “room program” would then be such a “mortgage.”
The room program is not a “mortgage,” but a “specification sheet”—of course, taking into account the gradation into “need,” “comfort,” and “luxury.” You apparently misunderstood the term “empty square meters”: these are not areas left unfurnished—that is, spaces available for walking through the room—but rather “empty calories” in the sense of construction costs incurred without a gain in living quality (which can of course include healthy generosity of space). I never perform a life cycle simulation of the respective room usages. The wife of my retired partner demonstrates on average three and a half times a year that furnishing is a fluid event.
A “bay window” to relieve the dimensions for accommodating a stair landing would bring a multiple ripple effect of subsequent changes. We can gladly discuss such things in individual coaching if it is important to you to actively co-design your house. But architects make their living professionally from this—similar to innkeepers who rent out rooms for celebrations so that no one needs to hold a festive table for a golden wedding anniversary in their year-round living room. So as a builder, you don’t need to have to demonstrate to the architect how the house should be planned.
Quantifying “space requirements” would be difficult for me—especially since, judging from the comments, I mentally allocate a lot of area for little function. [...] I lived 17 years of my life in <20 sqm (calculated proportionally, as long as I did not live alone) and managed well there. With the possibility to afford more, of course, the wish grows to at least come closer to one’s own childhood, so that less the indispensability but a “If at all, then properly” guides the direction.
Estimating areas would no longer be “qua
ntifying” the room program but already prejudging the qua
lification. In quantifying, each room first only has a name corresponding to its intended purposes, for example “living-dining room” and “kitchen,” “living room” and “eat-in kitchen,” or “living-eat-in kitchen.” In qualifying, all three might end up in the garden floor, and subsequently, as a nurse, ward doctor, or chief physician, each is assigned a size reflecting their salary.
Fundamental trashing of the approach as something to throw away, etc.—here I wonder whether only tastes or stylistic dogmas are hurt [...] But much remains unsaid because it’s “not worth it anyway,” or so I’m not encouraged to keep tinkering with the existing design.
The trash bin as the most important tool of star architects from the drawing board era is underestimated by average architects of the mouse-click era, and very fundamentally misunderstood by amateur planners. When I have drawn something failed or unusable (which happens to me extremely rarely because such things do not even get to the image level), I do not derive any nectar from it to wound my self-esteem as a planner but professionally dispose of it. I know from dealing with IT geek stuff the connection between clean code and stable system performance and therefore start every new design attempt in a fresh petri dish. A lab coat is not a penitential garment. “Slow down” at a dead end is no shame but a gateway to new possibilities. You can wisely keep a five from the roll, but the other dice—including the fours!!!—are better back in the cup. Even the pros usually first had to learn this.
That’s true. I hope for the competence of the planner, who has indeed opposed ideas—(e.g., painting the upper floor ceiling in favor of insulation in the roof).
What do you mean by that: insulation of the roof instead of the upper floor ceiling on the one hand and open roof undersides are two different matters (?)
I just meant that a skillful choice of interior design can salvage a lot in a stylistically “botched” room.
Interior design should—not only regarding design but also function—not convince under the condition of a fixed configuration. That is exactly the essential difference between furniture and built-ins.
The fact that the exterior form would win prizes is actually not important to me—maybe there would even be two fewer break-in attempts if thieves consider everything as shabby as you do.
There are indeed millionaires who successfully practice this form of passive burglary protection. Some even purposely keep a dented Golf III near the house with at least this secondary purpose.
No, it is not intended that way.
That is the Gretchen (or Shakespeare) question for you: whether your own paternity in the house design is important to you or whether you (which I consider wiser) are willing to leave the serious house design to professional hands. The latter would give your own design accordingly the freedom to be not suitable as a mere pastime.
Fortunately, my “blindness to logical connections” has apparently proven fatal only in the subject of architecture. But I don’t understand in what way the wish to accommodate rooms otherwise gladly put in the basement, like guest or hobby rooms, above ground should fundamentally contradict single-story living.
I did not claim that either. The contradiction referred to “similar areas on two floors” and “single story.” If the ground floor and upper floor are to be at least approximately equal in size, this leads to an upper floor as a full story, whereas here only an attic would be possible. A basement/lower ground floor was not considered in this context at all.
Of course, it could be that the building authority rejects the design with the argument that the garage cannot be considered in two parts: either it is a garage, then it does not count toward the ground floor basis of the full-height parts of the (then too large) upper floor, or it isn’t, thus losing the distance privilege.
I am happy to pass this question on to an expert (at the well-known forbidden place).
Apart from the “flying” wall above the garage, an ignorant general contractor will just botch that for you. He builds you any junk without batting an eye or any other recommendations. The only thing that counts is you paying. The question is, do you want that? If I want a new haircut, I go to the hairdresser. I can do it myself, but then it looks accordingly. With a house, there is no second chance. Once it’s built, that’s it.
In that sense, an ignorant general contractor is like a shoe and locksmith service that also offers haircuts (only that the latter then also runs a dropship shop for wigs, in case the result is unsatisfactory, *ROTFL*). The “flying” wall is doable, it just needs a big budget for the steel construction.
And, a rotation of the house, if the ridge alignment permits, might even be advantageous for photovoltaic use; that would have to be checked. It would also allow a southeast terrace for spring and west, west-north terrace more for summer.
A professional designer would have different priorities than placing the house at the street to shield the children from critical fence guests of their football skills ;-)
To the other respondents, who in my opinion have held back extremely and have certainly not slipped in tone: thanks for your input; even as an uninvolved party, I’ve learned a lot again. Not only about house design but also once more about how to go about such a house build—and how not to.
Name your learning successes from this concrete example. At least I have not stated anything here for the first time, as far as I perceive.