Help with floor plan design for single-family house

Hello,

we have been silent readers for quite some time. Now it’s getting serious for us: an option for a plot is secured, a construction contract with a prefab house builder is signed, and tomorrow is the first appointment with our architect.

I would like to briefly present our plans here and already look forward to feedback.

What is particularly important to us:

1) A full floor is specified, but the ridge height may be 9m. We want to increase the area on the ground floor through bay windows so that the areas in the attic under the slopes are as small as possible (Hessen; attic max. 75% of the ground floor with a height >2.3m from raw floor to top of the roof structure). With this, we want to achieve a knee wall of about 1.5m clear height with about 35° roof pitch. Then we should stay slightly under 9m in height.

2) Due to our family situation, we need a spacious room on the ground floor (I call it guest) including a fully functional bathroom, barrier-free.

I have attached the floor plan ideas. In the picture showing the house and open spaces, the garden at the top is slightly cut off, i.e. the garden extends a bit further. Unfortunately, it faces NNW.

A few details:

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: approx. 580m². Width 16m Length 36m
Slope: nine
Floor area ratio: 0.35
Floor space index: 0.7
Building window, building line and boundary: Distance from street 5m, right / left 3m
Number of parking spaces: One single garage, one parking space in front and one beside it
Number of floors: 1 full floor
Roof shape: gable roof
Style: timeless / rather modern
Orientation: Plot faces NW, unfortunately…
Maximum heights/limits: 9m ridge height above finished street level

Client requirements
Basement, floors: we plan without a basement unless soil survey recommends it
Number of people, age: 2x approx. 40 and 2 children 1 and 3 years at move-in
Space requirements on ground floor, upper floor: Total 170-180m²
Office: family use or home office? See above as barrier-free living area
Guests per year: 6x
Open or closed architecture: rather open
Conservative or modern construction: timeless?
Open kitchen, island: Open kitchen but slightly visually shielded (so you don’t see dirty dishes from everywhere…)
Number of dining seats: 4, optionally more
Fireplace: rather no
Balcony, roof terrace: balcony from the bedroom desired, on the street side, since the garden faces NW. This way you can maybe catch some sun in the transitional seasons.
Garage, carport: 1x + 2 parking spaces

House design
Who created the plan: ourselves
What do you particularly like? We are looking forward to the relaxation zone / play area / whatever you want to call it on the upper floor at the large window front to the west. We imagine large windows in the knee wall + subsequent roof windows.
What do you not like? Why? We do not like the NW orientation, but placing the house further back doesn’t seem ideal to us either.
Personal price limit for the house, incl. equipment: approx. €400,000 just for the house, i.e. without additional costs, without the plot as turnkey execution
Preferred heating technology: heat pump

If you have to give up on any details/extensions
-you can give up:
-you cannot give up: increased knee wall despite single floor, we are willing to pay €20,000 more for that (mainly for the 2 bay windows)

What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan summarized in 130 characters?

How to get the most out of the plan with the requirements of a full floor and northwest orientation?

Although the house is detached, the floor plan reminds me typologically of a terraced house – albeit with a more generous floor area.

das lassen wir uns auch 20t€ mehr kosten (d.h. für die 2 Erker hauptsächlich)

The effort for beam supports, sealing, and thermal insulation of the mini flat roofs is no joke. Have you ever calculated how "necessary" that really is? – I mean: with possibly how many centimeters less knee wall it would be avoidable, just because of avoiding a full story by adding the bay windows below?

I find the guest bathroom proportionally royally sized and would rather give the kitchen more space.

Hello 11ant,

thank you very much for your input.

We really hope that we are not mistaken with the additional costs for the bay windows. In the offer for the construction contract, the additional costs seemed quite low to me at around €18,000, but that is without costs for windows, floor coverings, etc. At least for the rear bay window, there would be some additional costs. The bay windows together have about 13m2. That would result in an increase in knee wall height from about 1.1m to about 1.5m. --> What is your opinion on this? Is 40cm more knee wall worthwhile?

We need the bathroom downstairs to be spacious because, for family reasons, we have to design at least one area of the house to be barrier-free (that would be the guest room and the bathroom, here also e.g. 100cm doors). However, I find the bathroom unfortunately too long. Are there better ideas?

The plot width is 16m. 2x setback areas result in a usable 10m. The house in the plan is 9.5m wide and 11.5m long, plus the bay windows in length. That is probably why it is elongated. Does that have disadvantages that we might be overlooking at the moment?

What concerns us a lot: Is the house positioned correctly as is, or would you place it further back on the plot because of the south garden? But then we wouldn't have any sun in the evening, and the space behind the house would be lost, right?

Many greetings and thanks for the advice.

Why don't you plan a terrace next to the kitchen? At least you get some sun there. In the dining room, I would plan a lift-and-slide door. It can be opened without anyone having to get up from the dining table, and there are ones available in almost developing countries (I don't mean the very expensive threshold-free ones, there are also ones with hardly any threshold that you can step on). Just draw in the 2-meter line. Otherwise, I can only agree with 11ant.

Hello haydee,

A lift-and-slide door is a great idea, we had that in mind as well.

To the left of the kitchen, we wanted to make at least a small seating area, possibly connected in the corner of the house with the main terrace. But I'm not sure if we are allowed to do that. The house is only 3.5m from the left neighbor (or the boundary). Is a terrace still permitted here (according to Hessian neighborhood law)? Well, we will definitely discuss that with our architect.

I have redrawn the attic with the 2m line. That would correspond to a knee wall of 1.5m and a roof pitch of 35° (then 70cm away from the wall).

For a first idea, this is not completely crazy. However, like 11ant, I see a cost problem with the bay windows. A normal rectangle is much more cost-effective. You generally don't use these balconies if you have your own garden with a terrace. You already have enough to deal with just maintaining the 400 grand, I think. So I would try to plan fewer of such gimmicks and keep it simpler if the budget is to remain the same.