Living in workshop / garages

Hello everyone,

I am new here because my husband and I are just starting to deal with the topic of building a house. I would need your assessment or help with the following matter:

My husband is self-employed and needs a workshop for his work where some goods can also be stored. Our idea is therefore a house where the ground floor (on a slab) serves as a workshop, storage, double garage (for two electric cars), technical room, bicycle parking, food storage, etc., and an upper floor where we live. We have no children (we are also too old for that) and have therefore thought of about 100-120 sqm per floor.

We would prefer to build with prefabricated parts made of [Blähton-Leichtbeton], because it is supposedly faster than building solid.

Is our idea complete nonsense, or is there perhaps someone among you who has also built like this?

Thank you very much in advance,

Best regards
Gudrun

Why should that not work? A base plate of 10.5 by 13 makes such a house. Two full stories, above that a 25 degree hipped roof with studio trusses as a crawl space. Commercial space below, apartment above. You are even allowed to build that in a commercial area here, saves land costs. Karsten

The problem will be to find a plot where living/commercial use is allowed.

Hi,

Is our idea complete nonsense, or is there maybe someone among you who has built something like this?

Nonsense, certainly not, that would also be exactly the dream house of a good friend of mine. He even wants to build it with a ground floor height of 4 m to be able to park a truck there.

Structurally or technically, I don't see any problems; you just have to be in a mixed residential/commercial area and then live with the fact that other businesses might already be making noise at 5 a.m. But in return, you have total peace after work and on weekends! If you can live with that and find a suitable plot, why not?

The resale value of such a house will probably not be very good, as it is quite special. So you should be sure to want to live there until you die.

Best regards,

Andreas

My husband is self-employed and needs a workshop to carry out his work

Plots belong to areas of certain types, which can be read from the development plan. In residential areas (WR and WA) this mixed use is not possible, in mixed-use areas (MI, presumably rather not in MD, for that one may need to take a look at the "textual provisions of the development plan") yes; in commercial areas (GE, in GI you probably wouldn't want to live) the share of residential use is limited again.

We have no children (we're also too old for that)

Too old for children I would read as a future-oriented recommendation, better to live on the ground floor. So better to live beside rather than above the workshop.

We would prefer to build with prefabricated parts made of expanded clay lightweight concrete because it is supposedly faster than building solidly.

Garage and hall construction specialists are, to put it mildly, not focused on residential construction. It might be clever to put a prefab house on top for living (and to choose a manufacturer who is good at additions). Regarding thermal insulation requirements you have two very different building parts. One building can only be optimized for both with increased effort, which can easily offset the savings of the "shared" floor slab.

Plots belong to areas of certain types, which can be read from the development plan.

P.S.: there are also plots that are not located in any development plan area, so-called §34 areas, where the question of usage is somewhat more intricate to determine, usually best discussed with the municipal administration; and - just for the sake of completeness, since typically only agricultural properties have a chance there - also "outer areas".