puntloos

Hmm, the passivhaus guy I spoke to was pretty explicit, but of course he is likely running on a combination of - easier for him - Space for services - Experience with certain solutiosn But also just in general it's clearly easier to make rooms larger, should the space turn out to be more, than smaller. It seems safe to stick with 500ish and take any gains as we go? True, I should re-examine briefly. Of course walls with services shoudl be a bit thicker.. noise is a big thing too for us. Home cinema straight below etc.. (side walls matter at least a little too) Would be great, I'm struggling a little to follow off words alone. Ah, no, speakers need to be at ear-height when you're sitting. but I did debate putting them in the walls, the problem with that proposition is that if you buy new speakers they might not fit.. so the current default is hanging them off the wall as per normal, but I could be convinced. Uh.. have you seen my speakers? no.. the front speakers are a FEATURE For reference my kid is pretty much exactly 1m tall. - The speaker to the left will be a side speaker (minus the stand), rears are slightly larger but similar. The sub in the back is about 50cm tall and the big ones are 1m50.. and of course i will have speakers in the ceiling, but that's dolby atmos for you ?

What's your definition of 'protection'? Can we e.g. fireproof the entire hallway somehow? Does it mean stronger walls etc? Interesting idea, no we haven't thought of that one. (plus I'm 6'4" so clearly it's unsafe for me to jump around in my house, this has to be fixed!) As opposed to pocket? Hmm.. I could be convinced, yes. (although of course the whole look-through is also kind of nice, impressive feeling of space and depth..)

Yeah we thought of a ladder/climbing wall directly into the loft.. but of course we need some 'proper' access too.. Of course that 'proper' access could then be a fold-down ladder thing.. but.. eh..

Bring it! Huh, I missed that point from you earlier, will need to review if I skipped over anything else (sorry). It's a good shout, will need to examine. Frankly the kitchen design was a bit slapdash since I was expecting a 'pro' to do this at some point. I did take some values of 'minimum distance' from various recommendation sites, but indeed they might've missed that dishwasher point. Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. To be clear the home cinema is the part that has very few compromises but that bit of movement seems.. reasonable. To be clear, that depends on the projector. - https://www.barco.com/en/product/udx-w32 I'm not at all expecting this to work well during the day, and will have a 55" TV behind the roll-down projector screen for daytime viewing. Shutters, curtains and suchlike for the evening. FWIW I've also sent my design of the house to a cinema team to review.. Depends where? If you want to go for a feeling of space and luxury, sure. But if you're a kid, or if you want to economize, then I disagree. Case in point, in my current house the master bed is 450mm away from full-height built-in wardrobes(!!), and day-to-day this actually is not a problem at all! (once you want to use the wardrobes, different situation!) Funny, I actually don't remember why I made it sliding in the first place! The key rationale in general is that with 2 parents waking up at different times, having sound/light separation between bed and bath/walkin is important. The big sliders are to 'by default'(open) have a large amount of spacious feeling but it's a good shout I want a quality design that's easy and silent. Yeah sorry the render is slightly older than the floorplan. The walkin is a 3.3m wall of 550mm full height wardrobes. Interesting point, heh as said before I know next to nothing about practical window placement, size, space, etc. But bedroom 3 is a bedroom in name only, if anything it'll probably be a gym or office. Perhaps not a bad idea to close up the window behind the bed though. Maybe have it start where the number '743' is displayed then?

Thanks tony, many questions. Let me answer them with various versions of 'shrug' we'd like to go for Passivhaus-ish. No attachment to the paperwork/cert (although perhaps it's a selling point, dunno). - so 0.15 overall? Never thought about it. PH No. That should be done during detail design not planning permission, no? We did have a passivhaus builder take a quick look and his main concern was the garden room - the architect had skylight there. Yeah I was wondering about window size in the other topic.. I'm not even sure aesthetically if 'massive windows' work, Main idea is awnings every sun facing ground floor window, and windows with built-in blinds on top (rough example below) So far no concerns from the PH guy, but I have drawn the windows a bit larger now so might have to do the check again Yeah not too crazy point, but there's benefits to having a 'cool room' that's not sun-facing, I'm less worried about winter than summer. Ha fair point, the label is incorrect - should be 'sitting room' that has office functionality. We're not quite sure how to furnish/wall that space yet.

You mean people would have to squeeze past the island? Yes you're right. I guess it's a result of a bunch of requirements coming together, in particular we wanted to be able to separate the dining (smells & mess) from kitchen (smells and mess) from each other, and from the living room, at least 'somewhat'. I haven't clearly indicated but the house loses light fairly early, The garden room is designed to catch the last rays even if the main living room lost the light already. If anything the kitchen/garden is the brightest place in the house. Which is also why the cinema projector screen is *not* there. you're suggesting the cinema be pretty bright..

"Depends". Ground floor is 2m75 - 1st we're more flexible, we left it up to the architect, I think she picked 2m60 but embarassing I actually don't know. Possibly? We are very keen to have high ceilings (it is one of our core reasons for self-building in the first place.. english default seems to be 2m40..) Nicely spotted- this is something I'd need to check since indeed not possible to see just from the floorplan. I see what you mean, this is probably down to my crappy design skills - I have very little idea of what separates a good design from a bad one (at that detail level, at least). If the original arch drawing exhibits the same flaw my architect is not doing her job. Yeah I'm kinda 'torn inbetween' as you can tell. But I'm working under the assumption that a spiral can meet BR. Effectively we have employed proper architects to put our ideas to paper 'properly' - those plans are here. What I then do is 'trace' these designs over into my computer and work on ideas, features etc. The architect's drawings will of course be the authoritative ones. (at this point we're mainly trying to nail down the exact window locations as dictated by the internals)

Got it, great point. As I said elsewhere the spiral staircase rabbit hole has been interesting.. on the surface it seems like a good idea but a ton of 'small annoyances' to figure out. I did like the idea of using some space under.

I didn't realise, very good point. The point was to have a fun secret passage for the kid to get into the loft. Perhaps the handrail can be movable somehow?

Understood, yes, I can see there would be a value to it.. It's a tough call. Clearly a spiral staircase would not really make it work for a 'permanent' room you'd be in every day. But there's also a downside to cram as many rooms into a space as you can. 6 bedrooms on a 27x15 plot is a bit ... much. It's tough to put my finger on it but I think storage, kids play area, nice chillout area might be better than trying to squeeze another major room into it... I would just love to know if there are any good rules around this. The normal floors are fairly OK I think, but definitely one should ignore the roof shape completely.. Put most of it here now:

Almost there.. a few updates after speaking with a Passivhaus builder. As per the tinkering with design post-permission discussion, I figured I want the design (and in particular the window positions) as close to current as we can get to. The changes: - Ext wall thickness 500mm - perhaps not required really - @ProDave's example was 360mm but to be sure it'll work and we have some give. - 3m worth of garage wall allocated for ASHP/MVHR type equipment - Rethink of both main rooms (Kid and Master). Given up on master ensuite next to family. Moved Ensuite into BR2 Moved Kid Ensuite next to Family Bath, making Kid flow much nicer. Changed pull-down loft stair (below walkin) into spiral stair straight up from main stair (TBC, discussions still ongoing but for now I'll assume..) I'm still debating if I should pick generic window sizes (so I can still move them a little) or make them fit the current design exactly - for example the walkin window - should I make it exactly fit the walkway or keep them a bit smaller so if I move the windows around, it still could fit whatever new room layout I'd go for..

(sorry 'window design' is a hard term to search for on the forum..) What considerations play into designing a window other than price(*)? - Is a 'massive' window, floor to ceiling the most impressive? - Is a window that starts at 1m from floor a good compromise? - Should you try to fill the full width of the room with a window? Or leave some frame? - Are solar gain (and cost) the only downsides to large windows? - Are there any aesthetic rules to windows design, e.g. would you give all windows the same distances from the side walls? Or all the same size (even if the rooms differ in width)? Is there some rulebook? Is it purely taste/aesthetics? (*) price is not unimportant but when designing I don't yet want to be limited by that particular parameter.

I'm not sure what you mean. Looking at this picture: I think the door you mean is the ... eh I keep on hesitating, so many doors, but the chamfering I can only imagine happening in the loft, not in bedroom 4? I *think* you mean the door in the loft, which presumably will exit close to the roof? Doesn't that also depend on the total ceiling height and where the spiral exits (function of # of steps? ceiling height?) Or is it always a full turn regardless of how high? Well.. I won't deny I'm still liking the spiral, but the problem with a spiral is that the upsides are pretty straightforward and apparent, you get a contained stair in a box. But the downsides that this thread have brought to light are many, most of them small(ish), but good to know nonetheless, and I haven't quite decided (plus it's not just my call, my wife, the architect..) Please don't feel you've been wasting your time, I'm not really dead-set on, or against any solution, but most of the downsides so far are cancelled out by the fact that most of them happen rarely (guests, transporting large stuff up/down) vs seeing the cluttered void every day..

Also - https://www.midlandladders.com/the-gamia-wood-120cm-47in-silver Just as an example, looks reasonably 'roomy' - my design is even slightly more generous. I think if I go for 686cm step surely it wouldn't be a claustrophobic stair..

Very useful info, thank you! I'll take a look, see the picture below too - I suspect the idea is indeed the attic trusses. Clearly the 'fun' side is a spiral stairway - but not something to really base my decision on... Yup, it's pretty 'standard', and well, perhaps for good reason. But I'd imagine it's a lot more expensive to do a full floating stairway vs a spiral, and my renders seem to show quite serious negative impact to the view upward - a lot more cluttered. Given that I don't think a spiral stairway is a dealbreaker for making use of the loft in a meaningful way (eg for an au pair) and it's all too much based on 'future theory' I'm tempted towards sticking with spiral for now. Yup, I think I've thoroughly confused the program with my random tinkering which therefore refuses to render a sensible roof. But an older version of the architect's doc: Seems to show one room's worth of space. Not 'ample' anyway.

@DevilDamo Here's a quick examination of the two hallway options - google drive should let you use the arrow keys to quickly compare forward and back. My above attempt was real quick so it's not 100% fair, but it gives it a decent shot, no? What did you think? To me it seems clear the stair-copy version is more cluttered, but of course there are two hidden benefits, 7sqm more loft and 2.5sqm more bedroom 2 space Frankly I'm still terrible with this tool, so if anything this will show how poor my approximation of the reality is.. but eh.. here you go ?. In particular, note that the roof is auto-generated so I am not sure it's deeply helpful.. Ah ok, I assumed perhaps you'd have to use a winch or just build it into the house 'permanently'. I was actively considering a winch hook in the ceiling and one side wall of the loft openable.. low tech solution Understood. The reason I'm so tempted by the unorthodox spiral is that indeed it seems to make best use of the space without being in view, but I'm aware there's clear downsides too. I might try to aim for 686mm.. I think I can live with that.. but 762-800 is too much of a sacrifice in this 'compact' (*) home. You're hitting the nail on the head, thank you. I do think that for our family we have plenty of space in the current bedrooms, even if e.g. my mom moves in. So it's not really 'for us', the question becomes more a matter of resale value and perhaps doing cool stuff such as 'my special loft space' or some cool playing area for my kid's year 5-15.. (ha, and 17+ perhaps ) Haven't given it much thought! Not my area, so I'm depending on the architect. Their suggestion seems to be a roof unlike the (auto generated!) one of my renders, that has a flat section containing the rooflights. Clearly 'the most space' typically has other downsides.. what would you advise? Thanks again for taking the time, it's really helpful! (*) I know I know, in the modern world, nobody who has 250m2 and a garden in a major commuter city can complain about lack of space but as perhaps you can appreciate I've tried my very hardest to apply compact/efficient design principles as much as possible, giving me pretty outsize features (8x5 living, 3x6 void) that are unusual for a 12x10 footprint

Yes, the idea is indeed a void from ground to the rooflights. I suppose we 'might' change our minds, close up the loft and just have some light columns shine through. But as it stands it's a straight shot up from ground floor. My sense is that the extra stairs will feel clutter-y (and we are trying to make an 'imposing' design with a pretty limited footprint) - but I'll put it in 3D and take a look. My english or builder-ese is failing me. What's this? Cut house in half and then look from the side? Well they have some proper uses, and in this case somehow they turned out to fill one 'passing fancy' which is that you can enter it with two entrances - the sneaky way behind the kid's bookshelf and straight shot No doubt, but is it impossible? In particular many couches are designed so they fit 'barely' into a door. But if they do, will they fit up the spiral if you have sufficiently strong/agile guys to really wiggle it up? Hard, but "once a year" jobs shouldn't factor in strongly into design decisions. Fair, but eh, again the purpose is basically a loft Worth considering I suppose, but that's 40cm of space which is at a major premium in my house. If you've been following my journey, the current design has gone to literally 40+ major iterations already, but my house ticks a LOT of my Detailed Brief requirements which is no small feat imo. Frankly if I had to go 80 I might first try your 'copy of staircase' approach since it impacts the rest of my design less and could in fact look fairly cool. btw - thanks for your ongoing comments. Useful food for thought..

The reddish area through my design (in the earlier post) is where the architect figures the loft would be. Of course you can sacrifice some of the atrium, but well, not sure if that is worth it. @DevilDamo I guess the core problem is that an 'exact' copy of the stair upward would end mid-air ,and to fix that you would either have to take the entire row, or have some strange 'white box' or landing mid air that catches the stair. Perhaps I'll put your suggestion into 3D just to see how it looks. The 'secret spiral' idea really appeals to me at this point though - what do you guys think?

Nope, I'm still only a beginner so probably good to mention any rookie mistakes! To be clear I would intend to fully enclose the stairwell with walls on all sides.. (and of course doors to actually get in.. maybe a bookcase in the kidsroom as a hidden door)

Could make an interesting hidden stair

We have a winner.. I think? This staircase has the minimum 60cm step width, and the minimum distance from the wall on all sides (5cm) I didn't check the height of the steps though but I imagine that will 'simply work'? Also I do plan to close off the stairwell, so indeed people can enter from the main hall and not bother the kid.

Maybe useful to outline my requirements: In order of importance 1 - Should be possible to permanently use (e.g. if people are in there it's not safe to close it up), so it shouldn't block any rooms 2 - Ideally some way to get bed/couch sized things up there.. 3 - Slightly more elegant than some thing you have to pull out with hassle 4 - Ideally some clever way to have my kid be able to sneak up there from his bedroom2 Below I've posted a few images with overlaid the walkable loft space (it says 1.8m but I'm planning 2m) Don't think that will work since there is no loft where the normal one ends Also, not a big fan of the cluttering the nice void with loft stairs? Now we're talking, I think I will experiment with this idea.. My main worry is how to get large-ish stuff into the loft? I assume a couch will never make it up there through a spiral stair.. Perhaps a second opening above bedroom 4 & winch?

Thanks all, weird that as @Ferdinand indicated some type of "future plans" seem to matter. If the house existed today, it would be storage, but I always wanted something like this: Basically a 'half furnished' place where you can just chil, listen to the rain, something like that. Same goes for my kid, who is now 2.5, so too young, but I imagine him climbing up there when he's 6+ to play castle or something. No intention of 'light fittings' or 'installed TVs' or anything built-up.

As far as I can tell, from e.g. https://www.pearstairs.co.uk/staircase-buillding-regulations/ The max stair angle is 42 degrees, except space saver stairs: "The use of these staircases are quite often interpreted differently by different building Inspectors, they do not like their use. The building regulation rules state that they can be used to a single room only if there is no other alternative." Does anyone know how to interpret this? In particular, I need to reach a loft in an 'elegant' way, and a good space saver stair seems the right approach, but I'd need maybe 47 degrees. Will they complain? Or is this acceptable even in new builds? (I imagine in loft conversions it's harder to find a good place for stairs, but even in my case I'm struggling)