New House with 4 self contained Minimalist Apartments

[Adrian Walker]

I have been asked if my Eco designed passive house could be converted into 4 self contained Minimalist Apartments.  I'm happy to share my thoughts and designs with you all in exchange for comments and ideas.

 

 

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[Redoctober]

No idea as to the question but loving the graphic - great bit of software. Not seen that before. ??

Edited August 7, 2019 by Redoctober
typo

[Moonshine]

Party walls and floors thickness - these will have to be considered / beefed up to meet the minimum requirements of Approved Document E for airborne and impact (floors) isolation.

 

Also factor in that come near completion you will likely have to have sound tests done, unless you go down a Robust Detail route.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Moonshine

[Adrian Walker]

1 minute ago, Redoctober said:

No idea as to the question but loving the graphic - great bit of software. Not seen that before. ??

It's just an animated gif - put the image on a separate lay in photoshop and bingo

[Moonshine]

8 minutes ago, the_r_sole said:

when you say "minimalist" do you just mean tiny?

What area is your floorplate?

 

Round this way, minimum GIA's for 1 bed 2 person flats are about 50m2.

 

unless that house has a GIA of ~200m2, which it doesn't look like it has, four flats as you indicate, would be a squash. 

[Ferdinand]

Also 4 parking spaces, and turning space on plot?

[Adrian Walker]

9 hours ago, the_r_sole said:

when you say "minimalist" do you just mean tiny?

What area is your floorplate?

Yes, small or tiny ~ 40sqm for each apartment

[Adrian Walker]

8 hours ago, Moonshine said:

 

Round this way, minimum GIA's for 1 bed 2 person flats are about 50m2.

 

unless that house has a GIA of ~200m2, which it doesn't look like it has, four flats as you indicate, would be a squash. 

40sqm is more than enough for a minimalist apartment

[Adrian Walker]

8 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

Also 4 parking spaces, and turning space on plot?

 

Yes it will need 4 parking spaces. This will be on an existing site which has a hammer head turning space.

[Ferdinand]

I think we need more info here as to the proposal.

 

eg are these self-contained flats or bedsits? Main homes or pied-a-terres? One beds or studios? Owned or rented?

 

Do you plan to meet national space standards?

https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Technical_housing_standards_-_nationally_described_space_standard

 

F

Edited August 8, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Adrian Walker]

16 hours ago, Moonshine said:

Party walls and floors thickness - these will have to be considered / beefed up to meet the minimum requirements of Approved Document E for airborne and impact (floors) isolation.

 

Also factor in that come near completion you will likely have to have sound tests done, unless you go down a Robust Detail route.

 

Yes, Party walls and floors thickness will need to be considerable beefed up

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[SteamyTea]

13 hours ago, Adrian Walker said:

40sqm is more than enough for a minimalist apartment

Is it bollocks.

I have 50m² on two layers, I live alone, and it is still cramped.

Trouble with small places is you can't really have a half size cooker, fridge, washing machine, bin, staircase, sofa, table bath, shower, bog, bed, wardrobe, light fittings.

It is about time the country, and its planning committees, moved on and encouraged larger places.  There is no problem with land area, we have only put housing on about 2% of it, that is less than a quarter of all urbanisation.

It is about time we shifted our old viewpoint of 'start at the bottom and move up, not serving us very well as a nation.

[Temp]

Some years ago when looking a for a flat to purchase as a buy-to-let an estate agent showed us a new build tiny bedsit. So cramped that three of us got in each others way. The whole place had just one window serving the living room/bed room. No window in kitchen or shower/WC. We couldn't see it being a good investment. We eventually found a two bedroom flat with shared garden for the same price about half a mile further out of town. 

[Mr Punter]

40m2 is fine for a studio. I think the minimum to be mortgageable may be around 30m2. Normally work well in town / city centres or holiday lets, not burbs or rural.

[Adrian Walker]

On 08/08/2019 at 13:22, SteamyTea said:

Is it bollocks.

I have 50m² on two layers, I live alone, and it is still cramped.

Trouble with small places is you can't really have a half size cooker, fridge, washing machine, bin, staircase, sofa, table bath, shower, bog, bed, wardrobe, light fittings.

It is about time the country, and its planning committees, moved on and encouraged larger places.  There is no problem with land area, we have only put housing on about 2% of it, that is less than a quarter of all urbanisation.

It is about time we shifted our old viewpoint of 'start at the bottom and move up, not serving us very well as a nation.

Perhaps I should have explained that by ‘minimalist’ I mean minimalism - "Minimalism is all about living with less which includes less financial burdens such as debt and unnecessary expenses. For many minimalists, the philosophy is about getting rid of excess stuff and living life based on experiences rather than worldly possessions.

[SteamyTea]

6 minutes ago, Adrian Walker said:

Perhaps I should have explained that by ‘minimalist’ I mean minimalism

Does that mean getting rid of a cooker and fridge, eating out every day instead.

Using a launderette is just horrible, I have often thought they could be improved, and incorporated into cafes.

Where do you put the eBike in a small flat.

I did minimal living when I was a young student, probably the biggest single thing I had to move was my stereo.

 

No, I shall stick by my statement that we need to build bigger places.

Building smaller places does not reduce price, that is set my how much people can borrow.

 

If people could swap excess assets for 'experiences', that would cause a lot of environmental damage from the extra transport alone.  That is before the extra consumerism.

[Jeremy Harris]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Does that mean getting rid of a cooker and fridge, eating out every day instead.

Using a launderette is just horrible, I have often thought they could be improved, and incorporated into cafes.

Where do you put the eBike in a small flat.

I did minimal living when I was a young student, probably the biggest single thing I had to move was my stereo.

 

No, I shall stick by my statement that we need to build bigger places.

Building smaller places does not reduce price, that is set my how much people can borrow.

 

If people could swap excess assets for 'experiences', that would cause a lot of environmental damage from the extra transport alone.  That is before the extra consumerism.

 

 

Whilst I agree that we should be increasing the minimum size standard for homes, there is some merit in finding ways to be more space efficient, too. 

 

As a student, my bike used to be hung up on the wall in the stairwell, for example, where it was out of the way and stored in a space that was otherwise just wasted (it was above head height).  Back then, a friend had a neat little portable washing machine, that sat on the draining board when in use.  No idea what make it was, but it was light and easy to use, and I always wondered why it hadn't been developed into a built-in product.  Until we moved into this house we had an ancient Philips tumble dryer (used to be my mothers) that was a lot smaller than a standard one.  One house we lived in didn't have room for it, so I built a shelf above the cistern in the downstairs WC and sat the tumble dryer on it.  That was also space that otherwise wouldn't have been used.

 

I always thought that architects and house designers could do worse than spend a few days looking at how boats are designed.  There's rarely any wasted space onboard a small boat.

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I always thought that architects and house designers could do worse than spend a few days looking at how boats are designed

Had this conversation with @caliwag

His idea of small, and mine are different.

 

[mafaldina]

6 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Using a launderette is just horrible, I have often thought they could be improved, and incorporated into cafes.

There used to be a launderette in Falmouth (top of Trelawney Road) that was also an off license as well as one in Penryn that shared a frontage with a fish and chip shop, not a good mix that one. From memory there was also one in St Day that was half butcher's shop half launderette. The best mix of premises I have ever seen was in Mallow, Ireland, double fronted premises, one half a bar, the other a funeral parlour, saves moving the body for the wake.

[Ferdinand]

Not sure if thread is going anywhere in particular, but Parker-Morris standards allowed studio flats of 29-32 sqm (depending on whether 1961 /1967 version).  For a pied a terre or singleton that may well be fine. Some of the "lets be like Parker-Morris and avoid modern shoeboxes" brigade come unstuck on that one. The London Spac standards (which iirc are going national) entirely seem to duck studios.

 

There is also a problem with trying to adjust standards too quickly. Back when Landlord Licensing came in in 2011 in Southwark the pillocks who run the Council thought ... abracadabra lets make all renting rooms in HMOs at least 10 sqm to solve overcrowding .... which would immediately have outlawed a huge number of rooms in their Borough and have made thousands homeless. It took some concerted interventions by LLs before they backed down. (*)

 

Also this, which had survived from the 1990 version when they had never heard of fixed shower screens or plastic coated shower panels. The document is quite funny.

Quote

Shower cubicles shall have fully tiled walls, and be provided with a suitable water resistant shower curtain or door to the cubicle.

http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s55660/Background document Existing HMO STANDARDS.pdf

 

There are plenty of examples of similar stupidities still happening. Most recently that I know Nottingham tried to impose a requirement to serve an EPC on tenants for a type of property where an EPC does not even exist under EPC law - tossers ?.

 

So as I remarked above there needs to be a lot more detail here. When they trip over their own feet they land on you. The problem is that they write stupid regulations, then enforce to the letter of the regs, and local councils are in some things unchallengeable in practice.

 

Ferdinand

 

* Don't get the Southwark pillocks muddled up with the Lambeth pillocks who gave a whole street to squatters because they forgot what the Council owned, or the various multifarious other pillocks running Local Councils. Or indeed the Coventry pillocks who have just argued that Landlord Licences do not increase rents by comparing with a single year in Nottingham when licensing charges did not significantly apply. Or the Newham pillocks who argued that Private Rentals increase ASB, then discovered after the fact that the number was higher mainly because they had underestimated the numbers of Private Rentals by 20% - never mind, by then the untrue stats had achieved the desired outcome.

 

HL Mencken: "H.L. Mencken — 'The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.'"

Edited August 10, 2019 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

9 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Does that mean getting rid of a cooker and fridge, eating out every day instead.

Using a launderette is just horrible, I have often thought they could be improved, and incorporated into cafes.

 

I have just done the wiring on the refurb of "the hut"  It was a long thin wooden building, originally built as an office for the Forestry commision. About 30 years ago it was converted to a holiday home, and has now been refurbished as a permanent home.

 

The owner specified it with very basic services.  No cooker, just a microwave, a fridge and a washing machine completes the kitchen.  There is a sink with a small storage water heater, and an electric shower for the bathroom.

 

It is pretty small inside, I would say not a lot bigger than my static caravan.

 

Still it is way better than it was, all the time it was a holiday home, the   "bathroom" only had a WC and basin.

 

The only heating is a WBS in the kitchen / lounge in the middle. I don't expect the bedroom at one end or the bathroom at the other to be very warm in winter.

 

It is funny how some people are prepared to live.

[SteamyTea]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

It is funny how some people are prepared to live.

Prepared or forced.

[mafaldina]

Steamy, remember this? https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/first-look-inside-shipping-container-404407