Our new house plans

[Tudur]

Good evening all.

 

We are about to submit these drawings for planning, and just wanted some feedback of what you all think.

 

Any improvements and recommendations will be highly appreciated, as we may have missed something amidst the excitement of planning a new home.

 

Many thanks

 

 

 

Elevation Drawing:

 

 

[Gus Potter]

That is some house.. no wonder you are excited.

 

I wonder what the views are you'll have.

 

Setting aside the Architectural scheme. At first glance there are a good few opportunities here to explore in terms of structural design particularly on the rear elevation in terms of sideways horizontal) stability of the building.

 

The corner windows on the rear elevation? Frameless glass (cantilevers?), corner posts or hanging from the roof structure..?

 

You have that large area of glazing on the rear elevation coupled with a partial basement.. in Engineering terms it sparks interest. what is the ground like.. will there be significant differential settlement.. if so how much and if realised how do you deal with that while not compromising on the Architectural design intent..

 

The form of construction; steel frame, timber frame, traditional masonry or some hybrid with ICF basement.. so many opportunities / options!

 

All the best. Look forward to seeing how this develops.

 

 

 

 

[Mr Punter]

Have you thought about the orientation?  It looks like you have a large north facing balcony / terrace, but I have had a few lockdown drinkies so may have misread this.

[Tudur]

Thanks for replying, and for your questions.

 

The views are the main reason we have the glass at the back, I will try to post some pictures up when I get a chance

22 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

That is some house.. no wonder you are excited.

 

I wonder what the views are you'll have.

 

Setting aside the Architectural scheme. At first glance there are a good few opportunities here to explore in terms of structural design particularly on the rear elevation in terms of sideways horizontal) stability of the building.

 

The corner windows on the rear elevation? Frameless glass (cantilevers?), corner posts or hanging from the roof structure..?

 

You have that large area of glazing on the rear elevation coupled with a partial basement.. in Engineering terms it sparks interest. what is the ground like.. will there be significant differential settlement.. if so how much and if realised how do you deal with that while not compromising on the Architectural design intent..

 

The form of construction; steel frame, timber frame, traditional masonry or some hybrid with ICF basement.. so many opportunities / options!

 

All the best. Look forward to seeing how this develops.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for replying, and for your questions.

 

The views are the main reason we have the glass at the back, I will try to post some pictures up when I get a chance.

 

As we are hopefully planning on using ICF construction, and if possible frameless glass, from my understanding we may use a cantilever design with obviously the additional steelwork/cage above the corner window

 

I don't think we are too concerned with the large area of glazing on the rear elevation as I believe we will either be utilizing a large steel goal post type structure or additional steel within the ICF structure (columns) if applicable on the corners.

 

This will hopefully be things that the engineer can clarify, fingers crossed.

 

We just need a bit of luck to get through planning now!!

[Tudur]

20 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

Have you thought about the orientation?  It looks like you have a large north facing balcony / terrace, but I have had a few lockdown drinkies so may have misread this

 We would definitely agree with the orientation of the house, but due to the site being sloped, and the views at the north we don't have much choice.

 

Also, as we are replacing an existing farmhouse, we didn't want to lose the farmhouse feature of the front elevation, which is visible from the road.

 

On the bright side, at least we don't need to worry about over heating in the summer

 

Would you suggest any changes in the internal layout?

[Mr Punter]

I like the house design.  I would prefer a WC / cloakroom off the hall, so you can have you coat, shoes, go to the loo etc away from having to walk through the kitchen, but you may normally come in via the back anyway.  Also the open plan family living room would not be to my taste, but I am not going to be living there!

 

If you build it exactly as is I think you will have a great home.

[Ferdinand]

I like the mix of materials - tying in with trad elements, whilst still showing off the more recent elements esp. at the back. It has a feel of fitting in, which I think is pleasant. I think the presentation gently hints at the scale, which is good. It looks comfortable in the immediate landscape. I can feel faint echoes of previous movements in the extra glass in a fairly trad frame, and the horizontal emphasis.

 

And it is a substantial house (I make it 350 sqm or so). Larger houses are a balance between the same number of larger rooms, and a larger number of normal size rooms. I tend towards larger rooms on that spectrum.

 

But I am not convinced that every sqm is singing for its supper here. I wonder if you could actually do everything it is currently doing, and make it 15% smaller, or perhaps build in a lot more options. I grew up in a large (5000 sqft), 4 bedroom house (a so-called "Derbyshire Hall" ie small ex-manor house) where the smallest bedroom was 15ft x 15ft, and my room had another spare bed and a full size table tennis table in it. It was wonderful, and we were able to repurpose everything several times - at one time three of us worked from home; another my mum ran a B&B for a few years; and we could create a 1200 sqft party space and still have another big lounge and a smaller lounge left over, as there were about 4 18ft reception rooms.

 

I want to encourage you to explore your thinking on two things - flexibility and suitability for the different ways and arrangements for living you may want in the future, and the internal / external interface. If you have done this already - great.

 

(Remember with my critique here that you can probably mess about with internal arrangements after planning - they are overwhelmingly concerned with appearance and effect on others, and internal arrangements are mainly none of their business - that is more for Building Control.)

 

A few specifics.

• If you wanted to, I think you have plenty of space for all-ensuites plus a family bathroom. Or five + five if you wanted ?.
• Is there going to be a cloak room for visitors to put coats, boots and brollies, and perhaps for mobility scooters etc in the future?
• The hallway / landing will look very imposing, but do you want 10% of your house dedicated to looking imposing? What else can it do?
• Ramp access to the back garden (wheelchairs but also wheelbarrows and bikes) needs to be there and integrated.
• is there provision for a lift for the future, or perhaps to include now? I would add one now and use it to move heavy stuff between floors.
• Bearing in mind COVID, how will two people work from home? In a big house that should imo be possible without stealing lounges or kitchen tables.
• Is garage / workshop / secure garden storage covered in your plans?  Hoping here that you have a sort of 'garage block' somewhere on your plans.
   

A different lens. Can I encourage you to think through a few 'Use cases", to see what it highlights? These also apply to people you may sell it to in future, as flexibilty.

• "Two people working from home" is one. Also...
• Living here when older and getting frail.
• Parent coming to live with you needing something self-contained.
• Boomerang kids who want to be semi-detached yet present.
• One of you has an accident and ends up in a wheelchair. Overlap with older parent case.
• Child takes up the trombone. **
• Space for biggish social events. (one way - our entrance hall was about 16x20 plus a galleried staircase so we had parties for about 20 around a big antique table there). 
• Running a business from home, and receiving visitors. (needs semi-public space for office and eg loo, without invading the private family space. Reflecting the idea of public / private space hierarchy)
• Life with a dog or three.
   

Briefly on the internal / external thing

 

You have only given us immediate landscaping, so perhaps think about another set of cases - where will you sit outside / sunbathe outside / play boules / roll the dog / have a BBQ / entertain in summer.

 

My top recommendation would be to see how other people handle garden design, and integration with the house. Tricky at the moment, but small early 20C country houses often do it very well / accessibility, as do modern architects who pay attention to that aspect. Lutyens was especially good. Orgs such as the Landmark Trust have modern houses where you can stay, and even the National Trust does modern now.

 

I'll stop there, and wish you all the best. Stay curious, and don't stop thinking ? .

Ferdinand

 

* I have the orientation issue at my house - S faces the road. I plan to make the front more private and turn it into a sunny courtyard garden.

 

[AliG]

The basic design seems very sound. During lockdown my wife and I have discussed if we should have had a basement for a large gym.

 

The main issue seems to be a severe lack of storage. Only one bedroom has a wardrobe and there are no cupboards anywhere (maybe under the back of the stair is a cupboard and not shown?). Depending on whether you will mainly use the front or back door I would want a large cupboard there for coats shoes etc. I am guessing it might be the back door in which case I would steal some space from the utility room.

 

My in laws have a house with no doors on the main floor. When there are a few kids in the house it is horribly loud, I would consider being able to separate more of the ground floor.

 

I too am not a fan of the WC at the back, although it is not so bad off a hall and not the utility room as I sometimes see. If I was making bigger changes I would consider can the utility room go where the rear hall and WC are. Then the snug where the utility room and part of the current snug are and then have an area of storage and WC next to the front door. This would require a beam in the wall and may not work out, but is worth considering for a more conventional layout.

 

A minor point is I would not have the fridge on the other side of the island from the hob and sink. That is going to be very annoying. It looks like I would put it next to where the sink is as this is the only area of wall where it would fit. The door to the utility room could move down a little.

[Ferdinand]

(** For the record, it has to be a trombone not a trumpet. Trombones are far more fun.)

 

 

[ash_scotland88]

Not sure if it's been said but I would push back the stairs.

They look incredibley close to the front door, as in you have to open the doors fully to get around the bottom tread. You have a large spacious entrance hall that your immediately making feel cramp in a pinch point.