Design Changes

[Curtis]

My architect has just given me our concept design for our build and there's a couple of things that i don't like and the biggest of which is the water heater and cupboard in the kitchen, i want that moved to the utility but i'm not sure there is the space for it.  I thought about scaling down the size of the entrace lobby and also remove the door and or wall that from the lobby into the kitchn living area.  I also want 3 windows on the kitchen gable end wall for better symmetry but any other ideas / thoughts etc would be appreciated.

 

Layout image extract below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PeterW]

Your bedroom has an amazing view of the garden and the nice bifolds, yet your bed looks at a blank wall … 

 

Use the hall cupboard for the hot water or even an attic space assuming this isn’t flat roof ..??

[Tom]

I'd swap bedroom 2 and the office - less chance of hearing your guests snore.

[Ferdinand]

North arrow?

Is there a location plan showing site boundaries?

[Curtis]

1 hour ago, PeterW said:

Your bedroom has an amazing view of the garden and the nice bifolds, yet your bed looks at a blank wall … 

 

Use the hall cupboard for the hot water or even an attic space assuming this isn’t flat roof ..??

 

Hmmm yea that might work actually, will have a further look at that, thanks!  There is no attic it's a single story house with vaulted ceilings.

 

 

1 hour ago, Tom said:

I'd swap bedroom 2 and the office - less chance of hearing your guests snore.

 

Yea that was one of my thoughts but i think Architect did it like that so the cupboard in the hall which has in reality been stolen from the office is up beside the entrance door.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

North arrow?

Is there a location plan showing site boundaries?

 

 

There's not actually a compass on the design but i do know the property is facing North East and the reason for that is becuase there are nice views that direction, i realise that normally you would face the house south for the sun but the views are the other way. 

 

I'll try and upload the file, i kept on getting a file size error before

[Curtis]

 

Some more design images

 

 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

17 minutes ago, Curtis said:

 

There's not actually a compass on the design but i do know the property is facing North East and the reason for that is becuase there are nice views that direction, i realise that normally you would face the house south for the sun but the views are the other way. 

 

 

I'm being thick, but which side is the front for "facing" purposes ?

 

Is it "facing" the lawn and the trees? So the orientation of the "Ground Floor Plan" you just posted is NE towards the top?

 

Would you mind posting a copy of your design brief, or the short summary thereof you gave to the architect? I'm thinking there are possible position-on-plot and orientation issues here that could make your house much less livable, but I don't want to give you a half-baked reaction that I can't justify.

 

[Curtis]

 

12 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

I'm being thick, but which side is the front for "facing" purposes ?

 

I've updated the image below with a very crude representation of house direction facing.  Front door is on the side with the car and the reason the house is facing that way is because we want the windows in all the rooms facing out onto the garden and then the views past this

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Curtis

[Curtis]

21 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

I'm being thick, but which side is the front for "facing" purposes ?

 

Is it "facing" the lawn and the trees? So the orientation of the "Ground Floor Plan" you just posted is NE towards the top?

 

Would you mind posting a copy of your design brief, or the short summary thereof you gave to the architect? I'm thinking there are possible position-on-plot and orientation issues here that could make your house much less livable, but I don't want to give you a half-baked reaction that I can't justify.

 

 

The concept design is only one page and i've copied all the images from it, that's all we have received so far

[Ferdinand]

18 minutes ago, Curtis said:

 

The concept design is only one page and i've copied all the images from it, that's all we have received so far

 

Thanks.

 

I'm quite keen on considering orientation, sun, view, overlooking before thinking about "this cupboard is in the wrong place".

 

But the advantage of BH is that you get good support on both sides (winks at @ToughButterCup), and we all have different angles.

 

As a concept design it is important to remember that this is the architect throwing thoughts around - a sighting shot, and your role is to be an  active client and give vigorous feedback - not be a doormat. I hope that is not taken the wrong way, but it is a common thing for self-builders not to be assertive enough and end up with the architect's vision, rather than their vision made workable and inspirational by the architect. 

 

Tea now with Any Questions. Brief comments later.

 

I wonder what @the_r_sole or @AliG has to say. Both very good at this.

[ProDave]

I know this is not what you are asking, but your plot layout does not make sense.  You have one HUGE entrance "driveway" that appears to be paved in some form on the south, sunny side of the house, and only a tiny little but of "garden" on the north side of the house.  I would be seriously re balancing that.

 

Re the HW tank, how about a mezanine level above the utility room?

 

Agreed with @PeterW master bedroom layout is completely wrong.  I would have en-suite where it is, then opening into the bedroom area with the bed taking in the view, and the dressing as a room at the left hand end.  I would not want to walk through the dressing to get to the bedroom.

[Curtis]

33 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Thanks.

 

I'm quite keen on considering orientation, sun, view, overlooking before thinking about "this cupboard is in the wrong place".

 

But the advantage of BH is that you get good support on both sides (winks at @ToughButterCup), and we all have different angles.

 

As a concept design it is important to remember that this is the architect throwing thoughts around - a sighting shot, and your role is to be an  active client and give vigorous feedback - not be a doormat. I hope that is not taken the wrong way, but it is a common thing for self-builders not to be assertive enough and end up with the architect's vision, rather than their vision made workable and inspirational by the architect. 

 

Tea now with Any Questions. Brief comments later.

 

I wonder what @the_r_sole or @AliG has to say. Both very good at this.

 

Yea i realise that this is the starting point with the Architect, we had actually given him a pretty good start with what we were thinking with this rough mock up

 

the house is inspired by this design we found:

https://trendsideas.com/gallery/stories/country-chic-6/167432-te-arai-farm-estate-mangawhai

 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

I know this is not what you are asking, but your plot layout does not make sense.  You have one HUGE entrance "driveway" that appears to be paved in some form on the south, sunny side of the house, and only a tiny little but of "garden" on the north side of the house.  I would be seriously re balancing that.

 

Re the HW tank, how about a mezanine level above the utility room?

 

Agreed with @PeterW master bedroom layout is completely wrong.  I would have en-suite where it is, then opening into the bedroom area with the bed taking in the view, and the dressing as a room at the left hand end.  I would not want to walk through the dressing to get to the bedroom.

 

The house sits on a 5 acre plot, the area around the house and garden is grass, trees etc. but i only want to have to cut a small area of grass all the time so have done a small grass section which will be manacured and the rest of the plot will be left to the wilderness, but there is much more of the plot that we can pull into being a manacured garden if we want, we get a lot of deer and wildlife crossing the plot as there is a massive woods to the North of the plot so want to keep a lot of it wild.

 

There are no other buildings or neighbours in close proximity so even though the plot is North East facing we hope the small grass area i have done will still get a good bit of sun although i do realise that even though the house is only 1 story the builing roofline will block a seciton of the garden but when we have been up to the plot thinking about the sun, we hope that the afternoon / evening sun will cover a good chunk iof the grass area as due to the L shape where the west end is open but like i say because the plot is 5 acres i can just make the garden bigger so we can sit further out from the house on a nice day if need be

 

[the_r_sole]

5 acre plot? House seems very constrained,  I'm not really sure what the t shape is giving you?

It's always hard to comment on other folks plans when you don't have all the information to hand and haven't gone through the clients lifestyle etc but it seems like there's not much kitchen for the size of house and where do you take off muddy boots etc...

[MikeSharp01]

Looks like a lot of glass on the north side!

[ETC]

A very quick sketch.

[PeterW]

11 hours ago, Curtis said:

but there is much more of the plot that we can pull into being a manacured garden if we want

beware that may not be possible. What is the 5 acres currently defined as ..? If it is agricultural or paddocks you will need to be careful as planning will not allow you to do this. 

Given orientation you need to flip the whole house 90° clockwise as you have all your glazing north, and a very expensive overhang roof doing nothing. A wider plot layout would help here. 

 

[Curtis]

11 hours ago, the_r_sole said:

5 acre plot? House seems very constrained,  I'm not really sure what the t shape is giving you?

It's always hard to comment on other folks plans when you don't have all the information to hand and haven't gone through the clients lifestyle etc but it seems like there's not much kitchen for the size of house and where do you take off muddy boots etc...

 

We are deliberately going for a smaller scale house, we don't have a lot of stuff and no kids and we don't buy crap just for the sake of filling up our cupboards, we're not quite minamilists but we are of the mindset less is more.  Might seem boring to a lot of people but we have spent the last few years getting rid of all our debt, saving every penny we can and selling anything that moves so we can build a modest house hopefully with no debt on a nice plot and semi retire in our 40's with the dream of travelling but covid looks to have fxxxed that so i'll just wander round the plot instead haha

 

 

11 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Looks like a lot of glass on the north side!

 

Yea you are right there is and the house direction is a genuine concern but the views to the North East are really good so we want to point that way and we want to be able to see the views from the rooms so other than making a glass box (council will neverl allow) so the sun still comes in from the South i'm not sure how to overcome the house / sun issue.

 

 

8 hours ago, ETC said:

A very quick sketch.

 

Thanks for the mock-up!  I like the main bedroom, putting his and hers wardrobes at either side of the en-suite door.  I prefer the kitchen units as well although we don't want a larder, we will have more than enough kitchen storage space for the things we have with just the kitchen units and whatever storage we can squeeze into the kitchen island.  So that still leaves the HW in an akward position.  

 

28 minutes ago, PeterW said:

beware that may not be possible. What is the 5 acres currently defined as ..? If it is agricultural or paddocks you will need to be careful as planning will not allow you to do this. 

Given orientation you need to flip the whole house 90° clockwise as you have all your glazing north, and a very expensive overhang roof doing nothing. A wider plot layout would help here. 

 

 

The whole 5 acres is a plot available to build on so no issues with definition of the rest of the 5 acres.  Yea like i said above the house orientation is a concern in regards of the sun but the views are so nice to the North East we want the house to face that way and we want views from all the rooms hence the shape.  The overhang is something the Mrs wants, so when as often happens in Scotland it's warm but pishing rain at the same time we can sit outside and not get wet.  When we were on holiday in Norway and Iceland this was a typical thing so you could sit out in the rain and snow and we used that a lot so Mrs wants it and I quite like the overhang but would maybe ask for glass in the roof section to allow more sun to come in as i'm concerned it will be darker than we think

 

 

[the_r_sole]

I'm not suggesting building more or bigger, I spend most of my days trying to tell people to not over build but if you want to have a "minimal " look or feel you need to be clever about where the messy bits of living actually happen.

The over hang is a good idea in principle bit sticking it on the most open end when you've got a t shaped plan doesn't seem like the best place for it - think of using the building to shelter it from the prevailing wind etc...

[ETC]

8 minutes ago, Curtis said:

So that still leaves the HW in an akward position.  

Leave it with me. ?

 

Personally I like the shape and the overhang - somewhere to put the hot tub!
 

I also played with the position of the second bedroom, the bathroom and the study to get the cloaks closer to the front door. Did you ever think of a porch?
 

I wasn’t keen on the bath being across the window in the bathroom - difficult to open/clean the window - although if you’ve got a great view and a bath eye-level window I’d keep it there.

 

From your comments it looks like you have thought of the design and orientation of the house.

 

The only other comment I would make is about the size of the bedrooms and study - they seem a bit small and I do appreciate what you’ve said about being nearly minimalist but I normally make bedrooms capable of accommodating a double wardrobe (tick), a dressing table and a chest of drawers. This is what I was taught many years ago when designing housing association homes. You may also wish to consider making your bedroom and en-suite wheelchair friendly - I’m not talking about grab rails - just in terms of wheelchair accessible - unfortunately a linear en-suite doesn’t really lend itself unless a wee bit wider. I’d also make sure the study was big enough to accommodate and additional storage - perhaps a set of shelves or a filing cabinet. I think the design quite easily lends itself to being “future proofed” - something to consider?
 

Thanks for reading.

[Curtis]

28 minutes ago, the_r_sole said:

I'm not suggesting building more or bigger, I spend most of my days trying to tell people to not over build but if you want to have a "minimal " look or feel you need to be clever about where the messy bits of living actually happen.

The over hang is a good idea in principle bit sticking it on the most open end when you've got a t shaped plan doesn't seem like the best place for it - think of using the building to shelter it from the prevailing wind etc...

 

We were thinking about just going for a straight design not a T but it would still have the same issue of the main glass in the house facing North East, we wanted a gable end looking out onto the views so opted for the T design.

 

Below is a very crude mock-up of the site, the land slightly slopes down from house to trees so the house is elevated above the trees at the bottom of the plot so we can see over the top of them to the forrest across the way and that's the whole reason for the orientation of the house as the views to the forrest we think are great.

 

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, ETC said:

Leave it with me. ?

 

Personally I like the shape and the overhang - somewhere to put the hot tub!
 

I also played with the position of the second bedroom, the bathroom and the study to get the cloaks closer to the front door. Did you ever think of a porch?
 

I wasn’t keen on the bath being across the window in the bathroom - difficult to open/clean the window - although if you’ve got a great view and a bath eye-level window I’d keep it there.

 

From your comments it looks like you have thought of the design and orientation of the house.

 

The only other comment I would make is about the size of the bedrooms and study - they seem a bit small and I do appreciate what you’ve said about being nearly minimalist but I normally make bedrooms capable of accommodating a double wardrobe (tick), a dressing table and a chest of drawers. This is what I was taught many years ago when designing housing association homes. You may also wish to consider making your bedroom and en-suite wheelchair friendly - I’m not talking about grab rails - just in terms of wheelchair accessible - unfortunately a linear en-suite doesn’t really lend itself unless a wee bit wider. I’d also make sure the study was big enough to accommodate and additional storage - perhaps a set of shelves or a filing cabinet. I think the design quite easily lends itself to being “future proofed” - something to consider?
 

Thanks for reading.

 

Thanks!!  We don't want a porch the most we would maybe have is maybe a roof overhang to protect from weather when answering the door rather than an actual porch.  

 

We've been round measuring the house we're in just now an old council house and have dimensions from other houses we have lived in to so make sure we are happy with sizes, to be fair we had the house at 100m2 but the architect thought this was too small so we're up to 117m2.  We think the rooms are ample for what we need, the main bedroom is bigger than we have now, the spare room is for guests and well they can slum it with a bed and a cupboard, they might get a night stand if they are lucky and the office is based off the office size we are in just now which is perfect for the both of us, couple of laptops and screens on a table, that's all we need.  We did actually ask for a cupboard in the office to put the printer and some stationery in but architect has missed this, i did think we could maybe half the hallway cupboard so one half is for the hallway and the other half is for the office but not sure how small they would end up being to potentially the point of being unusable.  

 

There will be a seperate double garage on the front door side of the house up beside the boundry so we'll have more storage in there for things that can be stored for parts of the year.

 

The future proof element was why we didn't go up another floor and kept it single story but i didn't think about wheelchairs but it's hard to cater for every possible future outcome

 

 

 

[MikeSharp01]

2 hours ago, Curtis said:

views to the North East are really good

So you need to work on how to get the views with the minimum of glass or go for high end glazing which may be up to quad glazing and so will limit the light entry somewhat while having good insulating properties. Also remember that the frame of the window is the worst area for heat loss (Sealed unit 3G glass is usually better than the frame) so the more frame you have in proportion to glass the worse the heat loss is U value of the window (Uw) is . On the south side I might try to make the kitchen - dining - living wall more glass to get me some more solar gain and reduce the floor to ceiling glass area (perhaps by having low walls with windows next to the doors). Naturally we cannot see the shading that this wall might have.

[AliG]

Thanks for the shoutout @Ferdinand

 

I’m on a plane for the first time in two years so not as easy as normal to comment.

 

Lots of things I can say that might be worth thinking about as general design points.

 

1. I too live in Scotland. I don’t like porches but you should always have a canopy at the front door to avoid visitors getting soaked whilst you come to let them in.

 

2. We also have a covered area outside, a sitooterie as our architect calls it. We often end up out there even though it is raining. However they do shade the windows quite badly which you might want to think about with that being the largest window in the lounge.

 

3. You are right not wanting the hot water cupboard in the kitchen. Also, and I see this all the time, architects should not be allowed to design kitchens. They seem to have no idea. The pantry is on the other side of the island away from where you will be cooking. That is an awful design. Also the kitchen door opens up into a tiny little space and you have to squeeze past the breakfast bar to get into either the lounge or the kitchen. Really poor. My rule is that you should always try and keep the area entering a room as open as possible and place fixtures far away from the door. This will stop your house feeling cramped even if it is not. I also doubt understand why you would want a breakfast bar right next to a table with the chairs bumping into each other. Do you really need both in what is a relatively modest sized room.

 

4. It sounds like you are quite flexible on space. Why not attach the garage to the house. It makes it a lot easier to store stuff in there and you can get in and out of the car without getting cold and wet.

 

5. Hard landscaping is very expensive and can be quite harsh. I would break up that area in front of the house.

 

6. Again, living in Scotland, you want to maximise the light available. I don’t mind too much the house facing north for the views, especially the bedrooms. They have less need for light during the day. However the real error is putting the kitchen and lounge on the east end of the house. My wife likes to sit outside in the morning and even on a nice day it is often freezing early on. Our old house faced east and the back and it was dark in the kitchen by 1pm. The afternoons and evenings are much more pleasant in Scotland. You can sit outside until midnight on a nice summer day. What we find is that the paving soaks up heat over the day keeping it warmer in the evenings. The architect has shown a lack of imagination. The house does not have to line up with the plot at all.  It can be at any angle. I think it might be better to have the lounge and kitchen at the other end of the house.  But I really think the T shape is poor at capturing the light and need to think about it

 

 

 

 

[ETC]

Have you thought about the office as part of the entrance hall/circulation space or do you want it behind closed doors?

[ETC]

Have you thought about the office as part of the entrance hall/circulation space or do you want it behind closed doors?

[Curtis]

On 09/10/2021 at 11:40, MikeSharp01 said:

So you need to work on how to get the views with the minimum of glass or go for high end glazing which may be up to quad glazing and so will limit the light entry somewhat while having good insulating properties. Also remember that the frame of the window is the worst area for heat loss (Sealed unit 3G glass is usually better than the frame) so the more frame you have in proportion to glass the worse the heat loss is U value of the window (Uw) is . On the south side I might try to make the kitchen - dining - living wall more glass to get me some more solar gain and reduce the floor to ceiling glass area (perhaps by having low walls with windows next to the doors). Naturally we cannot see the shading that this wall might have.

 

Thanks for reply, we were thinking about triple glazed windows but thanks for the info regarding the frames, makes sense now you have said that.  On the south side of the kitchen i definately want more glazing, at least 3 windows for symmetry.

 

 

On 09/10/2021 at 12:32, AliG said:

Thanks for the shoutout @Ferdinand

 

I’m on a plane for the first time in two years so not as easy as normal to comment.

 

Lots of things I can say that might be worth thinking about as general design points.

 

1. I too live in Scotland. I don’t like porches but you should always have a canopy at the front door to avoid visitors getting soaked whilst you come to let them in.

 

2. We also have a covered area outside, a sitooterie as our architect calls it. We often end up out there even though it is raining. However they do shade the windows quite badly which you might want to think about with that being the largest window in the lounge.

 

3. You are right not wanting the hot water cupboard in the kitchen. Also, and I see this all the time, architects should not be allowed to design kitchens. They seem to have no idea. The pantry is on the other side of the island away from where you will be cooking. That is an awful design. Also the kitchen door opens up into a tiny little space and you have to squeeze past the breakfast bar to get into either the lounge or the kitchen. Really poor. My rule is that you should always try and keep the area entering a room as open as possible and place fixtures far away from the door. This will stop your house feeling cramped even if it is not. I also doubt understand why you would want a breakfast bar right next to a table with the chairs bumping into each other. Do you really need both in what is a relatively modest sized room.

 

4. It sounds like you are quite flexible on space. Why not attach the garage to the house. It makes it a lot easier to store stuff in there and you can get in and out of the car without getting cold and wet.

 

5. Hard landscaping is very expensive and can be quite harsh. I would break up that area in front of the house.

 

6. Again, living in Scotland, you want to maximise the light available. I don’t mind too much the house facing north for the views, especially the bedrooms. They have less need for light during the day. However the real error is putting the kitchen and lounge on the east end of the house. My wife likes to sit outside in the morning and even on a nice day it is often freezing early on. Our old house faced east and the back and it was dark in the kitchen by 1pm. The afternoons and evenings are much more pleasant in Scotland. You can sit outside until midnight on a nice summer day. What we find is that the paving soaks up heat over the day keeping it warmer in the evenings. The architect has shown a lack of imagination. The house does not have to line up with the plot at all.  It can be at any angle. I think it might be better to have the lounge and kitchen at the other end of the house.  But I really think the T shape is poor at capturing the light and need to think about it

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the reply.   

 

I think we will have a canopy, basically just an extension of the roofline with a couple of timber posts holding it up, i really dislike porches.  

 

Yea that is a concern that the overhang stops the light coming in the gable end even with all the glass we are planning but we definately want an overhang, we really like them and like you say in Scotland you can sit out in all weather and enjoy the views but not get wet.

 

The kitchen needs a rejig, we just want units, cooker etc. on the gable end and then a island in front of this but i want to be able to walk around the island, the whole living / kitchen area we want to be able to walk around things, give that sense of space and we really do not have that much stuff that we need a pantry and so many units, less is more.

 

The garage we wanted away from the house up at the boundry of the plot so when i'm fxxxing about playing builder making shit that's useless then i won't annoy anyone, plus i'll be able to see the wife coming looking for me and hide the beer!

 

It's not really the architects fault with the shape or orientation of the house this has been led by the initial crude drawings we gave him so it's our fault, it's all about the North East facing view and capturing that from as many windows as possible.

 

 

 

15 hours ago, ETC said:

Have you thought about the office as part of the entrance hall/circulation space or do you want it behind closed doors?

 

34 minutes ago, ETC said:

Have you thought about the office as part of the entrance hall/circulation space or do you want it behind closed doors?

 

 

This is a great design, thanks for all the effort you have put in!!!

 

There's honestly not anything that i can think of with your design that i don't like, it's quite close to the original design we had skected out on Excel for the architect but i prefer the main bedroom you have done with the wardrobes on either side of the en-suite door, the kitchen layout is good as we definately want a walk around island and we want the units etc. along the gable end so that there's more of an open feel, plus we really do not need that much kitchen units at all.    The hall cloak room and the water heater make much more sense with this design although we do loose a bit of room with the 3rd bedroom / office, we'd need to make sure that was ok but all in all this is really good!  Thanks again!!!