Your thoughts on this design?

[Alan Ambrose]

OK we think we're getting fairly close to submitting this. This is one of two designs we have - this one is parallel to the road as the planners prefer. The plot is in a small hamlet in Suffolk and the design is a modern take on a Suffolk barn. That's a style we like and we hope it should also go down OK with neighbours and planners. We want that the two of us can work from home comfortably and have friends & family to visit. We may go for a basement if the clay ground conditions and budget allow. This is planned on a timber frame - oak if we can afford it - hence the regularity of the plan. We've probably got too much glazing right now according to Part O, but expect to do a TM59 analysis later to optimise the glass.

 

All thoughts welcome.

 

TIA, Alan

[Iceverge]

Good stuff. 

 

It's a fun part of the project this stage. 

You're right, there is a lot of glazing. You've touched on the overheating, SW might be your issue here. 

 

Keep an eye on energy use too. The best window once installed is 4 times worse (1.0W/m²K)than an average wall. (0.25)

 

I would have a look at this before planning application as it's trickier to change later.

 

 

Similarly the oak post. It's a beautiful end result but quite specialised and not cheap. You may be better consulting a dedicated company for consultation at this stage to make sure you are not planning something that cannot be built or cannot be afforded .

 

2 nice projects here.

 

https://passivehouseplus.co.uk/magazine/new-build/kildare-passive-house-uses-unique-oak-frame-construction

 

https://passivehouseplus.co.uk/magazine/new-build/heart-of-oak

 

 

 

[ProDave]

Stairs are wrong.

 

To get to the right hand study, you have to ascend the stairs then walk all the way round the gallery to get to it.

 

Put the stairs the other side of the hall so they ascend and finish just before the door to the master bedroom, then it's an easier route to the other 2 bedrooms / study rooms.

 

You will probably need to start the stairs closer to the entrance door so they finish before the master bedroom door and don't cut across the entrance to the living / dining, and will need to re jig the entrance to the downstairs bedroom and hall storage cupboards.

[Conor]

Ha, best thing is you'll need get to the stage where you're painting walls and you'll still be making changes 😜

 

Our kitchen is open to the rest of the house, BC won't allow this, you'll need to close it off somehow.

 

Planners might have an issue with the balconies. Be prepared to drop them if needs be.

 

It's a good fit to the plot. Is that an existing entrance or new one? You look close to a road junction/laneway?

 

Windows don't look right at all. What going on with the roof? That's a lot of skylights. Is this your design or an architect's? 

[JohnMo]

Big windows on the north just loose heat, so consider reducing the size.

 

Overheating from lots of South side windows likely most of the year.

 

Not sure of the mixed size of windows in roof and solar panels looks messy, try to standardize the sizes.

 

As @ProDave says stairs are wrong.

 

Void is just a waste of space, having your kitchen connected to also seems like a bad thing, fire, smells etc

[IanR]

41 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

the design is a modern take on a Suffolk barn.

 

While the external materials and finishes are very strongly "Suffolk Barn", I don't see that from the form. Roof Pitch on both main roof and mid-stay porch, need to be steeper, in the 45°-50° range, and for a traditional timber structure it appears too wide. Max width of the main structure would be 6m. To get to 10m wide would need a lean-too. I imagine you have a height restriction to combine the current width, 2 full stories and 50° roof pitch. For me the form would appear more in keeping with a modern, portal frame style barn, but that would mean walking away from the Suffolk tile, black cladding and red brick plinth.

[Kelvin]

Void is far too big. Noise, kitchen smells will travel to the upstairs and it will echo. Make it smaller and above the hallway (or remove it completely) Fixes your open kitchen and reduces the problem of the stair being in the wrong place. We have very few windows on the North elevation and those we do have aren’t large. We also have far too much glazing on the south elevation though. 

[ProDave]

What are the row of 5 small squares evenly spaced along the centreline of the downstairs?

[JohnMo]

4 minutes ago, ProDave said:

row of 5 small squares evenly spaced along the centreline of the downstairs

Look like posts to hold up the middle of the upstairs floor, also coincides with similar squares around the outside walls.

[Alan Ambrose]

Well thanks for everyone's fast replies - a bunch of things to think about. I've answered some of the questions below:

 

>>> To get to the right hand study, you have to ascend the stairs then walk all the way round the gallery to get to it.

 

Yeah, I had thought of this, but forgotten it again.

 

>>> Our kitchen is open to the rest of the house, BC won't allow this, you'll need to close it off somehow.

 

Interesting point - we expect to have sprinklers anyway as it's a big pile of wood. Is there a regulation somewhere?

 

>>> Is that an existing entrance or new one? You look close to a road junction/laneway?

 

An existing one and just a small bend. The road is a 'quietway' and gets v. little traffic. The plot does have existing planning, so in principle highways have already approved this entrance.

 

>>> What going on with the roof?

>>> Not sure of the mixed size of windows in roof and solar panels looks messy, try to standardize the sizes.

 

5 skylights on each side, otherwise PV panels. The skylights are the bigger Veluxes, otherwise standard solar panels.

 

>>> Roof Pitch on both main roof and mid-stay porch, need to be steeper, in the 45°-50° range, and for a traditional timber structure it appears too wide.

 

That looks good but to my mind wastes a lot of space / light / material. I should say that this roof pitch is 25 degrees and we live in a converted barn in Suffolk now, the original structure being from about the 1850's, and that is 20 degrees pitch - so I don't feel so bad about the slope. Our current barn, which is quite small for a dwelling is 6.5m wide (1.5 bedrooms, one shower room only). Next to the plot - there's another recently converted barn about 25-30m away (you can just see a corner of it on the block plan) which is single storey, 22 degrees roof pitch, about 8m x 22m. You are right though, the 10m width is pushing it a bit - 12.5m oak beams are the max that are commonly available.

 

>>> I imagine you have a height restriction to combine the current width

 

Yeah, effectively 1.5 storeys, say 7.5m, to be not taller than some of the neighbours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Alan Ambrose

[ProDave]

11 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Look like posts to hold up the middle of the upstairs floor, also coincides with similar squares around the outside walls.

That's what I thought.

 

Not necessary.  Make the wall either side of the stairwell a supporting wall, and the walls above it either side of the landing.  Then floor and ceiling joists span lengthways the entire length of the building taking intermediate support from these 2 supporting walls.  Exactly what we have done.  Look to be only a 5 metre span that way, exactly what we have.

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> We also have far too much glazing on the south elevation though. 

 

I was hoping to offset most of this with shades etc - which needs TM59 to check it. Did you have any calcs beforehand and did the real world not reflect the calcs?

 

>>> What are the row of 5 small squares evenly spaced along the centreline of the downstairs?

 

As JohnMo said, these are the centre vertical posts of the trusses. So there are 7 evenly spaced trusses in all. That's similar to our current barn which has 6 with about the same spacing. This might make you laugh - yes, the corner is leaning over crazily and yes, they did use any old bits of wood they could find.

 

 

 

 

[Alan Ambrose]

@Iceverge thanks for the passivehouseplus links - they have some very useful detail in there.

 

@Conor  I'm researching the kitchen / open plan  / stairs thing. I've seen some references to 'Type 3 open plan' / Approved Document B and some sense that it may or may not be allowed in 2 storey houses with or without sprinklers/mists. I've yet to find the definitive reference though.

 

@ProDave yeah, let me mull over the stair location options, including your idea of putting the stairs on the other side of the hall. 'Make the wall either side of the stairwell a supporting wall' - I don't quite understand that one yet, but let me think about it.

 

Thank you for everyone's comments.

[ProDave]

2 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

'Make the wall either side of the stairwell a supporting wall' - I don't quite understand that one yet, but let me think about it.

You have a row of posts down the middle of the house.  I presume this is to support some form of beam running down the middle of the house to support joists running front to back of the house a distance of about 10 metres so they would need intermediate support.

 

My suggestion (which is just what we did) is make the internal wall either side of the hall, a supporting wall going all the way up to the roof.  then the joists can span the other way.  We have 11 metre long posi joists spanning the entire length of the house on one go, taking support from the 2 load bearing walls, so the longest unsupported span is 5 metres.

 

This removes the need for the row of posts down the middle of the house.  Okay only 2 would be a nuisance in the middle of a room, as the other 3 are hidden in walls.

[Alan Ambrose]

OK this kind of thing? Makes sense.

[ProDave]

Yes that's it.

[Papillon]

That porch is a bit rough. Why is it such a grand feature, yet seems just to be a glass box aimed at your fence. I assume you mean it to be two storey? Because why would you have all that light and then close it off with an internal door… isn’t the point of that to make the hall seem light, it’s expensive and you get nothing from this. 
 

I suggest maybe finding an image of something in that style and using the window proportion from that, because those are not quite right for a modern barn. They are the proportion of computer monitors. 

[ETC]

Sorry - looks terrible. A lot of wasted space, badly laid out rooms and unusable balconies (in this climate?).

 

Very contrived elevations.

 

Could be much, much better given to the right architect.

[ETC]

Why on earth would anyone spend a shed (or in this case a barn) load of money on a house but pay peanuts to get it designed. If you’re going to invest a large sum of money in your home invest in a good architect. He or she will save you money in the long run.

[ETC]

Now that’s what I call a barn. And it’s in Suffolk!!!!

[Papillon]

That one ETC has posted would match the site better lol

 

You have two balconies there, common sense would dictate that you should take that glazed porch monstrosity off and instead, make an attractive glazed end of some kind. It doesn’t have to be super modern, no need to scare the planners, it just needs to be attractive and a feature. 
 

basements - ridiculously expensive. 
oak - very expensive, other wood is fine and looks the same

porch and unsupported balconies - waste of money

 

An architect/good designer might be an actual investment. Not to put down this person who drew this, it’s a good stab for a novice, they just need practice.

[Iceverge]

Oak post and beam framing is expensive but it's lovely too.

 

Money no object I think an oak framed structure, wrapped in a hempcrete exterior wall or a lightweight timber frame with straw infill or similar would be tops.

 

I'm not a big fan of SIPs in this case that most companies use. Often they're self supporting andreduces the oak to just decoration which seems disingenuous. 

 

Similarly this building type can wear thick walls easily so no need for the thinness of sips. 

 

Something about the mass produced nature of sheets of OSB and polystyrene mixed with oak mortars and tennon joints etc just jars a bit. 

 

 

[Alan Ambrose]

Well, thanks for your thoughts. While we would love a more contemporary design, our pre-app had a design based on our existing 1850's barn. The planner's first words were 'it's very modern, isn't it?'

 

Re the other points: we may not use oak if crazy expensive but instead use good quality glulam or similar. But we love the crooked oak frame in our current barn and I can't imagine glulam is actually much cheaper. I've built smaller green oak-framed structures before myself (i.e. several tons of oak) and, while not intending to build this one, I feel I know enough to control the cost of the exposed frame. For instance, green oak at retail in smallish quantity is ~£2.5K per m^3. I figure we have ~£60-70K of oak here, using 250x250mm sections, and that's at retail prices. I don't have quotes for the frame yet, but I would hope I can limit it to 3x the retail wood cost. It would be also be the main structural element (so the equivalent of, say, block walls and wooden roof structure) and, of course, a big aesthetic one. Also, my dad was a builder of wooden boats and he instilled in me a love of real wood.

 

Re basements, if they add more value per m^2 than they cost and provide loads of good storage space without bothering the planners, then great.

 

The porch is just a place to put coats and boots and provide some higher elevation light - we really like the light from the east-looking glazing above the front door of our existing place (first image below). Re the balconies, I'm sure I can design and source galvanised steel supports for the balconies, and find a sensible way to hang them off the frame. There's a guy locally who makes smaller green oak structures, but failing that, I wouldn't be above breaking out the chisels for that smallish job. And I can see sitting out in the morning or evening with a cup of tea or a beer observing the wildlife or admiring the view. On the south side particularly, the balcony also provides shading to the large glazing below. Following a TM59 analysis, I'm anticipating that we may need a horizontal shade for the bedroom windows on the SW side too.

 

I don't quite get the 'glazed porch monstrosity' criticism - the prominent, perpendicular bay with double doors, often positioned in the centre of the main frame, is a traditional bit of Suffolk barn design. Time back, the planners wouldn't let you glaze anything much but that part. See the last 4 images attached. In fact, our current barn had a smaller version of that before it was converted into a dwelling.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Alan Ambrose

[eandg]

Those images suggest the design will look much better on site than on paper - they look very nice. On plan, a bit too much going on for me with respect to glazing - sometimes less is more. 

[Alan Ambrose]

@eandg

 

>>> the design will look much better on site than on paper

 

Good point, the CAD images above are straight out of Fusion, and I should import them into SketchUp or similar to get some better ones.

 

>>> a bit too much going on for me with respect to glazing

 

Yes, I like natural light and we're around the upper limit. In fact we've reduced some areas since the images above, following a Part O Simple Method analysis. I'm intending to get TM59 running and then apply some shading / solar control glazing mitigation. We may still require some glazing reduction after that. My strategy is to apply for planning with max glazing and then reduce later once the basic idea looks like it'll get approved. I plan to do that using a non-material amendment following the full TM59 analysis.

 

@Iceverge

 

>>> Oak framed structure, wrapped in a hempcrete exterior wall or a lightweight timber frame with straw infill

>>> Something about the mass produced nature of sheets of OSB and polystyrene mixed with oak mortars and tennon joints etc just jars a bit. 

 

I agree. My dad, in his later years, had some 'engineered' wood on his floors which surprised me. I still have an an aversion to OSB/mdf/chipboard and much prefer ply if we can afford it. Our current little barn structurally is all hanging off on the original oak frame and I planned to do something similar. Unfortunately I don't have the exact floor / wall / roof lay up for our existing place, and I have not figured this out for the new structure. The current barn is something like: membrane + 60mm Celotex FR5000 between studs + 30mm Celotex TB4000 + 12.5mm Knauf wallboard. Then external sheathing - not fully specified on the docs I have. There's something like 50mm Celotex GA5000 + Trioso super 10 + membrane in the roof + sheathing. Clearly, we need much better insulation than our current place. I see you can get SIPs with ply outer layers, so maybe that's the compromise.