Browse Forums Buying Land 1 Jun 17, 2020 1:55 am . Follow my build: View topic - Dale Alcock - Custom 'Marlow' 2 Storey • Home Renovation & Building Forum (homeone.com.au) Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 3Jun 18, 2020 5:07 pm Central courtyard might be problematic on the narrow lot. Move your living areas to the second story and place them in front, put a "winter" balcony which will have retractable roofing for winter gatherings and will still be providing passive solar heat during the winter when the roofing is off, but keep the roof on during summer to prevent your living areas from overheating. Place "summer" backyard in the south, where it will be mostly shaded off by the house. Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 4Jun 18, 2020 5:29 pm What kind of house are you hoping to build? Single or double storey? How many bedrooms? You could fit a simple 3 bed house with a central courtyard, with the living areas capturing North light from the courtyard, while keeping views to the South. If you go 2 storey you have even more options. Also try to avoid having long hallways for visitors to walk down before they reach your living room. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 5Jun 19, 2020 12:31 am . Follow my build: View topic - Dale Alcock - Custom 'Marlow' 2 Storey • Home Renovation & Building Forum (homeone.com.au) Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 6Jun 19, 2020 3:10 am Do you really need a garage there? I would probably sacrifice it in your particular case or at least turn into single car (I don't know how you are allowed to have double garage on such narrow a block anyway). If you make it single or remove, you will be getting a lot of natural light into your family room from its northern window + passive heating during winter if you don't cover alfresco with roof. But your dining and kitchen will certainly require roof sunlights, plus you might consider adding couple of east facing windows there. You might need to consider windows to your powder, ensuite, bath, laundry, garage too. Add sunlights to you corridor, otherwise it will be very dark. Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 7Jun 19, 2020 4:24 am alexp79 Do you really need a garage there? I would probably sacrifice it in your particular case or at least turn into single car (I don't know how you are allowed to have double garage on such narrow a block anyway). If you make it single or remove, you will be getting a lot of natural light into your family room from its northern window + passive heating during winter if you don't cover alfresco with roof. But your dining and kitchen will certainly require roof sunlights, plus you might consider adding couple of east facing windows there. You might need to consider windows to your powder, ensuite, bath, laundry, garage too. Add sunlights to you corridor, otherwise it will be very dark. I think double garage is fine. If anything it can be used as extra storage space. Can’t put windows east because that’s a boundary wall. If you really wanted more natural light into your living areas, an easy fix would be to add a highlight window on your west wall above The living area. That would minimise the heat in summer coming in as the eaves would protect it as well. See pic below. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 8Jun 19, 2020 9:57 am I certainly wouldn't be adding a fairly large western window to the living area. Eaves are pretty ineffective in this direction, as the sun is lower in the sky. A highlight window will be somewhat protected, but would still get far too much afternoon summer sun for my liking. Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 9Jun 19, 2020 10:13 am OP, is that a covered alfresco, or uncovered? In any case that small open area to the north of the living areas is too small to get winter sunlight into these rooms. As they'll be overshadowed by the garage. So that small courtyard needs to be bigger. You could do this by moving the powder room to the north of the living area, pushing the living area further south. But this will result in the loss of the small courtyard to the north of bed 3, reducing its window width. The other option is changing the roof design. Keeping the garage as flat as possible, to reduce overshadowing. Adding a skillion above the living areas, with cathedral ceilings & north facing clerestory (highlight) windows. This will be your best chance of getting northern light & winter sunshine into your living areas. But it probably won't be a cheap option. Still I think getting the passive design right is critical for comfort & low energy use. https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design In any case I really think that roof needs a redesign. All homes nowadays should be built with solar PV panels in mind. Your home should have great roof areas for western & eastern solar panels (as long as they're not overshadowed by 2 storey neighbours). But typical of the poor Aussie building industry, it looks like no thought has been put into this area whatsoever. So instead you end up with a hip & valley roof, with millions of little triangles. Would be a nightmare to install solar, & would look like a dog's breakfast. Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 10Jun 19, 2020 10:43 am If you can't have windows on the east and west, I would say maximise use of roof sky lights where possible, but make sure they are double glazed to prevent excessive heat. I think no matter how high the garage is, it will still be overshadowing your family area most of the day. Even if your ceilings are 3.2 m and with highlight windows and garage is only 2.7 m with flat roof, this won't be helping really much as most of your family room is still "south" in relation to the garage. IMHO double story house of similar size but with smaller perimeter footprint would certainly work much better in your situation, I would be strongly considering this option if I was you. Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 11Jun 19, 2020 11:51 am If you remove the His walk in robe, you could reconfigure into the powder room with cavity sliding door. You wouldn't need a basin in the powder room as it is much closer to the main bathroom. Stretch the Hers walk in robe by about 30cm and you could add extra space in there. In your walk in robe, you could add narrow shelves on the back of the powder room, so there is somewhere to put your bags, shoes or whatever. And, add a cavity slider between the master bedroom and the walk in robe. You would have a much larger space in the kitchen/ dining/ family and would have room to either add a study nook or just have extra space. This would then move the kitchen towards the front of the house and allow extra light to come in from the hallway window. I have played with your plan and attached. I would also add a high window into the family room and skylights throughout. You will probably end up with highsets on either side so the skylights will definitely be a benefit. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 12Jun 19, 2020 3:05 pm You can fiddle with the details, but it won't make this design more livable in my opinion. It's a poorly designed space with unfurnishable living areas and no light. There are better 7.5m block designs out there so shop around. The block is too nice to waste on a design like this. Re: Narrow Block - 7.5m Frontage - Hammond Park WA 14Jun 19, 2020 6:19 pm Unfortunately with a cottage block of this size, that has the garage to the north and the views to the south there are going to be compromises. It's really up to Sal_sa_by to decide what is important and then rank them from not negotiable to less important so she can work out where the comprises will be made. Some of the things I can see that need to be decided. Double or single garage. Garage attached or separate. Living rooms taking northern light or southern views. Bedrooms all together or split. Laundry with direct access to outside or walk through house. Courtyards that access front or back or are built in. Total budget. Zoning (total allowed site cover) All those things will have a massive bearing on the final design and each thing may be more or less important to her. To give advice without knowing them is a bit futile. The design she has had prepared has compromises but so will every plan that can be built on that block. Those compromises may be quite acceptable for her, and there are several things to like about the plan. Any good designer should have explained some of those compromises with her and got an idea of what is and isn't important so she can get as close as possible to her dream home on that lot. Accessible Carpentry & Cabinets accessiblecarpentry@gmail.com accessiblecarpentry.com.au https://www.facebook.com/pages/Accessible-Carpentry-Cabinets/583314911709039 4 4796 dimensions on your original plan are inconsistent and with accurate dimensions (including site plan, upstairs and down) i could make a proper scale drawing with furniture… 3 8060 Yes, Im following your Lindfield build, looks amazing. 4 2687 |