Great that you're thinking of passive solar in a duplex development!
I've had a look, but unfortunately I really can't think of anything that'd help the ground floor; normally I'd suggest a courtyard or similar, but it doesn't look like there's the necessary space available. Unit 2 is definitely going to be the nicer one to live in.
My only concrete suggestion would be to make the Unit 1 master(? - the westerly one on the upper floor) an exact mirror of Unit 2 - it'd be much better making the bedroom window face south instead of west..
Hello there,
Just wanting an opinion on our custom floor plan. Ive attemped to load the image. Rear access was a must for us which was a bit challenging as block is just over 15m wide. Hope it works thanks.
Hello there,
Just wanting an opinion on our custom floor plan. Ive attemped to load the image. Rear access was a must for us which was a bit challenging as block is just over 15m wide. Hope it works thanks.
Hi Adelaide88, not sure if I just can’t see it on the plan, which way is north?
Hi there north is facing toward the garage/ dining/rumpus side if that makes sense haha.
Looks pretty good but that pantry could probably be moved closer to the kitchen for a better flow...something along these lines...if you wanted it closer that is
It would also allow either the garage or laundry to come in to the hallway. If the garage door opened onto hall (you’d need to shuffle store and study down a tiny bit) you would be able to fit more storage in laundry, or move it down and increase the side access width, but I see the value of entering through the laundry too.
Adelaide88, have you heard about passive solar design, which will make your home more comfortable year round & reduce energy bills. Read more about it here,
http://yourhome.gov.au/passive-designYour living areas face the north, which is a very good idea. However I think you could add another northern window, which will make your house lighter, & warmer in winter. So I'd add a northern window in the rumpus. Appropriate length eaves will shade your northern windows in summer, while letting in winter sunlight. These are very important! How big are your northern eaves? They look a little small. My guess is they should be between 600mm & 900mm or Adelaide, but that's a bit of a guess. I'd definitely recommend finding out.
The large eastern alfresco will help shade the home from morning sun in summer, which is good. The only real problem are the western windows in the lounge and study. This will make it hot in summer afternoons. Low-e glass on these windows would be a good idea, along with vertical awnings, or large trees to shade these windows.
As the garage faces west, I'd also recommend a light coloured garage door, to reflect sunlight, keeping your garage, & house cooler. An insulated garage door would also be a good option.
Designing your northern roof to accommodate solar PV is also a very good idea.
Hi everyone
I know this isn't full plan but the contributors to this thread are very knowledgable and have great ideas so posting here, thanks for understanding!
We are at planning/design stages for a KDR in Sydney. The final piece of the puzzle for us is the layout of our (downstairs) powder room, see below. We are definitely not loving the enormous shower width (waste of space) and the general layout overall. It’s a pretty generic/standard size (2.1m x 2.6m) but we just can’t figure it out ourselves, and were wondering if anyone out there could offer any suggestions?
As this is the only bathroom/toilet downstairs we think it will be used very frequently; however the usage would be mostly for toilet & handwashing (several times per day), and much less frequently for the shower (probably only in summertime after swimming). If the layout was more efficient, we might be able to reallocate some space back to the study, potentially for a bookshelf, cupboard, etc.
Our first thought was to shift the door to the edge near the laundry, have the vanity face the door with a much smaller shower, and then rotate the toilet to ‘face’ the shower, but this still doesn’t feel like the right answer.
The only non negotiable is the toilet needs to be mostly hidden from outside view!
Any ideas? Thanks!
jsmi, could you leave everything as is except reduce the length of the shower, and use that space for a bookshelf in the study?
Or could you reduce length of vanity (maybe just have one of those mini sinks if it’s mainly for washing hands), place toilet between vanity and shower, reduce length of shower. Then you could shift the whole wall between pdr and study further into pdr. I think you may see the toilet though. Might have to fiddle with measurements to get the shower door to open, or maybe if the shower is really not going to be used much you could make it a wet room (ie no enclosure). If you have a wet room, you could maybe build a nib wall between vanity and toilet to hide the toilet from outside view.