Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 11, 2021 8:34 am How has this pandemic influenced your floorplan? As we both work from home now and likely for the foreseeable future, we're realising our own home office space each is important. And away from the commotion of the remainder of the home. You always see a 4 bedroom + study as a standard floorplan. What about 2 studies? We have a modest budget but this aspect is important to us, what is the smallest possible study room dimension that you think would be comfortable? And is having 2 studies over the top? Not wanting it to look like a 6 bedroom home because that is blowing the budget. What other features are you finding important for a growing family spending more time at home? Realising this pandemic won't last forever (?!) but it is making me view the home space in different ways. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 5Sep 12, 2021 1:52 pm When we designed our home it was looking like everyone would be returning to work....ha. So I didn't push hard for an extra study but I so wish I did now. Build what you want to build and can afford. If your gut tells you to build two small studies, go for it. If you are worried about selling or modifying later I would say with that size of house you could turn one study into a walk-in linen or storage and it would still be awesome. As to size...It depends on if you have a window, how high the ceiling is and what your day to day tasks are. Also, if you have to have the door shut for long periods of time and what sort of ventilation you might have. Countrybuilds Victoria Re: Pandemic influencing home design 6Sep 13, 2021 9:03 am We need 3 bedrooms. We're looking at building 5 - 1 downstairs and 4 upstairs. Without the pandemic, it would have been 3 upstairs only. The 2 extra bedrooms will be studies in the medium term, as we're both going to be working from home for a while. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 7Sep 13, 2021 9:07 am strannik Plans - no. Location - yes. Given that australia isn't going back to the offices even after pandemic is over, the transport to cbd is less important. the longevity of this remains to be seen. Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 8Sep 13, 2021 10:03 am Noname strannik Plans - no. Location - yes. Given that australia isn't going back to the offices even after pandemic is over, the transport to cbd is less important. the longevity of this remains to be seen. there's no leverage employers can pull to get people back into the office. we've mostly avoided lock downs up here for the past year, with all offices open. yet the only people that come to the office are the ones that prefer to work from the office due to distractions at home, or those that want to catch up for beers. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 9Sep 13, 2021 10:18 am strannik Noname strannik Plans - no. Location - yes. Given that australia isn't going back to the offices even after pandemic is over, the transport to cbd is less important. the longevity of this remains to be seen. there's no leverage employers can pull to get people back into the office. we've mostly avoided lock downs up here for the past year, with all offices open. yet the only people that come to the office are the ones that prefer to work from the office due to distractions at home, or those that want to catch up for beers. haha yes there is. unless you have flexibility and work from home written into your contracts, employers can 100% most definitely require you to be at the office if that's what they want post pandemic. The leverage is that your employers can require you to be present to perform the role and can come up with several metric to justify this (such as not being able to remotely measure your productivity). You can argue it, at a cost to you, while likley ruining relations with your employer in the process for the sole benefit of "being right". Is that a workplace you want to wok in? Chances are, no. SO you'll either go to the office. Find a new job, or burn bridges. But there will always be offices that are not flexible in that regard, and will be going back to normal as soon as possible. Similarly we may find that the whole WFH thing doesn't work as great in a post pandemic world (like the whole hot deskin craze failed over time). That said, i hope i can work from home forever, but realistically that is a pipe dream. Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 10Sep 13, 2021 10:21 am Also expect some of this tom foolery for a post pandemic WFH scenario. Guess what the leverage is? Money. https://www.reuters.com/world/the-great ... 021-08-10/ Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 11Sep 13, 2021 10:29 am Noname haha yes there is. unless you have flexibility and work from home written into your contracts, employers can 100% most definitely require you to be at the office if that's what they want post pandemic. The leverage is that your employers can require you to be present to perform the role and can come up with several metric to justify this (such as not being able to remotely measure your productivity). You can argue it, at a cost to you, while likley ruining relations with your employer in the process for the sole benefit of "being right". Is that a workplace you want to wok in? Chances are, no. SO you'll either go to the office. Find a new job, or burn bridges. But there will always be offices that are not flexible in that regard, and will be going back to normal as soon as possible. Similarly we may find that the whole WFH thing doesn't work as great in a post pandemic world (like the whole hot deskin craze failed over time). That said, i hope i can work from home forever, but realistically that is a pipe dream. that all sounds like too much effort. much easier to just find a better employer and submit your resignation letter. so in theory - yes, the employer can do all of those things you have mentioned. in practice it will cause the brain drain for their organisation, because good people that want flexibility will leave to greener pastures, and they will be left with the swamp of mediocrity. and most employers are smart enough to realise that. they are also smart enough to realise that providing that kind of flexibility opens up their prospective recruit pool to all of Australia, rather than the city where their office is. it's already evident in the job market (at least in my area) where employers don't care where you reside, they are more interested in attracting the right talent. of course there will always be regulatory requirements that stipulate people in certain roles have to work from a designated workplace and so on, but that's the minority of workforce. if the only tool that you require to do your job is a computer with internet, there's no business reason you couldn't do that job from anywhere in australia. anyway we digress... Re: Pandemic influencing home design 12Sep 13, 2021 10:36 am strannik Noname haha yes there is. unless you have flexibility and work from home written into your contracts, employers can 100% most definitely require you to be at the office if that's what they want post pandemic. The leverage is that your employers can require you to be present to perform the role and can come up with several metric to justify this (such as not being able to remotely measure your productivity). You can argue it, at a cost to you, while likley ruining relations with your employer in the process for the sole benefit of "being right". Is that a workplace you want to wok in? Chances are, no. SO you'll either go to the office. Find a new job, or burn bridges. But there will always be offices that are not flexible in that regard, and will be going back to normal as soon as possible. Similarly we may find that the whole WFH thing doesn't work as great in a post pandemic world (like the whole hot deskin craze failed over time). That said, i hope i can work from home forever, but realistically that is a pipe dream. that all sounds like too much effort. much easier to just find a better employer and submit your resignation letter. so in theory - yes, the employer can do all of those things you have mentioned. in practice it will cause the brain drain for their organisation, because good people that want flexibility will leave to greener pastures, and they will be left with the swamp of mediocrity. and most employers are smart enough to realise that. they are also smart enough to realise that providing that kind of flexibility opens up their prospective recruit pool to all of Australia, rather than the city where their office is. it's already evident in the job market (at least in my area) where employers don't care where you reside, they are more interested in attracting the right talent. of course there will always be regulatory requirements that stipulate people in certain roles have to work from a designated workplace and so on, but that's the minority of workforce. if the only tool that you require to do your job is a computer with internet, there's no business reason you couldn't do that job from anywhere in australia. anyway we digress... those jobs with the dream conditions aren't infinite . Everyone who doesnt get the flexibility would be in direct competition. At the moment the market is playing the whole "woke and flexible" card to attract talent because everyone else is (and many cases have to provide for during the pandemic) My argument is that making long term decisions on housing location, and potentially doing stuff like building your dream home regionally may not be the best long term decision because the future is definitely not clear. If say govts today mandated workplaces who showed their capacity to operate remotely in a pandemic to provide the same flexibiloity ost pandemic, that would be a different story. That would be a huge benefit to thousands of people and first home buyers. It would stimulate regional areas and boost local economies. But alas, no one has the crystal ball Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 13Sep 13, 2021 10:53 am it's already been happening pre-pandemic. pandemic just accelerated the whole thing by 10 years. the business would do it not because they want to be nice, but because it saves them costs and provides competitive advantage. the only people who want staff back in the offices are middle managers who are too lazy to asses their staff's performance, so they just stick to "attendance equals performance" and the owners of all the commercial buildings in CBD that sit empty and the shops getting all the foot traffic. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 14Sep 13, 2021 10:55 am If both adults are working from home, I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to have two study/home office areas. The size really depends what your job is required. For example, how big do you need your desk to be, do you need any book shelf etc. You can have a formal study around the size of 3x3m which is slightly smaller than a bedroom. This is quite standard for most floor plans these days like you said. An extra open space/room 3x2m with built-in desk bench and overhead shelf could work as well. If you have a two story house, most would have a rumpus upstairs. That can be converted into a study if distraction is not an issue. For my opinion from the pandemic, I think it's important to have ensuite to all the bedroom. This is what I am building at the moment. 4 bedroom, 4 ensuites, and a powder room for living area. I thought it would be easier for home quarantine from overseas travel? Who knows... Re: Pandemic influencing home design 15Sep 13, 2021 10:58 am Jason526 For my opinion from the pandemic, I think it's important to have ensuite to all the bedroom. This is what I am building at the moment. 4 bedroom, 4 ensuites, and a powder room for living area. I thought it would be easier for home quarantine from overseas travel? Who knows... probably wouldn't do much to prevent an infection tbh. But having an ensuite to all bedrooms is nice. Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 16Sep 13, 2021 11:03 am Noname Jason526 For my opinion from the pandemic, I think it's important to have ensuite to all the bedroom. This is what I am building at the moment. 4 bedroom, 4 ensuites, and a powder room for living area. I thought it would be easier for home quarantine from overseas travel? Who knows... probably wouldn't do much to prevent an infection tbh. But having an ensuite to all bedrooms is nice. Haha very true. That's probably how virus got out of hotel rooms so many times. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 17Sep 13, 2021 11:08 am Jason526 Noname Jason526 For my opinion from the pandemic, I think it's important to have ensuite to all the bedroom. This is what I am building at the moment. 4 bedroom, 4 ensuites, and a powder room for living area. I thought it would be easier for home quarantine from overseas travel? Who knows... probably wouldn't do much to prevent an infection tbh. But having an ensuite to all bedrooms is nice. Haha very true. That's probably how virus got out of hotel rooms so many times. yeah somewhat. Even assuming hotels have strict control and protocols in pace, they have the occasional leak. Your home wont have any strict controls, air filtration or family members walking around the house in PPE so it sort of pointelss to design around for infection control. Better to work on avoiding high risk exposure situations and hope for the best. Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Pandemic influencing home design 18Sep 13, 2021 12:21 pm Noname Jason526 Noname probably wouldn't do much to prevent an infection tbh. But having an ensuite to all bedrooms is nice. Haha very true. That's probably how virus got out of hotel rooms so many times. yeah somewhat. Even assuming hotels have strict control and protocols in pace, they have the occasional leak. Your home wont have any strict controls, air filtration or family members walking around the house in PPE so it sort of pointelss to design around for infection control. Better to work on avoiding high risk exposure situations and hope for the best. That's why I don't see how home quarantine would work without affecting other family members. One person returns from overseas and home quarantine, are other family members allowed out? Ensuite is the best setup I could think of for this situation. ideal house depends on the site and location as much as internal floor plan....what is the distance from the house to all four boundaries, where is north, describe your… 3 15142 Thank you so much for the effort. We will use it to talk with builder. We also had idea of building duplex instead and seeking suggest ions. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=106744 11 13817 |