Browse Forums Building A New House Re: New Build - Floor Plan Feedback 4Oct 26, 2014 10:19 pm Timeline Aug 08-Land Mar 09-Demo/Titles Sept 10-Handover No1 Sept 11-Handover No2 April 12-Sold No2 Aug 14-Land/Demo Jan 15-Slabs viewtopic.php?f=31&t=25736 Re: New Build - Floor Plan Feedback 9Nov 01, 2014 11:04 am ddarroch Good on you for taking all this into consideration, many people don't. Even going as far as checking shadows on Near Maps, very good! A few thoughts. Many of these haven't been well thought through, & won't exactly work (eg. won't fit in the required area), but I'll just throw some ideas out there, a bit of brainstorming never hurt Looking at the Near Maps image, it may be line-ball, but those shadows may not be too bad. Looks like the picture was taken a little bit before noon, so the shadows will be slightly shorter at solar noon. For Perth, at the winter solstice the sun will peak at 34.5° above the horizon. At that angle a 1m shadow on the ground will shade only 68cm up a wall, using tan (34.5°), so the shadows may not reach the height of the windows. Of course, that's at the suns peak, so the shadows will be longer at other times in the day. You could build a different roof style, incorporating north facing clerestory windows. These high windows will be less effected by shading. Whether it's a simple single sloped skillion with a taller northern wall than southern wall, or a double skillion, with north facing clerestories running down the centre of the house (over the kitchen/living area). Unfortunately, it's not just the shading issues, you're also going to be looking straight at that big green shed from your living areas, & any additional screening will exacerbate the shading issues. At least with clerestory windows you would be looking at the bright blue sky, not just the shed. Disadvantages may be a more costly build, & the fact that cathedral ceilings have no roof space, so must be very well insulated. As bluesteel says, the alfresco takes up a fair chunk of your northern aspect. You could try the SE corner. Would you use the alfresco if it was in the SE corner? It would be cold in winter, but cool & well shaded on summer afternoons, though I guess you'll miss the Freemantle Doctor there. If you did move the alfreso you could move the living to the NE corner. Now what to put where the living was? A bedroom, nah too close to living areas. Kitchen maybe? Audio visual (would have a window facing E, into new alfresco). If not the living to the NE corner, maybe the master, nah, again, too close to loving areas. Maybe Audio visual to the NE corner? It is all pretty tight, hard to move rooms around. As Echo says, you could try having the garage in the NW corner, so that you drive straight in to the garage. This means there would be less area used by the driveway, which could be used elsewhere. However, as the garage would project further to the N than the rest of the house, it would shade your living areas in the afternoon, not great for winter. As AussieMark says you could get a bit more northern aspect to the living areas by moving the garage to the W, utilising that 2.6m down the side of the block. Another way to sneak a little bit of N aspect would be to move the store to the southern side of the garage. The master wouldn't fit in it's current location, you could move the audio visual there, followed by minor bedrooms. Do you want the master in the SW corner anyway, won't it be too hot there, although maybe the Freemantle Doctor (from the SW) may reduce to problem? If you move the audio visual & minor beds to the W the master could go in the SE corner, which I'm guessing is a better location. Just throwing a few thought bubbles out there. I'm sure they don't all work, but will give you extra ideas to think about. Good luck. Hi ddarroch, Sorry for the late reply; I've been away. I studied residential drafting many moons ago and northern facing living areas and winter sun are the main things I remember Thanks so much for your detailed response! I will talk your ideas over with the hubby and play around with the plan... It will keep us busy for a while. 6 55177 Hi there! Absolutely agree on the wasted space. We have no desire for the master to be that oversized, but it occurred when we increased the depth of the garage. We have… 4 12391 i thought the flipped plan initially but bec i want narrow pathway from entry to dining (dont like bend), also cannot fit the… 7 17172 |