CAD floor plans

Concept Floor Plans

Here are the floor plans as they stand today.  It is a very tight house - everything we need, nothing we don't. The flow through the house has been careful considered to how we actually live our lives.

This is not my house plan!

Thankfully I have the opportunity to design my own house, and if i wasn't an architect i would have probably picked a stock plan like this one.  I came accross this plan on one of those internet sites where you can give them your credit card and get plans for your site with a click of the button.  Us design types tend to stick our finger down our throats about spec house designs as they ignore the most important design feature (the site) - but i was surprised how this stock plan is very close to my programatic layout i am envisioning for the first floor (Except for the orientation of the garage, the front porch, and i would stick the office where the dining room is shown) - but my contractor can easily make those changes for me, right? :)

Concept Site Plan

Interactive Google Map of site

Site Orientation

Orientation is everything on siting a house to maximize energy efficiency.  The beauty of this site is that the view opens up to the south, exactly how the house wants to open up for maximized southern exposure.  The sun is direct from the south, and easiest to control from this orientation as its variation is primarily on the vertical axis.  Eastern and western exposures are much harder to control as the sun is moving wildly in these exposures during the day and across the seasons.  The maximized southern exposure should provide ample opportunity to heat up the thermal mass of my basement walls, helping to keep the house warm in the winter.  Additionally, i have a close neighbor to the east, and for privacy would rather not be very exposed in this direction.

Design Precedent

"Precedent" is simply a design term used by architects to describe a project example in the past that has influence over your design solution.  My main precedent takes me back to my days in architecture school.  The first model I ever built was of the Chamberlain Cottage, designed by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer in Wayland, MA in 1940.  I built the model base our of hydrocal plaster, and the wood cottage out of basswood.  The project is a hauntingly simple wood box, sitting (and cantilivered at one end) on top of a solid masonry base.  I have always been compelled by the visually ligthness of the wood box floating on top of the visual weight and solidity of the base.  The site of the Chamberlain Cottage is sloping to an exterior view, similar to mine.  Here are some photos of my model (that is now 20 years old), as well as some images of the Chamberlain Cottage.