The house project: the required space and the partitioning

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The house project: the required space and the partitioning

Before you call for the services of an architect for realizing the project for the house, it is good to put a little order in the ideas and outline a little the form and the compartmentalization of the future house to have a starting point in discussions with the architect.

What you should consider, going over the financial side (here I am talking only about the house building project, not also about the yard utilities):

– The size and shape of the land and the restrictions imposed by the CU or other restrictions (withdrawal from the border, height limits, etc.). For example, I know, by law is required a withdrawal of 0.9m in case of windowless walls and 1,9m in case of walls with windows.

– The orientation towards the cardinal points. I personally recommend that the location of the rooms where you will spend the most time not to be to the North side. To the North the staircase can be placed, bathroom, pantry, utility room, garage, dressing.

–Number of family members and their age. If you have small children, for example, you will have to arrange for a larger space for the kitchen or fora dining room. If you have helpless parents, you will have to think about the location of a bedroom downstairs. Also related to these conditions you will have to increase the number of bathrooms.

– The family lifestyle. If you are the type of family spends its days together in the living room, so the living room should be a little larger. If you have a job that forces you to work (and) home, you will have to provision also a home office. If you have a special hobby (moulding, carpentry, carving, etc.) certainly you will need a workshop.

– Destination of the house.If it is a holiday house or with seasonal use (for example to live here during the summer holidays of the children) I say that there is no point for investing in a too big house, like in the case of the vacation houses. Clearly, in these circumstances, a long part of the day will be spent outside in the yard. If it is a case that it exists any perspective that over the years it will become a permanent house, you can think also to the variant in which you can make the project of the house smaller but with a resistance structure that allows potential extensions.

– The presence of utilities. I refer here particularly to the case of heating the house. If you have a central that works on wood or pellets, you will have to foresee a technical room big enough. For the case of heating with wood you will need also a shed, built of wood, as an annex attached to the house.

Some tips for outlining of the house plan

These tips are a guide, not an impulse to follow them scrupulously and I put them here just to have a starting point.

–The size and number of rooms. I do not recommend large bedrooms. For the house you as may well predict a dressing room for storing clothes and bedclothes, thus avoiding a lot of bodies of furniture in the rooms, so you will have airy rooms and easy to maintain. In addition, the dressing can be provided with permanent airing, your clothes will not get the smell of “stale”. One bedroom with surfaces between 11 and 16mp is sufficient in most cases.

– Appropriately size the utility room, depending on the solution used for heating and other functions / equipment. I said above about the wood central. But in the utility room you can put also a washing machine, a cooler or a freezer that you rarely access. In some cases you can put here some cabinets for tools or other things needful for the house. That is not to spoil the look of the other rooms. For a room that holds a wood central, I consider that a minimum of 6-7mp surface is necessary.

It is difficult to make a recommendation for sizing the kitchen. This depends very much on the lifestyle, family members, the appliances that you will have here and their level of use: dish washing machine, washing machine, gas / electric oven, microwave, cooker, fridge, freezer, bread slicing machine, espresso coffee machine, etc. If some of them you will use often is better to think about their placement in a permanent place to stay. For example, if you frequently use the bread machine or the juicer fruit machine when you have small children.

Do not make huge living rooms. A surface of more than 30-35mp for a family with two small children is enough. It is our opinion.

For a bathroom with bath tub: 6mp minimum, maximum of 8-9mp.

For bathroom with shower tub: 3mp minimum, maximum of 6mp.

I think that the minimum number of rooms required for a single-family house is: one living room + one kitchen + 2 bathrooms + one utility room + one dressing room + parent’s bedroom + rooms x(number of children) + stairwell (for the house with floor).

Additionally, if it is necessary, room for grandparents, office, warehouse, workshop, another bathroom if we live with grandparents or with more children. I believe that a dining room is unnecessary. Eventually a corner arranged near a smaller kitchen.

– The garage. I believe that in most cases, building a built garage is a useless investment. The car is made to stand out and a cover is much more suitable and sometimes with a greater utility than the garage. If you will build garage, the ideal would be to place the garage to the North, providing in this way an extra insulation.

– The balconies. I am the supporter of one common balcony with the access from the hallway, where there is no living room upstairs. Most people that I know do not currently use the balcony just to clean or put the bedclothes for airing. In addition, the presence of the attached balcony to the room leads either to decrease of the thermal efficiency or to increase the construction costs.

Of course, there are situations where it is even necessary to have a balcony with an exit from the room, but these situations are rare.

– The staircase. I think the best form of the staircase is that one with resting place, if the space allows. If not, balanced stairs. A width for the step of 80cm-100cm. I recommend that location to be made to the North. Depending on the situation and claims, the staircase takes a large area, up to 7mp / level, maybe more.

– Common kitchen and living room/ non-divided. A problem that arises quite a lot of dispute and controversy. I have read also on internet, especially on forums of housewives and the opinions are divided. Depending on how long and what each one cooks. The fact is that if you cook daily, the smell will dissipate despite on the hoods performance that exist now on the market. If you want common area of living room and kitchen you have to think even about a solution of temporary separation, by sliding doors. In any case I do not recommend the open kitchen to the hallway and the stairwell.

In addition, think about the noise. You have children and during the lunch time sleep, you want to make certain meals where you are forced to use kitchen power tools (food processor, blender, juicer, etc.). Or maybe the husband comes home after the night shift and he will have to sleep.

The “open space” kitchens are not for the most families from us. As someone said, there are for those families where they use more processed foods or where they eat at restaurant or where they do not cook at all.

General recommendations and comments on the placement of rooms

– Place the rooms that do not require heating to the level of a living space to the more shaded land (North, in general). This kind of rooms: the utility room / central, garage, stairwell, lumber room, dressing room, possible the bathroom (being smaller).

– The baths, kitchen and the utility room should be adjacent to optimize the routes of installations, especially of the columns.

– Place the external doors so as to be protected from wind, rain, snow. The most commonly used entry may be through a small separating hallway (vestibule)

– Place the kitchen near the living room

– If you have terrace is good for it to be common also with the living room and the kitchen, especially in intensive use

– The utility room / central room is positioned so that the access can be made from both the interior and the exterior of the house, especially for the wood and pellet centrals without paddock.

– If you have young children place the kitchen and the living room so that you have view to the playground from the yard.

– Although there are solutions for sound insulation it would be good that the bathrooms not to be wall to wall with the rooms where you sleep in.

I must say that both here and in the future articles, I put in discussion the case of a “normal” house without extravagances, without special requirements.

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