Useful and safer home design detail techniques are big deals to Before The Architect and its clients
This is a case study of both useful and safer home design based on our actual experience just last week where a series of changes to a building plan set altered the functionality of one detail – part of a Breakfast Room design
The home design techniques arise from working knowledge of home design and home construction with practice, practice, practice at the granite knee of life experience
CASE STUDY
The plan set was finished and approved through three levels of authorities having jurisdiction, with Right Of House elevation in part looking like this
Approved Right Of House, Partial in Elevation
Centered is an exterior door to Breakfast flanked by fixed panels
Noteworthy, the interior floor is to be about 1 linear foot over finish grade – two easy steps.
Then the lift from finish grade changed
Add about 3 feet for an unvented crawlspace with prior approval
Add 2 linear feet (preliminarily) following what AG got was the need to leave a 2 linear foot diameter black something or other tree where it had grown and not where it made it to the topo, thereby shifting the whole house footprint a little…enough
Add 6 linear feet to make new best use – least grading – of the overall site, given
AG’s increasing doubts
About the topo
Contractor’s second thought about the consequences of moving to miss the tree, and
(only hope against hope) The contractor’s new appreciation in including a landscape architect earlier in the next build
Total height of L1 over finish grade is now 1 linear foot (planned) + 11 linear feet (unplanned) = 12 linear feet
There goes the need for door and step (and wall hung exterior luminaires)
The plan view on the interior side of the going-going-gone doors looked like this
Breakfast Room Design Approved, in Plan View
Before The Architect was asked what design in the Breakfast Room area would be best now that the side door was to be abandoned –
Possibly a banquette design below new windows?
Possibly three fixed panels 8 linear feet tall?
Before The Architect recommended
Windows
In lieu of door
Same style as predominates
Same header height as all round
6 linear inch mullions
Sized to permit the average dining table to abut wall below without obstructing view – resolved at 33 ¾" above floor level to window sill plates at top of face
Breakfast Room Design Revised, Partial in Plan View
Question: Why?
Answer: Safety and Convenience. Slam-dunk.
Furniture arrangement flexibility of this application over banquette or banquette-like feature
As recommended, the breakfast table has three positions for residents’ convenience
Abutting the wall for sitting up to 4
Set 3’-6" from wall for sitting up to 6, without easy access behind the narrow-aisled sitters with their backs to the windows
Set 5’-6" from wall for sitting up to six, with clearance all around the table for service
Avoid the struggle some may have, given the site’s demographics as high-end retirement community, in seating and unseating at a banquette or banquette-like feature
Avoid the consequences of having to remove a banquette if unwanted immediately or subsequently, knowing some do not like such a feature at all
The full-sized door panels fixed across all three pieces presented a potential, physical hazard to mistake likely the center panel for a door not devoutly to be wished
Diminish the occasion of extraordinary UV and heat-build (noted already in the Daylighting Schedule
The deal was double-sealed when the numbers turned that
The framing had not been done for the wall section in focus, so didn’t need to be redone
Though the door glass had been ordered still more than half would be used for the windows in lieu, the door frames were from stock, and deleting two pricey, pricey, exterior luminaires tallied up bucks to the owners’ favor
The new exterior was redrawn like this and everybody won
Breakfast Room Design Revised, Partial in Elevation
Before The Architect designs and drafts custom home plans nationwide. Its principals Ralph and Jean Pressel have worked hands-on together since the ‘60s in custom home design, drafting, consulting, plus building and repair in every major trade.Their plan sets are extraordinarily detailed; their clients' active involvement throughout is essential.
Home Design Standards - Home Building Standards 4Q08 Edition e-book at 823 pages and the website www.beforethearchitect.com at nearly 1000 pages of text and illustrations are enterprises of Before The Architect’s principals.
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