After the selection of our architect, Duncan Firth from Solarei, I supplied him with the following information to start the discussion about what we’d like to achieve with and envision for the house:
- All the information we had on our section i.e. title, easements, convenants, geotech reports, information on stormwater lines
- A presentation with inspirational pictures of homes, design styles and interiors. See blog
- A document with our sustainability goals. See blog
- A document with the specification of our section, our requirements and wish list for lay-outs, functionality and design style and possible dilemmas for the design. See below.
Here is our modest, short list of our requirements 🙂 :
Our Pahi brief & requirements list
“A small affordable, comfortable, sustainable, contemporary home with a less is more design attitude built with quality materials that inspire a sense of place and change in building methodologies, a lot of natural light, unobstructed broad views and a great outdoor area.”
Budget:
- $ NZ 300,000.- (€ 190,000.-) for about 70-80 m²
Specs of site:
- 12 Emay Crescent, Pahi, Northland
- Size: 2000 m². Width 33m x 60m deep on steep hill with Western view
- Electricity and phone cable at site
- No water or sewage connection
- Public driveway to site
Design dilemmas:
- Preferred easy access 1 level building versus 2 levels with more rooms with views and less footprint
- Design for passive solar gain to North versus design for privacy and views West
- Parking/carport/garage out of sight close to home on a steep plot
- Close connection of house to land versus minimal impact and excavation of site
- Preferred open pitched angle of roof to West difficult with overheating in summer and solar panels/heater
- Need for sheltered terrace that doesn’t feel like it is at the back of the house
Sustainability goals:
- See our separate blog with 10 goals and sub criteria
- Summarized the most important ones are:
- “Let your house work for you”. Low operational cost, low environmental impact, affordable
- “Begin with the end in mind”. Design for disassembly, reuse and end of life value.
- “Inspire change” in sustainable, quality and affordable home building
House requirements list interior:
Design:
- Quality
- Lots of light in living spaces, day-light in every room, especially bathroom
- Big full height glass windows for view, unobstructed full broad view (straight line)
- Less is more, simplicity in design but not ordinary
- Modern yet warm feel (not the industrial cold look)
- Outside area important aspect of the house
Must have’s inside:
- Good indoor climate
- Natural ventilation
Layout:
- Open floor plan
- 3 (small) bedrooms (or 2 in house and one in sleepout shed or loft in house)
- Semi separable small office/desk, preferably attached to living room and with a view
- Seamless connection between inside and outside flooring, good indoor outdoor flow
- Practical use of indoor space, all space used
- Fire place / wood stove
- Clever storage space
- Storage general, food, vacuum cleaner, cleaning stuff, dry rack , bags
- Space for washing machine
- Space for climate installations etc.
Wish list inside:
- Kitchen bench or cooking in direction of view
- Everything easy accessible, compact
- Full height doors and windows
- Separate bath and shower in bathroom
- Shower with a view
- Smart monitoring and operation (keys, lights , energy)
- Is bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside
House requirements list exterior/outdoor:
Design
- Low maintenance
- Low material impact
- Shed or flat roof (or at least no gable roof)
- Leaning towards dark vertical wood panels, warm look
- Possibly corten steel, tiles, stones or small part concrete
- To be decided
Must Haves Outside:
- Privacy from neighbouring plot
- Space for 2 cars,
- Deck/outside area important feature of the house
- Endless deck where view is from house
- Sheltered terrace from Southern winds in winter and Western uphill winds
- Partly covered terrace with views in summer
- Space for BBQ
- Not child unfriendly
- Good use of plot area
Wish list
- Integrated into land, easy access or good connection to land
- Watertank out of sight
- Outdoor shower
- Parking/Garage/carport out of sight
- Garage/carport
- Workshop area
- Space to store boat / or more cars
- Storage outdoor gear and tools (canoes and other stuff)
- Space for extra fridge and/or freezer
- Flat area where kids can play outside (grass patch or part of deck, mini playground children)
- Flexibility for change in function or expansion (eg bathroom, work/bed, extra space or room)
- Possibility to walk around house
Soon we will find out how much of the must-haves and wish list is really achievable.
After the first brief we had some more homework to do: order a LIM (Land Information Memorandum) report and get a survey done on the section to map all the altitudes and boundaries of our steep site.
Margriet Geesink