The wheels are in motion

Figure 7a. A rough representation of how the proposed house will sit on our land.

It was almost a year ago that we found a piece of land we liked and we initiated the process of acquiring it. We also started conversations with a selected group of Minergie-specialist builders in parallel. Back in those early days we were pretty sure that we would have one of these companies design and build our home. Their publicity materials assured us that they specialize in individual solutions and the combination of that with (i) the fixed-price guarantee they can offer and (ii) the good reputation for quality they enjoy is what interested us. As our discussions continued and we visited a number of houses they had built we realized that our individual solution would cost no less than what we could expect if we worked with an architect, with possibly a rather constrained design palette. We simply saw no examples that assured us that they would really build us something special. There was no doubt that they would build us a good, solid house, it was just that we were not convinced of their willingness to push the design envelope for us.

Figure 7b. The east elevation of our proposed house. Note how the land slopes off and the rear of the lower level is underground. The rectangular opening on the side is to the carport which is integrated into the building.

In the meantime I had compiled a short list of local architects based on examples of their work that I found either in magazines or through web searches[1] or actual houses I saw around our area. It was during this time that I decided that the websites of many architects left much to be desired[2]. In many cases the navigation is too cumbersome, the images miniscule or embedded in some fancy but slow-as-molasses display presentation, the information hardly useful. But there was one that stuck out for me. Both in the accessibility of the website and the aesthetics of the houses, especially the interiors.

Figure 7c. The north elevation. This is the side at street level. It looks a little menacing with the slits for windows. I'll say it: almost bunker-like. From the energy-loss point of view though, the north side (at these latitudes) is the worst and it makes sense to minimize glazing here. It's all made up for on the south side.

So one day at the beginning of last summer I plucked up my courage and popped into the office to make an appointment with said architect. Initially we had thought that we would want to talk with at least two architectural firms but we soon decided that we felt confident that this group would build us something lovely. So here we are now.

Figure 7d. West elevation. The door opens out from the kitchen. This side borders a public path connecting the two streets that can be seen on the map view so we'll have to have some sort of structure to provide privacy.

One of the wishes we conveyed to the architect was that we didn't want a "box". Boxes are very popular here right now, and it is true that they are more energetically favorable because the surface-area-to-volume ratio is lower than say, something enlongated. But, that's not the way we wanted to go. Actually, after our initial meeting where we set down our wants and desires and budget we were actually presented with not one but TWO very different plans. This was a very pleasant surprise. The version we decided against was also very interesting. It was more compact – it would probably have had better energy performance – and we felt it didn't make the most of the southern exposure of the land that we had. It also had a more complicated sunken-courtyard thing going on which was rather cool but we decided the simpler design would work better for us.

Figure 7e. The very important south elevation. This is where most of the solar gain will be made hence the plethora of windows. Here you can see the terraced garden on the left. The rest of the land we envision as a wildflower meadow, much as it has been until now.

It seems that issues of accessibility (as in this definition on Wikipedia) are on the minds of many people right now. It wasn't so different for us. We wanted a house where it would be possible to live on one level if necessary. So the upper floor at street level had to include a bedroom and a full bathroom.

Figure 7f. The upper-level floor plan.

A few words about the upper-level. The entrance hallway (A) can be closed off in the winter to reduce the infiltration of cold air. There's a built-in coat closet (B) with a glass inset on the stairwell side to let in light. The stairwell (C) is illuminated by a skylight. I haven't done the calculations yet (it's on my long to-do list) but my gut feeling is that a skylight provides more light per unit of heat lost through it than a similarly sized north-facing window[3]. The labels BF (Bodenfläche) and FF (Fensterfläche) refer to the areas of the floor surfaces and the window surfaces, respectively, in each room. There's a minimum ratio of 8:1 that is mandated for rooms in which people "live". As we have no real basement nor attic nor garage, we don't have many areas in which to accumulate stuff. There's a generous storage room (D) on this level which in combination with all the built-in wardrobes we have planned should cover all our storage needs and then some.

The division of the interior space was partly driven by my insistence on good natural light in all rooms, including bathrooms. Light shafts are frequently used to bring light into basement-type areas but I'm not a fan. This meant that on the lower level all the rooms had to be arranged on the south wall because all other sides lie underground, so to speak.

Figure 7g. The lower level.

The "technical" room is where the heating system, water boiler, air handling device etc will be located. It will be unheated and will lie outside the insulated hull of the house. Actually, the same is (obviously) true of the carport just above it.

---

[1] Many of the architects are listed through this website: www.swiss-architects.com

[2] I'm not alone in this. See this Guardian blog post from January of 2008: Why are architects' websites so badly designed?

[3] If you know I'm wrong, please explain why.