This is Day 177 of the Slow Home Project and we need you to join us in our quest to evaluate the design quality of houses in nine North American cities in nine months.
Bathroom design in townhouse projects is the subject of our “In Detail” episode today. All of our examples have been taken from the Vancouver area. As you will remember from the “What’s Wrong With This House?” book, in a Slow Home, bathrooms are well designed if they are appropriately scaled for the size of the residence, they need to have ample storage and continuous counters and they should avoid awkward elements, non-standard layouts or super-sized features.
In townhouses, bathroom design is critical as it is often difficult to fit an ensuite, a main bath and a guest bath into the common long and narrow townhouse footprints without some compromises of design quality. Many times, the guest bath is the most difficult to design and often ends up being located poorly in the plans – like next to the kitchen or dining room for example – or becomes either too large or too small.
We need you to look through townhouses from the Vancouver area and post examples of what you feel are both good and bad bathroom designs as well as your comments. We look forward to your posts and discussion!
When you are ready, you can watch the player below to see John and Matthew’s tutorial on bathroom design in townhouses.
Click on the thumbnails below to study the plans from the tutorial in more detail.
1. This is an example of good bathroom design in a townhouse. All three bathrooms are well designed. The guest bath is in a great location – it is both private but accessible on the main floor.
2. This is also an example of good bathroom design in a townhouse. This unit does not have a guest bath – this is also a very acceptable option. In this case, the main bath acts as both the guest bath and the family bath.
3. This is an example of where there is not enough space in the main bath to fit a shower. The corner shower may seem like a space saver, but limits the functionality of the bathroom and will be awkward to use on a daily basis.
4. This guest bath is in a poor location because it opens right into the kitchen and dining spaces. This is common in townhouses and this condition should be avoided. The family bath is also combined with the laundry area, taking up a lot of floor space that could be better allocated to storage or another function.
5. This guest bath is on the stair landing and is too small to be functional – many townhouses try to jam in a guest bath even if it ends up being similar in size to an airplane bathroom.
6. This guest bath has an awkward 45 degree angle at the door and opens directly to the kitchen – a double strike against this design! In the main and ensuite bathrooms, the toilets are directly in front of the door and the other fixtures are poorly placed.
7. This is a poorly designed guest bath as it is opens directly to the kitchen, and despite its large floor space, has a really awkward sink placement requiring an outswing door. Not a good design!
Join us tomorrow for our review of the Design Projects from Wednesday, our vote on who should win the Slow Home Award for Best Townhouse Project in Vancouver and the winner of Slow Homer of the Week!