This is Day 191 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.
For today’s “In Detail” segment we are looking at indoor living spaces in apartment/ loft units. All of the examples we have pulled are from the Atlanta area.
As you will recall from the “What’s Wrong With This House?” book, in a Slow Home, the indoor living space easily accommodates a furniture grouping, is organized around a focal point like a window, TV, fireplace or view and has a good connection to the outdoors.
Too often, apartment/ loft projects have oddly proportioned indoor living spaces that make them difficult to furnish and often cause the furniture to conflict with doorways and other major circulation routes.
We need you to go through the apartment/ loft floor plans from the Atlanta area and post examples of what you feel are both good and bad indoor living spaces along with your comments. We look forward to the discussion!
When you are ready, click on the player below to watch John and Matthew review some examples of both good and bad indoor living spaces in Atlanta apartment/ lofts.
To see the examples from the tutorial in detail, click on the images below.
1. This is an example of a well designed indoor living space. Note how the structural column is well placed, there is clear circulation around the
furniture and good access to the exterior terrace.
2. This is also a well designed indoor living space – it is also a corner condition like the previous example. Corners are easy to furnish and it is
easy to create a focus with a furniture grouping.
3. This is a poorly designed indoor living space. It is a combined living/dining space with not enough room for either function. The location of the door to the deck is also a problem.
4. The 45 degree angle on the exterior wall of this indoor living space causes problems for the furniture layout. The angled sofa is not acceptable as a furniture layout and all the access to the bedrooms is through the living space.
5. This indoor living space is an odd shape, the space continues without separation into the entry hallway and has a lack of focus. There is a conflict with the deck door and the furniture grouping is not well placed. Overall, a very poor design with many problems.
6. This living space is long and narrow and has no logical place for the TV to be placed. Currently, the furniture is focused towards the island, which is odd. If the furniture was reversed and the TV placed on the outside wall, there is not enough room for circulation between a sofa and the island.
7. This living room is long and narrow, has an awkward angle at the end of the unit and has almost no access to sunlight. It is also a problem that the circulation to the bedroom is between the TV and the sofa.
8. This is a problematic living space taken to the extreme. This floor plan rambles and the proportion is not wide enough to fit a proper furniture grouping. This loft conversion project would need to be entirely re-designed to get the indoor living point on the Slow Home Test.
Make sure to join us tomorrow because we will be posting the best Design Projects that were submitted on Wednesday as well as voting on who you think should win the award for best apartment/ loft project in Atlanta, and of course, announcing the Slow Homer of the Week!