This is Day 184 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.
In today’s “in Detail” segment we are focusing on dining spaces in single family houses. All of our examples are from the Vancouver area. As you will remember from the “What’s Wrong With This House?” book, in a Slow Home, a dining area is a principal space that is proportioned to fit a table and is intended for daily use.
Too often dining spaces are left over spaces in plan and have not been designed properly to fit a table, have little or no natural light and conflict with circulation.
We need you to post examples from the Vancouver area of what you think are both good and bad dining spaces in single family houses and leave a comment as to why. We look forward to your submissions and discussion!
When you are ready, click on the player below to watch John and Matthew’s tutorial on dining spaces and see both good and bad examples in single family houses.
To see our tutorial examples in more detail, click on the links below.
1. This is an example of a house that has well designed formal and informal dining spaces. Note the natural light and that they are properly located outside the zone of circulation.
2. In this plan, the nook space is well designed but the main dining space is poor as it is in the middle of the plan and has no natural light.
3. This nook space is essentially a mudroom – it is in the middle of a major circulation route and will be full of clutter.
4. This nook space will always feel like it is “inside” the kitchen and is less than ideal – not the view from the table down into the workspace of the kitchen.
5. This house has only one dining space, but it is well done – it has a good location next to the kitchen without being “inside” of it and good natural light.
6. This single dining space is too big – it is the same proportion as the adjacent living space and will result in wasted space around the table.
7. In this dining space – where would the table go? It is not clear where the intended location would be – also there is a view from the garage through the dining room.
8. This dining room is too large – it is in the center of the plan and is divided by a circulation zone – again, where would you put the table and what are you supposed to do in the remaining space?
See you tomorrow for our Friday wrap up, review of the Design Project submissions from yesterday, our vote for who should win Best Single Family House in Vancouver and the announcement of the Slow Homer of the Week!
