This is Day 106 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. This week we are analyzing single family houses in the Denver area and today we are going to be working on a design exercise to rework one of the single-family houses that was posted on the Slow Home Project earlier in the week.
We are very happy to announce that our “What’s Wrong With This House?” book is now available for sale at our online store! This book has been written by John and Matthew over the past year and gives an extensive description of the concept of Slow Home, describes in detail what the major design problems are with most North American production housing and then offers a detailed description of what the Slow Home alternative is. It also introduces the concept of the “Slow Home Test” as a way of evaluating floor plans to determine whether a home is fast, slow or somewhere in between. Please support the Slow Home movement and order a copy of the new book!
For today’s “Design Project” exercise we need you to re-design the main floor of this 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom and 1 car garage single family home in Denver, Colorado.
The major problems with this plan are both the entries – front and back. The back entry opens right into the kitchen and leaves no space for the laundry. The front entry is merely a wide sized hallway that is very tentatively designed. The one bathroom in this home has no storage, too much room around the toilet and will not serve the functions of both guest bath and family bath.
The task is to re-design the main floor of this house and create a better back entry, front entry, laundry space, kitchen, dining and living room, you must also re-work the bathroom to be both a guest bath and a family bath.
Here are a few rules for today:
1. Do not change the bedrooms or closets.
2. You must put back the furnace and hot water tank with the same amount of room around them as in the previous plan – but you can change their locations.
3. Do not add an additional guest bath/ powder room! Instead, design the main bath to function as a guest bath and a family bath.
4. You will need to create a better kitchen, living and dining space.
5. Both the front and the back entries must have coat closets.
Remodelling Single Family Homes In Denver (JPG)
Remodelling Single Family Homes In Denver (Demo)
Remodelling Single Family Homes In Denver (PDF)
Remodelling Single Family Homes In Denver (Full Symbol Library)
Have fun with this! When you are ready, you can watch John’s tutorial on how her designed this space by clicking on the player below. We look forward to seeing all of your posted designs!
See John Brown’s completed design
See you tomorrow when we will be doing and “In Detail” tutorial on both front and back entry design in single family homes!