Small family house in Scotland

[gorgon]

Hello

I'm working on my own house. I live in japan now with my japanese family but am returning to the UK in 9 months to build this house:

Type of Project a small family house (125m2) for myself, wife and 3 children.

The site is 200sqm semi urban mews location in Edinburgh Scotland. Scotland is 55 degrees north so can be chilly and the site is 300m from the North Sea (a particularly chilly sea) but is well protected by taller buildings around,
It is a difficult site, in a conservation area with conservative planners. The neighbors are also hostile to the building of a house on what used to be garages at the bottom of a garden. The ‘mews’ currently an L-shaped access only lane, a dead end, it is 5m wide, is hardly used and there is no pavement.

The client is me but mostly my wife who is Japanese. We have two children aged 3 and 2 and one more due in April 2007. The key elements of the brief are:
direct connection with garden
blurring of outside and inside (like the Japanese engawa / nurien)
walled garden arrangement for privacy
eco house – site optimization (passive solar), thick insulation, ground source heat pump, rainwater harvesting and anything else I can afford.
low budget: 80-100,000pounds sterling

Planning restrictions
The house is subject to the restrictions placed on it by a previous planning application. We are sadly required to provide a car park space in the garden..
Other planning restrictions are 4.2m eaves heights and 7m ridge height restrictions. (Produces the form) Materials to be 'sympathetic to the conservation area': stone, timber windows, white render and black slate tiles (although it may be possible to add to this list)
Level threshold required by building regulations

[gorgon]

Here is the site.

[gorgon]

Design approach
The front of the house is the gable end and the main views are down the lane from the east (where the perspective views are taken from).
The existing high stone wall (a feature of this conservation area) affords great privacy to the garden. But it needs a ‘stop’ before the gable wall. Hence the location of the entrance on this corner. This would also allow this glazed lobby to the south to be another modulating (read overly hot) space, contributing to heating the house.

Off the entrance I want a ‘study’ which would actually be where my small architecture practice is located. Here it would allow visitors to come and go without entering the house proper (and disturbing the children – or vice versa). Also location of wc. This office could also be a ‘granny flat’ guest room in future.

The limited eaves and hence ceiling heights mean I want a double heights space over the dining space, a glazed roof to the southeast will allow this space to act as a greenhouse for the house, heating it up from the morning through early afternoon.
The living room would be low ceilinged (read cozy). We will probably sit on the floor though, as we do now so that effect may be mitigated.

Upstairs I have shown one large bedroom that would be a shared bedroom for our three children. This could be changed in future to be two double bedrooms.

[gorgon]

ground floor plan

[gorgon]

first floor plan

NB the words laundry / store indicate a place to hang washing, a desk, a play space - anything really on open plan highly glazed space the function of which isn't sleeping

[gorgon]

(by the way thnks to you lot I'm using sketchup now (and loving it))

interior view (standing on deck looking in after the sliding glazed doors have been slid aside)

[gorgon]

This is the 100th option I've been through and I feel like I am getting close but need some criticism. please fire in.

Thanks

[A_Minima]

Did you thought to make the "roof" of your first floor terrasse the "floor" of a second floor terrasse or balcony ?
I like the idea to make a large three beds bedroom for children instead of three single short bedrooms.

[A_Minima]

Could you post a mass plan 'cause I'm not sure well understanding the orientation of your project in the site ?

[gorgon]

Originally Posted by A_Minima

Did you thought to make the "roof" of your first floor terrasse the "floor" of a second floor terrasse or balcony ?
I like the idea to make a large three beds bedroom for children instead of three single short bedrooms.

Not allowed any balconies again this is a planning restriction (maybe not get away with this flat roof for fear it may become one...)

I don't know what a massing plan is (a 3d model viewed in plan?). I'll try and get this up later today even if itsn't...
but the layout is very simple. the site is a rectangle 9.8m wide and 20m long. At the westerly extents is a rectangular house 9.8m x 8.5m.