High end designs for small house plans

A couple of days ago, I was approached by a couple that wanted to do a design for a family home on a plot of land that is 50x100 and their brief on what they wanted was detailed.

This included the entertainment room, terrace and all and it’s at this point that you can’t say it’s impossible. But as a professional, find ways to give the client what they want, but keep within the zoning/ physical planning rules in some areas if they exist (many times we try to match what the trend in the neighbourhood is, but it’s not a rule).

Small plots
Families sometimes have pieces of property that get either distributed throughout a family or bought by a single individual. In the attempt to spread the legacy of a family to their descendants, individuals end up giving small parcels to many, which can be difficult to capitalise.

These small plots are sometimes sold to adjacent land owners to get something out of it, while the purchasing owner consolidates nearby land to create a larger plot. Before taking this easier path, it is worth investigating affordable small house plans. One might think that because it is a small house plan, the resulting structure would be inadequate for comfortable living. Not so, specialist architects are adept at squeezing the most unfair and every square millimetre of available space.

Design process
But with as little as 500 square metres (50 x 100ft), they can put together a three-bedroomed bungalow that is quite spacious and yet unique, but that stands out of the surrounding plots. Bearing in mind that for many planning zones, we are only allowed to design up to 35 per cent of the total area of the plot leaving the other 65 per cent to the compound and parking areas
As one might expect, the facility is constructed using amazingly interconnected rooms to use space that is wasted in larger homes. This bungalow type structure also tucks away amenities in form of porches and a carport in areas left for landscaping on bigger plots.

These have the amenities of a true home. In many examples, the front door opens into a foyer, which serves as the pathway to a spacious large living room with vaulted ceiling. Nearby the stylish open kitchen spots a centre island to recover even more utility from every possible space. It cannot be a luxury accommodation though, unless there is a master bedroom suite that can be romantic as well as functional. Through careful design, the room can be designed without wasting space and still capture all the elegance of a larger home.

Creating space
One can see through the example of finer hotels that a lot of comfort can be squeezed into a small place. It’s all about tucking away clutter and creating lots of storage. With the master suite complete, there are options for the second and third room. It could be made into a second bedroom, for guests, it may be more practical to design it as a home office, there is no reason one should not be able to draw or be creative in a number of ways at the same time.

The magic in the design of this building is in the clever interconnection of functional parts. By placing rooms in just a position that culturally makes the most sense; they eliminate the unnecessary spaces larger homes have for connecting rooms, say the living room and bedrooms. The two or three story structure allows for the increased floor space for the available land, and tucking in the external additions simply makes the home functionally larger than one would imagine given the available space to build.

Choosing architects
By selecting architects that specialise in designing smaller places, one is assured that the details are not forgotten. There will be adequate electrical outlets and power for the house. Plumbing will be more than adequate and add to the elegance of the kitchen and bathrooms. And throughout the facility storage space is never forgotten.

Having inherited, bought or having hung onto a small plot of land can turn into a good investment if one is amenable to investing in the design and building a structure on the plot and there are several options to choose from including doing rental units.

Josephnuwamanya@gmail.com