Guest Blog - Standard House Designs - Preview
GD Lodge Architects were recently appointed by Eco SIPs Homes to design a range of standard houses that could be offered to their clients. Martin Cook at Eco SIPs Homes told us he is often asked by clients if they have a brochure with standard house designs that they can choose from or if clients must appoint an architect to design a bespoke one-off home for them.
We met with Martin and structural engineers Cowal Design Consultants to discuss the outline brief before we drafted up some concept plans for approval.
1. The Outline Design Brief:
1.1 Initially design a range of three house types:
3-bed circa 1250 – 1300 sq.ft. 1.5 storey
4-bed circa 1500 – 1800 sq.ft. 1.5 storey
5-bed circa 1750 – 2300 sq.ft. 2 storey
The initial target market was Scottish rural locations for self-builders, as a holiday home/second home. Most locations would likely have good views therefore justification for large glazed screens and feature glazed gables.
1.2 Consider “upside down” house type option with kitchen/living/dining on upper floor.
2. Technical Matters
2.1 Omit requirement for external masonry leaf. The proposed structural methodology will be a SIPS panel system which will either be battened to receive timber cladding or faced with MGO board to allow direct application of render or brick slips.
2.2 MGO board will provide fire resistance and dimensional stability.
2.3 Consider integration of mechanical ventilation heat recovery system (MVHR). Possibly de-centralised with local facilities in bathrooms and kitchens which can all be controlled remotely via
remote controller or smartphone. System involves mechanical vent extract with ceramic tube liner which then operates via a reverse fan which blows warm air back in.
2.4 Potential roof finishes – options were discussed including slate effect tile, corrugated metal sheet and zinc.
2.5 Outputs for each house type would include presentation floor plans, one external CGI, one internal CGI.
2.6 Main design themes:
Open plan living/kitchen/dining format
Large glazed screens/folding walls to principal living areas
Vaulted ceilings and/or glazed gables to principal living areas
Aesthetic – consider Scottish market with external appearance suitable to Scottish rural locations
Chris Hay, a talented young designer at G D Lodge Architects, has come up with the following concept design for Eco SIPs Homes.
The base model for the Standard house designs that Chris produced
is a 3-bedroom house. Each of the Standard house designs would have a living wing and separate sleeping wing connected by a glazed entrance/link.
The 3-bedroom base model could easily be adapted to create a 4-bed option, 2-bed or 5-bedroom option by reducing or increasing the size of the sleeping wing.
Following a review of the proposed concept designs, Eco SIPs Homes asked us to consider some other items:
We were asked to optimise standard SIPs panels within each of the house designs. This would keep the fabrication of non-standard panels to a minimum and reduce waste.
Cowal Design Consultants, the structural engineers, were asked to design the superstructure with a glulam portal frame at the glazed gable instead of steel.This would be exposed as a feature.
Exposed glulam ridge beams were to be used in rooms with vaulted ceilings. Another design consideration was to introduce mid-span glulam purlins to support the roof panels. This would reduce the clear span of the roof panels, allowing the use of SIP splines to join the roof panels together instead of timber. This method gives a fully insulated roof with no cold bridging and improved air tightness.
We are now working on detailed floor plans, elevations, sections and internal and external CGI’s for each of the standard house types which we will share with you in the coming weeks.
