We interviewed four designers: three architects, one almost-architect. Design costs ranged from 2-10% of building budget, and one quoted a flat fee. Although I did look at published home plans and two firms that designed pre-packaged homes (with custom design options), I concluded that, to build a truly energy-efficient home, the site considerations and our own wish-list would change the stock plans so much as to render them useless. Here is a gap in the stock plan industry: none seem to capture the site orientation to the sun or consider the topography or the climate.
snapshot of the 3-D drawing
Some of our top design considerations:
- First and foremost, we had to fully capture the wonderful view, of the islands and Georgia Strait, the snow on the north shore mountains.
- We wanted the house to settle into its landscape (a .6 acre steep amphitheatre, pie-shape in a small development of mainly cleared lots) to look as though it had been there forever and was made to stay there for another 200 years. We wanted to use local materials and employ local tradespeople. Although I love the adobe look, both inside and out, we live in the coastal rainforest. Apparently, there are no plasterers on the coast, and certainly the mud would crack and mould in the humidity.
- The orientation of the house to the arc of the sun. (Notwithstanding the foregoing paragraph, we do get sun on the Sunshine Coast, although local lore suggests it was named the Sunshine Coast to hood-wink potential investors into thinking it was always sunny, which it most decidedly is not.) Luckily, the view is east-south-east. The amphitheatre’s back (the street-side) is west-north-west.That means east and south sides are where we want windows for passive solar gain and exposure for growing gardens. Amazing coincidence! That’s where the view is!
- We wanted a home that was smaller than the 2700 square feet that the development’s building scheme required. (The “Not-So-Big House” concept – We canvassed our neighbours, some of whom had not built on their lots, to find out whether they objected to us building a house that was smaller.)
- The house, inside and out, should look simple and classic, not only to blend into the neighbourhood, but to defy the need to constantly renovate and update it because our own needs or the fashions of home change.
Eventually we chose an architect who has built his own family’s self-sufficient “recreational” abode on an island, without power, natural gas or supplied water. We felt he understood our need to live in a home that suits us and doesn’t take a big bite from the environment. He, Jonathan Ehling, based in Vancouver, didn’t seem to need to make his own statement. He was willing and able to make ours.
When Jonathan asked us how many bedrooms, I said “two bedrooms and twenty beds”. We want this home to be a place where our relatives, friends and (future) grandchildren will want to visit and stay a while. This means lots of nooks and crannies, window seats and an undefined loft space. In fact, flex-space, a tenet of the “Not-So-Big-House,” will prove itself to be an important feature for efficient use of energy and space.
We also need a workshop space and a studio space for me (I’m a quilt artist and a hobby potter.) And, thinking of our future needs, we would like to be able to live all on one level and have wide doorways and hallways in the event either of us becomes wheelchair-dependent.
There are various other design considerations on our wish-list, but they are not so important to the subject of this blog, nor would they interest readers who don’t live our lives.
It took us a year of meetings to finalize our house plans– we told Jonathan we weren’t in a hurry. We wanted to get the design just right, partly in the interests of not making changes in the middle of the building process, which are costly and wasteful.
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from Carol G on 11/16/09 (before we abandoned GoDaddy’s “smart” space):
What an exciting project, Gail and Doug!
Terry and I will be following with great interest. Although we are not moving (in fact, because we are not moving), we have started planning some green renovations for our home over the next couple of years. Thanks for the link to Sarah Susanka’s website. She wrote the foreword to one of John Wheatman’s books and I’ve been meaning to look her up. Although not necessarily ‘green’, Wheatman has a ‘use what you have, well’ philosophy, and an artist’s eye. His sense of design is authentic and inspirational. (“Meditations on Design” and “A Good House is Never Done”… probably available from your local library). Good luck with everything, and enjoy the process!