That would work, I have another thought for you to consider (I haven't included the new entrance at this time), I was just wanting to test you on the style of house before spending time with fitting out the rooms. I was thinking an internal courtyard with engawa style verandahs, enclosed on the bedroom wing and open to the internal courtyard and pool from the living area. I would use Skillion roofs with the tall part facing north. sizes can be changed

Yes the verandah's are long, during most of the year you could access across the courtyard, this would give you the separation you wanted, I was trying to design it as an Engawa style house which I love, actually I love everything Japanese.

few more options but i think the office is better left facing the front rather than sacrificing the outdoor area as the position of the guest toilet is accessable from the office, living, media and outdoors and the 2 or 3 bedrooms plus guestroom use the family bathroom and the separate toilet is accessable from the kitchen, dining or garage or verandahs and these plans show a gable roof

May I suggest limiting access to media/theatre room to the family area/kitchen? I believe there is no need to have it accessible right from the entry, and this poses furniture placement issues and sound issues. Cheers!

Hi, I like ok Louise last plans. Def think you need two bathrooms for the 4 bedrooms. The guest ensuite could also have a door to hall, lockable

much better fridge design. Original plan only allowed one small fridge and exposed it to hall and outdoor space as well as being remote to kitchen

good luck

Hi Wai Lee,

Some inspiration for Skillion roofs/Engawa, the first is an original using a lot of stone and timber.

Wai, entry to media room directly off entry to house would certainly be easier for when furnishing an fitting out the room with screen, projector etc; however, once this is done, the room will most likely be accessed almost entirely from the kitchen/family space side. Also, having a full wall instead of another entry point will allow for better furniture placement and less disruption (and light entering room) when the room is being used for cinema.

The original plan of our previous home had two entry points for the theatre room. I previously mentioned entry was directly off the kitchen and powder room. There was also a door from theatre room into dining room. We decided we didn't need this door as it would have inhibited the size of screen we wanted on that wall, and there really was no need to have two doors into the room. We didn't regret the decision. I'm suggesting you carefully consider if this particular door is necessary, and to help with that decision perhaps draw on your plan where you will place all the components and furniture in this room, keeping in mind traffic flow.

Is there to be a grand piano in this room?

I cannot tell from the latest plan if there IS a second door into the room from kitchen/family room. ?? It has been my experience that access from theatre room to the kitchen works really well, as it's far easier to cater for refreshment needs. Also works well having easy access to powder room. Cheers.

Wai Lee,

This photo inspired me to draw this, I haven't finished details including the guest/rumpus laundry/ new entrance yet as I just wanted to run this by you.

Having the family bedrooms fronting the street on the South side, the following is suggested "On a south-facing house with the rooms opening off a long corridor,
consider adding a north-facing pitched roof , to bring in the northern
light" hence the photo. with the skillion roof. the living/family can still have it's Engawa facing the pool with it's roof above the sliding/stacking doors and below the high set windows.

Okay, so do you envision a table and chairs in this room as well? And will you use projector for these presentations? A decent sized closet w/cavity slider could be built into design of this room, to house/store equip and dvds for cinema, AND folding table & chairs for when not needed for conferences. It’s good to know all these considerations so they can be taken into account whilst still in planning stages so this room can be designed for the multiple needs and best serve you into the future. Cheers.

Hi there Wai Lee

Thanks for your response,my latest suggestion was mainly trying to get to know you better and what your likes and dislikes are. When people like yourself post on Houzz we are quite often given very little information to try and get inside your head, even though there's a plan that you have drawn up. Pro's have an advantage over us as they get to meet with and understand their clients first hand face to face, it's a big plus.

The position of your entrance, powder room and access to your Media room now makes sense with you wanting to be able to hold conferences, that's something I know about having been in Marketing.

Looking forward to seeing what you decide to do. cheers

a few ideas for reducing overall size without reducing the spacious feeling...this plan is 70sqm smaller than my original plan and has a simple hip roof with deep eaves to allow for engowa style access for any entry and bedrooms are arranged for mostly north and eastern windows for privacy from the courtyard

love the new laundry room position and the engawa all around the courtyard is excellent but the opening from childrens hallway to engawa will receive full blast of western sun and there will be a view of the bedrooms from living and main bedrooms .....if i could see the dimensions i can draw up a copy that will make it easier to see the details and also show how a roof will fit can you enlarge the plans in sections...what style roof you prefer??

Love the new entrance, do you know how many squ m this is

I notice that you have fittingly drawn a Japanese style bathroom, my favourite but would suggest that the bath and shower are across the room to work better with the window

the toilet is the least of the problems here IMO

It's a clunky and amateur resolution of a house plan that is trying to be a certain thing, but is not hitting the mark in various ways, but will still cost a lot of money, which is why I refer back to my original comments & advice....

there are areas of extremes of both bloat and squeeze and misunderstanding of scaling and furniture/practical positioning, which will result in an inconsistent and unbalanced spatial result. Why people continue to consider it a sensible strategy to DIY design (particularly on the larger scale projects) beats me. It doesn't make sense as an approach of investment management for arguably one of the largest investments people make, that ultimately will be defined by the quality of the design, the cost of which is insignificant in proportion even at the higher professional levels in relation to the eventual cost of the build, however is what makes the most significant difference to the end result one way or the other.

Wai, do yourself a favour and seek professional assistance for your home design. It will resolve the various & complex siting, design and building form issues most effectively and achieve a much more elegant, balanced and ultimately more valuable and enjoyable end result for you and your family...

Good luck!

Wai Lee, I have drawn a partition wall between the vanity and toilet in above plan

get a pro designer...

Yep well that kind of explains it Wai - "drafting" is a different to and completely different level of service to "Design". They are two different areas that more often than not get confused and bundled into the same or similar category. One is a "trade" as such, the other is more of a (albeit professional) creative art. Of course what you are experiencing is as you describe "mechanical" - generally a drafting service is defined as drawing up as per directed with little or no creative or design input. By it's very nature it's mechanical service.

There are 2 general factors that define and are critical to Projects. 1. Money 2. Trust & working relationships. Competent and responsible design professionals inherently understand this and operate/deliver service at a certain level in respect to this, and generally the results speak for themselves and the "value" of the service is not even a question, rather it becomes considered critical to the project. When delivering a design service we need to establish a solid working relationship with the client that fundamentally is based on trust, and it's not all one way either - it only works when both parties involved are appropriately committed to the process. We find this is achieved generally off the basis of two things (a) direct/word of mouth recommendation by people who have experienced our service and (b) actual direct/physical contact/experience with the end (build/spatial) results that we have been responsible for delivering. Without one or the other or both, it is very difficult for people to understand and develop the trust (in our design service) required and truly "get" why they need us to guide them through the process. It's complex and it's serious because we're dealing with large emotional and financial investments. And it requires considerable skill, time, understanding, creativity and experience across a broad spectrum of areas on numerous levels. That's why what we do is a defined as "profession" and involves (more than reasonably) a certain proportion of cost of the overall project. No it's not cheap, but without it you're still spending a lot of money to arguably far poorer and lower value end results. Rather than worry about people not doing the right thing by you, rather think about if you are doing the right thing for yourself and your investment!

"Design", in this area, is a responsibility, to deliver a solution for someone's needs and also to budget. But the client needs to know why they are seeking it, rather than questioning or not trusting in it's value. the design process involves working through clarification of project brief priorities within context that are being balanced to budget. Sometimes (more often than not) this involves having the hard and honest conversations with people around what is possible/realistic for their money and within context and then working through painstakingly the specific order of priority and compromise in order to deliver the best balance for the circumstances.... Drafting, as an isolated service, rarely deals with the budget factor properly, because the "design" process, that robustly manages,negotiates and balances project scope to budget, is missing from the service or the capacity of the particular service provider.

Hope this helps steer you in the right direction. You're correct, it is hard to find people who you can trust and who operate with integrity in this industry. But if you really know what you're seeking and why, you'll find the good operators, because you know what, we actually are out there & do exist ;) Cheers PD

Wai Lee
what style of house are you drawn to

Thanks Wai Lee

both are lovely, the first can be single story as well as two and materials changed to be similar to the second house

Wai Lee

Yes you do, but can you add any more info, how many will be living here, children? ages etc, are you working from home or is the conferencing for family, for me the plan needs to be simplified.

IMO the house was much bigger than necessary and by grouping the formal entry with off street parking, office, conference room and guest bathroom the business and family areas can be separated, there's still access to the courtyard and a small sink/coffee station could be included next to the bathroom inside the closet space... one of the smaller bedrooms can be used as a rumpus or occasional guest room next to the children and the separate powder room is accessible from the family areas courtyard or garage... the mudroom with bags and coat storage is easy access from the garage and the south porch is easy access for visiting friends and family and there should be plenty of space for most extra kitchen details and the roof is a simple hip shape with deep eaves to add extra depth to both the porches and engawa, the courtyard is about 9m square but most windows should be decided on site

Just wanted to show you what I had been working on this morning,Garage/WIP/Entrance and office and still looking at Media room position etc plus adding details for bathroom/mudroom /laundry. cheers

any flaw would be from not making the rooms suit what they're to be used for...no point in having giant rooms unless you need the extra space for something specific another flaw would be copying the look of the average suburban house.... understanding that the engawa is a feature in traditional Japanese homes, consider smooth external cladding, dark timber windows and k panel steel roofing rather than brick veneer and tile but my plans are only suggestions and you need a professional to ensure that the dimensions properly fit within the available space, the best roof shape, position of external doors, windows and set backs....you also need to decide what should be included in the kitchen/pantry and suitable building materials but the engawa and courtyard are fabulous and the house needs to be as simple as possible to highlight these features... my suggestions are only rough ideas and it's a big house with a big budget and you should invest in professional advice to get the best value for your investment but happy to draw up any other ideas for you to consider...

My thoughts.

Firstly, as has been said, you'll get better results seeking professional help, especially for such an unusual design.

The external surfaces are an expensive part of a build. The larger the external surface area per sqm of footprint, the larger the cost per sqm. Seperate wings & courtyards increase the external surface area greatly. This plan has a very large external surface area, so will be costly per sqm, for what is already a very large dwelling.

Separate wings also increases hallways & circulation space, which some people find wasteful, & increase the time to move from one part of the house to another.

Instead of a U-shaped house, how about an L-shaped house? This would reduce the external surface area of the build & the amount of hallway space, reducing the cost per sqm & the size of the dwelling. With an L-shaped home most rooms could face the outdoor space in the NE side of the block, but some (possibly the minor bedrooms) would likely face the southern street. So, a couple of questions;

Is this a newly developed or established area of Sydney? If it's an establish area with neighbours close by, could you post a screenshot of a Google Maps satellite image, to get an idea of outlooks & whether there will be privacy issues with neighbours?

How quiet is the southern street? Are you happy to have rooms facing this street?

How much busier is the western street? Is it possible to locate the garage facing the western street, or is it too busy for access? I'd much rather have the garage face a noisy street than the master bedroom (although the ensuite will help a bit).

Also the western side of a dwelling is a great place to locate a garage, as it shields the house from the hot afternoon sun. The west is not a good place for bedrooms (although again, the ensuite will help).

On that note, have a read of this, paying attention to the section on passive design & orientation.

http://yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/orientation

As for your current design, your bedroom wings are likely to shade your living areas for much of the day in winter. A skillion roof with north facing clerestory windows, as shown in a few of the pictures in this thread, would help get winter sunshine to your living areas. Although an L-shaped build would allow more northern light to the living areas than the current U-shaped plan.

Best of luck with the build.

ackowledging DDarrochs comments... i have to repeat that a competent professional will help you understand the implications of orientation, window sizes, building shapes and sizes by being able to use a computer program that can produce real shadow patterns for any design you choose and, from my understanding of passive solar design, the issues of external wall areas: bigger is usually better for hotter climates and smaller is better for cold...another way to better understand energy conserving design is to use the BASIX on line calculators where you can test the impact of different choices...both the shadow patterns and BASIX are relatively straightforward with the right knowledge and equipment but is another reason that employing an experienced professional is a worthwhile investment once you've decided on the most important features in your design

Wai Lee my thoughts for you

Wai Lee, yes it is, what I was first trying to understand was if you liked this floor plan, moving the guest bedroom and or office to allow for a more Opulent Master. Maintaining the powder/shower room to be used with the Media/Video conferencing room and also for shift workers to use so as not to disturb your partner. The Media room is setup so that you clients and family can sit at the table (and eat) while holding video conferences or watching movies, and then finally moving to the recliners. I can certainly supply measurements, but didn't want complicate or overload the plan with details.