You have a small block and plan seems good. Qldr I think eaves and breezes. Where are the evening breezes from. My friend in Brisbane gets hers from west and allows the wind to flow through the house. She has a deep balcony on west to screen the windows during day and opens them later

In cold climates the largest windows should face the equator to get the most warming winter sun.
So in the southern hemisphere face north.
And in the northern hemisphere face south.
While you want plenty of light, your location in Queensland means designing for heat is very important.
This website has diagrams about how it works, specific to Australia, and info about sun angles at different latitudes.
https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/orientation

I think your plan looks fine. Just be careful about that "afternoon light" because afternoon sun coming in through glazing really heats up a house in summer.

I have noted comments about minimising afternoon light/heat getting in and where the breezes come from, thank you!

please share plans with measurements (not sqm) as well as distances from house to all boundaries as some dimensions seem inconsistent

I don't have house plans this is just a concept design. Grateful if you have any thoughts to share. Thanks!

You may be able to get your app to show dimensions rather than sqm. Some comments for things you may not have thought of. The WIR doesn’t have room for a hanging rail on both sides. The laundry side will only be able to have quite narrow shelves. Try and get the bathroom on the other side off the house, next to the laundry, with the toilet opening to the side of the house rather than the alfresco. This will put your plumbing together. Do you know which side of the house your sewer runs? In a smaller house I’d consider combining the bathroom and laundry. This would allow the bed/study to go to the other side and receive good light during the day, great for WFH. Your living/dining area looks very awkwardly furnished. Is that a TV on the wall where you need a door to access the alfresco? Are the furnishings drawn to scale. That shape room can be difficult to layout. You don’t have room for a sliding door to the alfresco, so need to allow for the door to swing out or in. Given that you’ve allowed for a separate toilet, pop a basin in it to make a powder room so much more functionality for a small outlay.

Thanks so much bigreader for your thoughts. Ill take it all onboard.

"Ive got a 12m frontage 300m2 corner block, "

,

12m wide how deep is the block to become 300m2, and what are the required set backs from all boundaries, thanks

assuming block length approx 25m my suggestions include some alternatives that hopefully use the available space better and maximise external areas for different activities and although we would usually prefer all bedrooms on the north i've placed the bathroom, separate pwdr and laundry with easy indoor out access for drying area and alfresco and there's external window shutters for south west windows to control overheating and ventilation...placing the alfresco at the front combines two smaller outdoor areas with more space for furniture and selected planting will improve privacy and maintain views and the whole house can be a simpler more economical shape with separate outdoor areas for different activities

Thank you Oklouise. I love your ideas for this :). my lot is 25.6m long so this would fit. only issue is that can only build single story upto 50% of block size (150m2 max). Can you find where we could reduce around 7m from your design? Perhaps reduce the width/length of the alfresco? I’ve attached the POD that outlines the setbacks/requirements. note my corner lot is defined as not having a rear boundary so 1m setback applies (this footnote is cut off from my screenshot of the POD). Also ive clarified with the developer that there is a 1m setback to secondary street frontage (this is a grey area in the POD).

i can probably reduce size to suit but can you please repost the instructions in smaller sections so that i can read the writing

These are the specific dimensions for my lot including North aspect….

There are also the Qld accessible home requirements

in place. But looks like my lot can be exempt till

next year :)

https://www.qld.gov.au/housing/building-home/building-accessible-housing#:~:text=an%2018%2Dmonth%20exemption%20period,or%20reasonable%20to%20do%20so

Also, just to clarify, NE is to the rear of the lot (diagonally opp corner to driverway) per attached specs above for lot 19 :)

OKL could the Main go to Bed 2, the bathroom/laundry go to Main and Bed 2 go to where the bathroom is. My thinking is that Bed 2 becomes more of a study some French doors the to dining space could make it double as MPR. :).

No bad ideas bigreader…perhaps laundry could go where ensuite is or the WIR…?

here is a 150sqm version of my first plan and i will attempt bigreaders' suggestions asap

Good job on the downsize OKl

at first glance i can't make the suggested changes without making master bedroom too small and/or changing location of the central hallway which impacts the size of all the bedrooms, kitchen and living area, also loses the multiple access to bath, laundry and powder room and adding French doors between living and bedroom loses the generous storage wall and study nook in Dining but will keep thinking

Wow great work OKI, THANK YOU. I've noted on your design that the views are to the south east (not north east as you had it). Assuming the design still works with this aspect? I am keen to capture the parkland to the SE and it seems to work in my little app in 3D with the sun movement during the day...

another variation

Another fantastic design, thank you oklouise! :). Wondering if room could be found somewhere for a linen cupboard and pantry? Also maybe space to relocate the study nook to the living area with a glimpse to the parkland? Don't mind if its only 1-2m long. Also wondering what the item the sofas are facing is? A fireplace or something? Another thing that can be done which might end up creating a courtyard down the west side of the house (which I don't mind as it creates an enclosed place for the cats) is pushing some rooms to the rear boundary. The whole of that side is build to boundary...

I really like the open plan kitchen, living and dining, all facing to the parkland in the SE :). Also the location of the MPR/ occasional guest bedroom...

please explain "the whole of that side is build to the boundary.." which boundary do you mean as you need to check with regulations to find out what length of any part of the house can be built along any boundary and each time the external walls change direction uses more floor area and makes the roof more complex and the whole house more expensive ...a simple free standing safe cat cage can be added along the other side of the house for a fraction of the cost of enclosing a courtyard and pets are often happier where they can see and be seen from inside and that would also avoid the need for an external laundry door opening to the long narrow side path when it would be so much easier to carry wet laundry out through the alfresco to the drying area.. adding all these extras will mean subtracting from somewhere else ...maybe you could omit the alfresco in favour of more space in the house (do local regs allow you to have an open sided alfresco, shade pergola, porch or verandah without being included in the 150sqm? a study nook can be added with a desk and chair in any locations that has enough wall space (eg along the entry wall or instead of the fireplace/tv wall but, even a very small walk in pantry uses space needed for linen or biw but there's a limit to the amount of space that can be subtracted from any individual room before it becomes too small to be useful but will see what we can do

Build to boundary line is yellow dotted line on lot 19 per the POD (attached). Though don't worry about going there with any further build to boundary, seems like it will open a can of worms. I do also like the idea of having laundry to NE side (not too fussy and cats can always access the SW side through a cat door in the garage door). That SW space is more for them at night. I'd put plants/hedging in there and probably cat netting and they can happily have their bug hunting fun all night long. I love your latest version (especially the kitchen/alfresco configuration!) and if it doesn't change things too much, be great to find a space for the pantry. I did think maybe a small section of the bottom right corner of the MPR could become the pantry. However in that place it is a bit separated from the rest of the kitchen, not sure if that could be a problem? My family and friends who I've showed the initial version you shared yesterday to have loved the design. Look forward to seeing more if you have time and energy and I'm not being too frustrating! :)

So I have taken your initial version OKL and removed the study nook and moved the bathroom/toilet/linen over the hallway. Now have a MPR/study/occassional guest bedroom off living. Grateful for any thoughts on this layout?

where is your kitchen and can you please change your room dimensions to wall lengths instead of sqm as i am unable to duplicate your ideas to reasonable room sizes

Kitchen is in the sa place as you had it. I’m not sure if i can change it to show wall lengths in my app but I’ll doubly check

using sqm makes it very difficult to understand room sizes and allow necessary scale size furniture and proper walking spaces...eg did you realise that the 8sqm shown in your last plan is not big enough to include a double bed and, adding openings between MPR and living area loses all that wall space on both sides for any furniture but will keep thinking

In the app Im using, it does show wall lenghts when I select a wall or specific room. Also I place to scale furniture in the room and use 3D and walk through options to get a sense of the size of spaces. But Im just a novice af this so dont know 100% if a space is going to be the right size. I think I can get the app to display all wall lengths. Ill come

back on that a bit later today.

I've just checked the app and there is no function to show all wall lengths all at once. Just so you know I did follow as much as possible the specs you outlined in your design. I have attached new screenshot that now shows the grid lines and scale to help with your measurements. Also I extended the MPR room to take in where the study nook was - also showing in attached. I had intended to do this last night but forgot. Sorry I can't be more helpful :/

Hi again - here is a close up of the section of the house I modified showing some wall lengths. Note I put the hallway widths at 1m to meet Qld's new accessible housing requirements (I shared a link to these in a previous comment).

Just sending some close ups with room dimensions for my modified areas. Walls aren't completely straight due to my very quick work late last night as you can see...

last attempt showing sqm and lengths!!

these plans don't include an enclosed front porch, the size of the alfresco will be bigger as program only includes floor area without overhanging eaves, windows are deliberately placed to maximize diagonal cross ventilation in most rooms and i strongly suggest that you include external roller shutters to provide adjustable sunscreening, the extra internal doors are intended to help improve zoning for AC and my CAD program uses 10cms thick walls so any variation will impact the overall size of the plan and MPR and kitchen work so much better in these locations and the tiny coat/mud room allows easier door swing for internal garage door

Wow you are so clever at this. I love it, thank you!

Hi again OKlouise, would it be possible to show 7.4m as the driveway length and re-insert the offstreet parking space at front (25.6m lot length - 17.2m house length - 1m to rear boundary = 7.4m) ?

house length is 17.9m including 10cm for each of the 6 walls along the garage side plus 1m rear set back = 18.9m so "leftover" length could be 25.6m - 18.9m = 6.7m possible front setback OR you could split the extra and have minimum front setback and bigger rear setback which could allow discreet space for a cat hideout and/or water tank and/or AC and/or narrow shed for mower and garden tools...but, there also needs to be enough space allowed for a small front porch and that needs to be designed to suite the frontage so i think you need to discuss fine details with your draftsperson as there will be other variations needed for different wall cladding etc and any other changes can have dramatic impact on the whole floor plan so you must not make changes to any part of the plan without double checking how that affects the rest of the floor plan

wondering how you had 17.2m length instead of 17.9m so i double checked all my dimensions and there is the 60cm for the wall thicknesses as already explained but i then realised that i posted the wrong final plan as it should show the ens at 2.5m wide (or there's not enough space for the toilet, ens door and big shower) which make the whole house 17.9m but, keep in mind that there will be variations in materials sizes and the garage boundary wall will probably need to be thicker than 10cm so it's time for a professional to fine tune your plans to make sure that they meet local regulations and you can decide how you want the house to look

Ah I see. Thank you. i have been thinking also that its time to take it to the next step to see whats actually possible. just checking though, do you think there may not be enough space now for the off street parking? I do like this feature but understand the dimensions may not permit. This is hopefully my last question. So grateful for your assistance OKlouise.

Edit: Ive looked at it again and can now see its likely impractical to have the off street parking with this latest version

the latest version is not very different to the first ones as i always kept the front set back at least 6m deep so the depth of the extra off street parking depends on what you decide for the porch, rear set back and size of cars that you might want to park in the driveway but a small car is about 1.5m wide and a big car is about 2m wide so allowing for a small walking space between you could squeeze two cars side by side in about 5m wide (with or without a double layback at the gutter) and i don't have accurate dimensions for the curved boundary to know the actual depth and width of the curved area) but there are numerous ways to make the driveway more attractive so that it can be part of the landscaping eg exposed concrete aggregate makes great looking driveways, alfresco and porch floors, paths and paving and using the same hard ground coverings could help make your landscaping feel more spacious with planting to complement the views across the road

Hi again OK Louise, is there any reason why there's no window on the park facing side of the living room or was that an oversight? Thank you :)

me and my poor old CAD program don't cope well with so many variations and the missing window is just an oversight so hope all's well now and will be very interested to see what external designs you choose

and an empty house plan might be easier to see

Thank you. I will certainly keep you all posted on external/internal designs. For externals Im thinking hamptons with maybe a sage green wall colour and white windows or something…definately wont be boring. I need to get thoughts on next steps for the draughting, engineers report so I might put up a new post on this soon. Thanks again :))