A preliminary list of needs and wants for the design of the house. Notice which is longer.
Needs
- 2 bedrooms (one for owners and one for guests and/or children)
- 1 bath
- open kitchen dining and living space with double height for a significant portion
- study/office area
- lots of natural light
- storage for books
- patio that is an extension of living space
- outdoor space to garden, plant and grill
- extremely energy efficient shell
- high efficiency HVAC system
- rain water collection system for watering outdoor plants
- storage for bikes, sports gear, tools & other unruly equipment
Wants
- 2nd bath
- passive cooling design (no air conditioning needed)
- passive heating design (minimal heating or wood/pellet stove only needed)
- 2nd story deck(s)
- green roof
- passive solar hot water heating system
- radiant heat on ground floor
- Solar PV system (leased from utility company to eliminate installation costs)
- roof access / roof deck
- parking for scooter / motorcycle
- electric car powering station
- whole house power off switch
- whole house energy monitoring system
- whole house audio system (speakers wired in walls/cielings, outdoor speakers, iPod docking station…)
- catwalk
- fire pole
Do we have all the needs covered? How many wants will we be able to fit in the design and budget?
2 comments ↓
[…] The design is simple but takes care of the main requirements for the house outlined earlier in this post. […]
This is a great project! You should probably eliminate pretty much any wiring other than the basic electrical. There are some great wireless speaker systems out there, and to keep your costs down, you’ll want to move any copper supplies and, more importantly, installation labor costs, off your balance sheet. Now, having said that, I do think that central vacs are pretty cool and would be a cinch to install in a place this size.
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