Past Dining, Kitchen, and Living Areas (great rooms)

Things in the 'Shop'

This 'shop' area in other houses:

• In Florida:  Approximately 16' x 20' two-car garage which had a portion dedicated to a 'laboratory' bench and tool cases.
•  Good things--No one ever used a garage in Florida, so the space was always available, except in hurricanes, when everything was placed inside.
• Good things--Had sufficient space for freezers and bike storage.  (In the future, the freezer should be in the pantry or prep area.
• Bad things--Almost unusable in the summer due to heat and humidity.  (Try welding in a full suit at 35C...)
• In California:  Approximately a 28' x 20' two car garage which had a portion dedicated to lab bench and welding shop.
• Good things--This area was wider and was a bit more comfortable to work in.
• Bad things--Still not a dedicated area; cars had to be moved out to access some cabinets and supplies.

Restoration of Espresso Equipment:

 

Restoration of commercial kitchen equipment

Tubing frame fabrication. (Kelley grinding out welds).

Pantry Ideas

We have had pantries and separate working areas attached to our kitchens in the last two apartments in the Caribbean and Panama and find this feature very attractive.  I am detailing the Panama Venetian Tower Apartment since it embodies what we like.

Panama--Venetian Tower 15A

The Despensa in Panama.  For the full .PDF, click here

The Pantry is the door on the right.  These are two cabinet doors for a 1.0m (39") opening

In the above, there are two areas marked as Despensa (Pantry) and Lavanderia (Washing). 

• Despensa--approximately 2.2m x 2.5m (approximately 60 ft2).  This held wire rack shelving, a wine-cooler and large bread mixers.
• Lavanderia--Approximately 3.0m x 5.7m (approximately 184 ft2).  This was overly large for a laundry, but rather, became an all purpose work room where you could prepare items, store products.  A nice feature was the full bath from the service entrance.

 Some key features:

• Open plan pantry, no shelves or cabinets.  Made adding wire shelves or other fixtures very easy.
• Power outlets for large and small appliances in the pantry
• Closed off from kitchen with cabinet doors that folded flush to the walls when opened.  If you wanted access, it was transparent, if not, the pantry disappeared.
• Open-plan wash area.
• Small bath with shower next to the service entrance.  Very handy after bike rides or other activities.
• Reasonably close access to full tub sinks from the pantry and laundry area.  Very useful for cleaning pots, pans, or other projects. 

This kitchen was too big to be efficient, but it did have a nice face-to-face work area

Puerto Rico--Olympic Tower 802

Our Puerto Rico apartment was located on the beach in the Condado district.  Ours was the west facing half of the building.  The layout was very narrow for the kitchen, being forced into the apex of the 'V'. 

View Larger Map

The landlord had a plumbed a small closet in the kitchen to be a washing area in order to make a maid's quarters in the original laundry room.  The closet was very small, no more than 30 ft2, yet it fit a stack washer-dryer combination.
 

Original 'pantry'

As we did not have a maid, the landlord moved the washer and dryer back into the original laundry area, leaving us with a small closet that fit our stand mixer.  The small sink and counter were very handy.

After moving the washer-dryer

Key Features

• (Note, this was very small.  I do not recommend duplicating the space)
• Equipment and pantry materials always handy, yet can be closed off from the kitchen.
• Sink in the pantry area.
• Lots of electrics available, including 220V 20A,  since this was a washroom.

Ideas that inspire--Sunnybank house

Sunnybank house--Venner Lucas Architects

The Sunnybank House, the Scottish Grand Design 2011 winner, caught my attention today.  The owner's intent and design execution as a Passivhaus have a lot of ideas that are attractive.

• No heat or air conditioning--This is a 4500-5000 Kelvin Degree Day site, similar to Maiden Cove 
• 270 m2 (~3000 ft2), very similar to our high target area
• Main living areas on the ground floor to tie into the exterior
• Tear-down of an existing 1970s house to rebuild as a new house
• An earth cooled 'larder' (pantry)
• Avid cooks with a large kitchen-galley
• Use of durable surfaces throughout:  Tile, heavy wood, industrial glass, metal.
• Modern, simple, interior.  Single color scheme with very few window treatments
• Nearly in town, but on a quiet property, removed from the main street

Some things that have mixed feelings

• Absolute carbon zero footprint--Nice, but not a deal maker or breaker
• Children's touches to entertain a growing family, such as a slide with the stairs.  (Interesting idea, especially for moving luggage up and down--ramps are easier...)
• Color changing LED's in the bathroom.  Similar to rental cars--not really necessary.

Some things that are not:

• Highly modernist exterior.  I am amazed that Southern Scotland let them get this approved.
• Multiple tennis courts on the property
• Two acre garden

Approximate site location (approximately in center of picture, south of the A107 in Coldingham, Scotland.)

View Larger Map


Good links and some interior pictures:

• NYTIMES
• UK Grand Design Awards
• Venner Lucas Architects, Designers

 

The kitchen has a two sided work surface with unobstructed views to the outside.

Good use of sunlight and Low E skylights

Note the ramp/slide next to the stairs

More slides from the New York Times article 2011.12.08

The Site

For heating degree days (HDD), sunlight, and other considerations.

The existing footprint is located at:
43°37'40.50"N
70°12'55.25"W

The front-back walls face SE to NW with the best views in the NW and NE quadrants.  The opposite SW and SE quadrants receive all of the sunlight.  The solstice sunrise and sunset lines are shown in the Google map below:



View Maiden Cove 4 in a larger map

We computed HDD (Heating Degree Days) from three-year weather observations from Portland Jetport, Naval weather buoys, and private weather stations on the coast of Maine within 50 km of the site.  The computations correlated well with NWS data compiled 1981-2010.

• January is the coldest month at -5.1C average temperature
• July is the warmest month at 20.5C average temperature
• Rainfall is very uniform, averaging 3.94 inches per month, with a standard deviation of 0.58 inch (NWS 1981-2010)

HDD in F and C at 20C base temperature show:


We believe the city will allow building on the existing footprint, an area of approximately 2000 sq. ft.

Overlaying the the house floor plan dimensions from the original blueprints on the site shows the following:

The garage is on-grade on the SW side.  The remainder of the ground floor is supported by a concrete block wall foundation, providing an above grade basement on the downhill slope of the property.   The 2-D footprint floats over the Google Terrain mock-up:

 

An aside on stairs, two stories, and light

The idea of having main daily functions on one floor merits some discussion on how to use the view from the NE corner.   Here are the constraints.

The main daily functions of bringing things in and out (food, documents, jackets, etc.) are grouped on one floor.

• Arrival from work to office space
• Groceries to kitchen
• Friends to talk
• Cook to eat

We have an idea of keeping a portion of the ground floor open to the floor above; making a semi-loft.  Then how to go up and down?

This is from a site named bookshelfporn that dedicates its bits to books and how to store them
[This was voted down--it is dated] 

An Italian house. Needs different wall treatments but the split level is interesting, as are the interior windows.

Both the above from this site.  (Hopefully, it does not cobweb...)

Some notes--We have to think about some functions that do not complete on one floor:

• Home to trip  (do you drag luggage?  how?)
• Bike ride, jog, cross country, etc.  to home and shower and change  (the path to the magic stairway needs to be dirt resistant.)

Stairs

Stairs take up space and are unsafe the more they are used.  ideally, stairs should

• Have a secondary use besides moving up and down
• Take up the least area as possible
• Be safe
• Be flexible and change as needed.

I like this example of the Chand Baori (or Baodi) Well in India, about 800 CE.

Pilgrims were to wash themselves prior to entering the temple.  However, Rajasthan has a varying water level due to extremes of drought; pilgrims would have to search for water prior to entering the shrine.

The solution was to dig a 'step well' within the temple.  Lining the well with stone to the lowest drought level made a resistant surface that could be flooded by rising waters.  Making the walls stairs meant efficient use of space.  Therefore:

• Stairs were part of the wall--secondary purpose
• It is not clear what the tread width is, yet the well is big enough to accommodate the stair/wall.
• Note the use of landings at each descending junction as well as the well corners.  This well had a large influx of pilgrims, yet even old and infirm could reach the water.  Even though there are no railings it appears that one could only fall about six steps before landing on a platform. -- Safety.
• About the only thing wrong with the design is that it makes more access available as the water level rises, and therefore the well would be less needed.  Everything else is very well advanced.

Safety

Great paper with statistics and design information on stair accidents is here.  Stairs with the best ascending and descending speed with high quality foot contact have the following dimensions (p. 13ff):

• Best ascent speeds with safety (RxT dimensions in inches): 8.7 x 12.3  (35.2 degree)
• Best descent speed: 7.2 x 10.7  (33.9 degrees)
• The best compromise for overall safety is a 35 degree stair with treads no less than 11 inches (95th percentile of foot length in US) (p.18)

It suggests a 'minor stair accident' is possible every 63,000 steps (p.41/45).  Considering a 10 foot rise between stories and a 9-inch riser gives 27 steps per round trip between floors.  Some calculations of return trips between floors per day:

• 5-round trips per day per floor - 466 days between accidents
• 10-round trips per day per floor - 233 days between accidents

It suggests:

• Build floors around lifestyle themes to keep activity within the floor.  Like a department store, items are organized around themes to keep the shopper on one floor.

Ideas

• Have a wet bar in the office area to avoid having to change floors to go to a kitchen
• Kitchen--family area--open dining--even office on one level.
• Garage to basement with close access to avoid going through multiple areas of the house (less steps)
• more?

Images I like 

• uses space for books, which are important to us. 
• May be distracting when going up stairs.

•  A possibility to go from ground floor to second floor using a loft plan.
• Could be suspended to allow windows.
• Could be in the NE corner of the building
• Sky space is clear.  Forces upwards views from the ground floor.