Remnant Architecture

So you want to create a new house or modify your current house. You can hire a contractor to build it. But how do they know what to build? If you’re a visual person, you might be able to come up with a napkin sketch or layout the house in a spreadsheet. Or maybe you know some drafting programs and can work out the design there. If you don’t feel capable of any of those, you could search through stock plans to see if there is anything like what you had in mind. Now there is also the option of having AI create something for you. But how do you know the design will actually work for you?

You can take on all the responsibility of making sure your design will work with your site, meet building codes, and fit your lifestyle. Or you can hire an architect to help you with that.

Site Planning

The first item to check when working on a house design is to make sure the house footprint will fit on your site. You’ll need a site survey showing the dimensions of your property lines. Then you need to find out the setbacks (how close your house can be to the property lines on all sides) for your lot. That leaves you with the buildable area for your house. If you design a house bigger than that, it will not be approved by the building department. I once was at a board of zoning appeals meeting where a homeowner was trying to get a variance because the house design they bought online didn’t fit in the setbacks. They did not receive the variance because that was not a good enough reason for the board to approve it. The board felt like there could be another design for the site that could meet the setbacks. It just might take a creative expert to accomplish that.

The next site design item is to see how your house design fits with the slope of the site. Your house may work with the site when looking at it from a bird’s eye view, but will there be enough for a basement or just a crawlspace? I was working with a homeowner once who had walked their lot and decided that it wasn’t too steep. They figured they would have enough room for a basement. And they did have room for a basement, with a crawlspace below! The lot turned out to be much steeper than they thought when the house was overlaid on the topography. The extra crawlspace that they weren’t expecting was an additional cost, but we were able to offset that cost by reducing the overall square footage of their house during the design process. They did really like the property, so the trade off was worth it.

The nature of stock plans is that they don’t take into account your specific site. Your site might have a view or special feature that the house needs to open up to. Or maybe there is a noise generator or privacy intrusion that you want to close up the house from. Where is the street and what path will your driveway take? I once designed a house one specific site for a homeowner who ended up buying another site in the same neighborhood that became available while I was working with them that had a better view. Fortunately, the bulk of the adaptations to the new site were just mirroring the house plan since the sites were similar. However, you might not be that lucky in adapting a pre-designed plan to your site.

Building Codes & Constructability

When a homeowner sends me a design they have already worked on their own before they hire me, clearances are one thing I’ll take a look at. Things often take up more space than one might think at first. Bathrooms are one place where the building code specifies minimum clearances, though especially if you want to age in place, you might want more room. Closets need to have space for clothes to hang plus walking space. Bedrooms need to have a wall for the bed to be up against plus walking space. Just the right amount of space is needed between counters in the kitchen (not too little, not too much). Stairs can be tricky because each step has a maximum allowed height, and the right number needs to be provided to get from floor to floor. The correct thickness of walls needs to be shown as it can add up across a house.

One thing in the building code that has changed over time is the amount of insulation in the walls/ceilings/floors, which can change the wall thickness. In the past couple of decades, the code required insulation amounts were increasing, whereas in the past years, the amounts have reduced somewhat. The location of the project can also change the amount of insulation. Northern US projects need more insulation than Southern US projects. There are three main types of insulation that are being used now (batt, rigid, spray-foam), which lead to many options for the exterior design of the house. Stock plans may not have the right insulation for your house, so some redesign might be required.

In the past, my clients have looked for inspiration images for their projects in places like Pinterest and Houzz. It takes some translating to get their ideal aesthetic to work with the home’s actual layout. Now with AI generating images that might not be able to be constructed in reality, there can be even more translating. I keep an eye out for AI optical illusions, like M.C. Escher would create. I’ve also seen AI images with dimensions that don’t work out the same when inputted in a scaled drawing.

Suitability For You

Your house needs to be customized to your site, but it also needs to be customized to you. Everyone has a unique combination of routines and preferences. See below for some items that the design of your house should respond to:

• Do you go through the front door or garage when you come home? Is there a different route you take when you are dropping off groceries?
• How many cars will park in the garage and what size are they?
• Do you wake up and get ready for the day at the same time as everyone else in the house? Does everyone get ready for bed at the same time? How do the bathrooms/closets need to be separated to accomplish this?
• Do you work from home or go into the office? Do you homeschool your kids or do they go to school? Do you want a home gym or do you have a gym membership?
• Do you have any hobbies that need to be accommodated in your house? Do you have any pets that need space in the design?
• Who cooks dinner? Do you use your full kitchen often or do a lot of take-out?
• How many seats do you need for dining every day? How many seats do you need for dining on special occasions?
• Do you like a TV in your living room or does it need its own room? Do the kids need a separate living room from the adults?
• Do you want all the bedrooms together or separated with buffers?
• Should each bedroom have an ensuite bathroom or can there be a hallway bathroom?
• Should the laundry room be near an entrance to your house like a mudroom or near the bedrooms?

These are the types of things that you can customize for your house beyond a cookie-cutter design.

If you want to hire a Knoxville architect to help you with your project, fill out the new client application to get started with Remnant Architecture.