Thursday, July 15, 2010


Here's the closest I came to a floor plan for our new house. The shape is correct and to scale, but the inner rooms are less than accurate as far as scale goes.
I drew up several designs for our house, but after going through the process enough times, most were counted out after failing to meet one or more of the following criteria.
  • Doable with one person and a backhoe/loader (at least the majority of it)
  • shape had to be easily reproducible when transferred to actual size (I needed to be able to accurately draw it in life-size scale)
  • no roof span over 18'
  • incorporate curved walls
  • compatible with/for barrel vault roof
  • compatible shape for (simple) rain catchment
  • compatible with surrounding landscape
  • distances needed to stay in check for gray water plumbing
There are other things that dictated the shape of the house, but those are some of the main targets I had for the structure. I was originally looking to build "small and cozy" but that obviously didn't pan out. Let's just say, there are two types of people in the world - those that like to live in Smurf houses, and those who don't. I myself would gladly live in one, but I'm married to an anti-smurfite, so...