The Not So Big House

I was assigned to research and learn more about the Not So Big House concept. The concept is presented in a trilogy of books by Sarah Susanka. She suggests that instead of building larger homes, people should build homes that are of average size but are more convenient to live in.

I was also assigned to measure each of the rooms in my personal house (not the one I had previously designed in Architecture 1). The chart I created includes the room name, the activities that take place in that room, the length and width, square footage and the frequency of activity.

Making Changes

Yesterday I reviewed the floor, roof, and foundation plans of the house I designed in Architecture 1. To make my house more functional I decided to make a few changes. Instead of having the garage separate from the house I plan to make it flush with the rest of the house; meaning the garage will share a wall with the kitchen and the dining room. On the floor plan I noticed there was an unneeded corner wall in the dining room, because I want to remove it I will need to add a beam. the beam will help support the cathedral ceiling. Originally a sun room was in the rear of the house. It did not seen necessary to include it; upon removing it from the plan I added more windows to the family room. With out the sun room, the roof of the house has to be adjusted.

Class Overview

This semester in Architecture 2 I will be learning how to create schedules, electrical plans, plumbing plans, HVAC requirements, plot/site plans specification and building estimations and presentation drawings. I took the first Architecture class last year, so the new plans that I will be creating will be based on the house I designed in that class.