Good & Bad Home Design: Part One

GET THE SCALE RIGHT (ABOVE): One of the key elements of a successful design is ensuring the right sense of scale, both to the plot and more importantly as built on site — it shouldn’t be too imposing or tiny, but in keeping with the owner’s sense of understanding. Some homes can be just too big. Read more about this project.

Self-builders are beginning to rediscover the importance of good quality design. It’s pretty fair to say that while the majority of self-builders have been responsible for the best individual houses built in Britain in the past decade, they have also been responsible for some real shockers — where it’s clear that design was well down the list when it came to priorities. Even worse are the houses where you realise that someone has actually designed that!

After designing homes for self-build clients for nearly 25 years, you develop a clear under standing of how this aspect of a project should be approached and what the differences are between good and bad design. As a starting point, design should be considered an obvious priority rather than being an optional inclusion.

I have the opportunity to work with some wonderful clients with very personal requirements and it’s obvious that selfbuilders are creating houses of a higher level of design than many of the larger developers. This is driven by their passion and their desire to be individual and is why they have chosen to build their own home rather than buying a mass-produced generic box.

It is so refreshing to see this ‘wind of change’ in design understanding and I am personally excited to see self-build moving to the next level. The design aspect of your project may not necessarily be straight - forward but if approached correctly, will ultimately ensure a successful outcome.

The following considerations should be made when embarking on the design process for your new home to ensure you realise your expectations for the project. Whilst not exhaustive, these fundamental basics will ensure a truly successful project for you and will result in the realisation of your dream home. More importantly, though, they will result in a home of a high level of design and one that will be admired and remembered for years to come.

1. Really Getting the Brief

Come up with a clear, detailed brief about your lifestyle

The right client/designer relationship is so important to ensuring a successful project. Take some time out to research the market and find the right one for you. The design journey can be fairly lengthy and many factors need to be covered during the initial research and investigation stage. The whole point of deciding to self-build your own home is to stamp that mark of individuality onto your daily environment. Aim to document every possible aspect you can think of when briefing your designer. Use lists of rooms and scrapbooks, and detail how you would love to spend evenings and weekends. Ask your designer to be ‘freethinking’ with a blank canvas to work from rather than attempting to amend a previously used design or one from a book of home plans. This method of approach will never produce a design that is individual and truly for you.

2. Floorplans For Living In

Think about how you want to live

The internal layout of your proposed new home should again be 100% personal and should reflect, not only your current day-to-day lifestyle, but also your aspirations for future living. This aspect of successful design should be fun and exploratory, and a good designer should open your eyes to new ideas and solutions. Successful design with room configurations will ensure you feel connected to your new home and will promote natural flow and harmony.

3. A Site-Specific Design

Get your designer to visit the site and design for it

In terms of achieving a high level of design and appropriateness for the location, an accurate appraisal and understanding of the site is of significant importance. A successful and welldesigned house will sit well within its plot and will work with existing site features such as boundaries, trees, and other natural features such as land contours and orientation of the sun’s path. Sitespecific design is often undervalued, but with the correct approach you can ensure that the house will look balanced and correct within its own environment.

A BESPOKE DESIGN (ABOVE): The first path to success is to get your designer to understand your individual circumstances — both in terms of site and budget. Read more about this project.

4. Acknowledging the Budget

Discuss your build budget from the outset

Your proposed build budget is integral to setting the design parameters for your self-build project. This is a question I ask as early on as possible in the design process as without this information, the project will have no accurate direction. As a designer, I have a commitment to clients to ensure that I not only design their dream home, but that I am confident they can afford to build it. Again, budget appraisal on its own is important, but it also needs to be cross-referenced with all of the other factors to be successful.

About the Author

Pete Tonks runs an architectural design and concept studio and has extensive experience in the self-build industry. Pete was in-house designer at Potton for 20 years and established PJT Design in 2003. He has since been responsible for many of the UK’s best individual homes, and has undertaken design work for a huge number of self-build clients and leading package companies, such as TJ Crump Oakwrights. He’s also H&R’s regular Design Expert.

Read part two for advice on planning, materials and finishing touches...

Further reading:

• Design Problems and Their Solutions
• The Essence of Good House Design
• A Guide to Starting Out on Your Self-build