Designing a House Series: The Preliminary Design

“What kind of architect puts balconies on a building that stands nose-to-nose with an elevated expressway? No one would be hanging out their sheets to dry or lingering on the balcony with a gin and tonic to watch the evening rush-hour traffic.”

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

Balconies that don’t look out onto anything. Windows that look out onto the house next door. Narrow strips of grass labeled as a backyard. In an effort to find a compromise on budget, space, and convenience, we are forced to contend with terrible design decisions.

In a previous essay, we looked at some questions to consider as we start designing a house. In this essay, we are going to take the next step and start designing a preliminary layout. We don’t know what we like and what we don’t like until we start visualizing some of the features. Architects often call their works a “visual essay”, and running with that metaphor, we can say we are at the “creating an outline” stage of the process.

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I imagine if we all think about it, most of our homes have certain design features that give us a headache. Maybe our front door opens directly into the living room, and we don’t get the chance to discard our shoes and accessories and properly enter the home. Maybe we have a fireplace or window in the living room that forces us to arrange our furniture in specific ways. Whatever it may be, it is frustrating to have to “make do” with these spaces. A house should be designed in a way where each space acts harmoniously with the overall design. And that means designing each room for more than just its intended function. So how would I use this information to design a house?

Let’s start with entering and exiting the house. In one of his books, Witold Rybczynski talks about asking his architecture students how one should enter their building. For me, I would want to enter into a foyer. It doesn’t have to be very large, but large enough for me to deposit my shoes, coat and a wet umbrella. My front entrance would have sidelights, which are the narrow windows on either side of the door, and transom windows, which are the windows above the door. The glass would be frosted in a muranese style to give it a vintage look. They would be large enough to let in natural light. I would also put a skylight in the roof to further illuminate the space. One of the things I learned from my mother is that the home should be a peaceful environment and every visitor should enter and immediately feel like it was their home too. In a previous essay about the Kimbell, I talked about the cleansing feeling you experience when you enter through the fountain side. I would like my entrance to reflect the same cleansing feeling. Entering a home should be a calming and pleasant experience.

Now, we are in the foyer and ready to enter the rest of the house. The foyer will be furnished with a simple wooden sideboard and there will be a nice chair for a guest to sit in. There will most likely be a plant in front of one of the sidelights. Looking in front of me, there is a staircase that hugs the right side of the wall and a hallway leading to the kitchen. To the right will be an office. To the left, the living room. If I go through the living room, I will reach the back of the house where there will be French doors leading to the patio. If I go through the office to the right, I will walk through the dining room. Both the living room and office entrance from the foyer will have pocket doors so I can easily close off those rooms. The top right room in the house will be a combination laundry room and mud room. There will also be a downstairs bathroom here. The kitchen will be in the rear of the house and can be entered from the dining room, laundry room, living room, and foyer hallway. Going up the stairs, there will be two bedrooms: one on the right side of the house, and one on the left side of the house. Each will have their own bathroom, which will be in the center of the two rooms. Each bathroom will have a skylight. Each bedroom will have a balcony that looks out onto the backyard. There will be linen and storage closets on either side of the stairs.

With this layout, I can maximize the amount of natural light the house gets. I also like when the backyard is integrated into the rest of the house. For a lot of houses, there is a simple sliding backdoor leading to the backyard and there is a clear demarcation between front yard and back yard. In this house there will be multiple access points and enough windows to let the occupant experience the natural surroundings. I never understood house designs where small windows were used as the main window rather than as accent windows.

I think this is a good starting point for the design. Each room on the second floor is separated by intentional “quiet zones” in the form of the stairwell and linen and storage closets. They are also separated from the noise downstairs. They are also positioned so they are secluded in the back of the house. I like having a narrow hallway in the foyer. I like housing designs with narrow corridors that open into large open rooms.

Now that I have my preliminary layout, I can start challenging some of the assumptions I have made. Using the “visual essay” metaphor, this next stage will be the “editing” stage. Before I jump into the editing stage, I will spend some time thinking about the design of the backyard and how it will be integrated into the rear of the house. The backyard will be the last part that is built, but if it will be an important feature of the house, then I want to make sure I am designing both the house and the site at the same time.