Plan Right for Open Living - by Architect Your Home
April 28, 2012
Over recent years more and more homeowners have been looking to achieve bigger living spaces for entertaining and interaction, with or without the need for a home extension. Making the most of the original footprint of your home can be as important as extending but it's important to make sure your new space flows.
The benefits of opening plan living means all the spaces look and feel bigger as a result and overlapping the functions of each 'zone' (kitchen/dining/living etc) allows more available space for each than if in separate rooms.
There also tends to be much less wasted space without the need for corridors and much more of your space becomes really usable, circulation becomes much easier.
Sociable housing
Bringing spaces together means more interactivity in family living making it easier to keep watch over younger family members, chat to guests (most likely nosey but envious neighbours), to watch TV whilst cooking and cleaning through the spaces, and so on.
Seeing the light
With open plan living daylight has a greater opportunity to penetrate deeper into the building and views to the garden can be opened up to more of the house.
In an open plan arrangement you also need to carefully consider how the lighting from each zone will affect the other adjacent zones. It's no good creating a lovely mood setting in the living zone if it's ruined by bright light from the kitchen zone.
Very often part of the solution is in lighting control but these can be very elaborate and expensive, or fairly simple and less expensive. In essence they allow you to 'pre-set' arrangements of lights for difference situations. So you'd have one setting for dining, one for party, one for cleaning, one for TV watching etc. all pre-set you can simply switch between them.
In terms of how and where to put light fittings, all the same principles that would apply to separate rooms need to be considered here, zone-by-zone, but in a more open plan arrangement; so ask for lighting over work areas, good general lighting for cleaning; ambient light to set the right mood; centrepiece lighting as a focal point etc.
Don't knock it
We'd always recommend engaging the services of an architect as they have the skills, experience and vision to make sure your new layout works and flows as you desire.
For example when it comes to taking down walls don't think that just because it's made of brick, it's therefore load-bearing but similarly don't think that just because a wall is studwork (hollow), it is therefore not load-bearing!
You can remove any wall you like but the only question is what needs to go in its place. While a builder should be able to advise you on what, if any, structural support should be carrying the weight above it they won't be able to advise you on the best design, layout, and ergonomics for your space.
You will generally not need planning permission to remove an internal wall, but all structural works require building regulations approval and if your building is listed you will need listed building consent. An architect has expertise across the board (technical, design, permissions, structure, space planning, regulations etc.) and can ensure that everything works and fits with everything else.
Don't be shocked...
Everything needs to be considered when you are renovating your home, from building regulations and planning permissions required through to making sure your ideas regarding electrics meet the more and more stringent regulations.
Only properly qualified electricians are allowed to undertake anything more than the very most basic electrical work in a home, all work must be certificated.
Not a fan of Open plan?
With most things there are positives and negatives. There are some down sides to open plan living such as it being harder to find cellular spaces for downstairs WC and utility rooms or things like wall space for radiator locations, artworks and so on.
If you fancy the peace and quiet then the open plan layout is probably less suitable as there are fewer walls and enclosures, but I guess you wouldn't be going down this route if that was the case. The desire for a dedicated TV or home-cinema space tends to work better when more enclosed and the same is more suited to the piano players and musicians in the home so Guitar Heroes please take note...
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4/30/2012 1:39:44 PM
,Contempo Wall says:Thanks for this article. It's easy to forget just how much goes into home renovation sometimes