Designing Your House: Checkpoints

Abstract This note gives the issues to be looked at while building your house. The issues concern with the design of: common living area, balcony or verandah, kitchen, dining room, drawing room, bedrooms and toilets keeping in mind ventilation, lighting and people connectivity. It provides check points to you if you already have a house layout.

There are several issues which need to be looked at in the design of the layout of your house. The choices regarding the issues depend on your lifestyle, relationship with friends, type and number of visitors to your house, special occupational requirements, etc. For example, if you have many formal visitors, your house should have a drawing room which is separate. On the other hand, if you have mostly informal visitors, the drawing room could be integrated more with the rest of the house. Starting from the issues given here, you might not be able to design your house; however, if your house layout is already designed, you should be able to check whether it matches with your needs. In such a case, you can give your feedback to the architect or the designer of your house, to arrive at a more satisfactory layout. The issues are listed below, classiﬁed in the form of areas or rooms. Each issue has a description followed by a list of concerns posed as questions.

1 Common Living Area

Designing an area where the entire family can sit and do things together or separately is the most important part of a house. There must be a clearly identiﬁed space and must be separate from the pathways or walkways. You should be able to place furniture or sitting rug there without blocking the pas- sages. This is a test whether you have a sittable space, or only pathways. The sitting arrangement should permit face-to-face sitting, facing each other or in L-shaped manner, etc.

1. Do you have well identiﬁed living area separate from passage/pathway? If you were to place furniture or rug there, would it block the pathways? (If so you do not have a living area, but only space for walkway!)

2. Is there enough space that you can sit face-to-face or in an L-shaped manner?

1 2 Balcony/Verandah

Balconies and verandah’s provide you spaces which are open, but semi-protected from the elements. They let you feel the outside air and sun, and yet protect you from direct sunlight and rain. These two – living area and balcony/verandah – provide vibrancy to a home.

1. If you are not located on the ground ﬂoor, do you have a balcony? If you are located on the ground ﬂoor, do you have a verandah?

2. Do you have one large one balcony or several small balconies? (A single large balcony encourages family to sit together. Several small balconies, sometimes each attached to a bedroom, encourage separateness. What do you want as a family – separateness or togetherness?)

3. Is the balcony broad enough that you can sit face-to-face or in L-shaped manner?

3 Placement of Living Area and Balcony

Living area and the balcony, if they are next to each other, can provide a seamless space in which one area merges with the other. It can give you the feeling, that outside is inside, and inside is outside. In other words, while being inside you feel that you are outside, and while being outside, you are protected as if you are inside!

1. Are living area and balcony next to each other? (Close connectivity enhances the quality of usage of living room as well as the balcony.

2. Do you feel that outside is inside, and inside is outside?

4 Kitchen

Kitchen is an important part of your house, after all, it has to do with the preparation of food! Here, we will discuss the ”standing kitchen” only, in other words, where the cooking is done while standing. Design of the kitchen has important aspects, namely, its location and connectivity with other rooms in the house. Clearly it should be next to or near the dining area. It has to have platforms for cooking (stove), for working (cutting vegetables, etc.), and washing utensils etc. If family members are engaged in activities in the kitchen on a regular basis, it is important that they remain connected with the rest of the family. If so, one should consider the possibility of an open kitchen. There is nothing like it, because the family members in the kitchen become connected to people in the house. Kitchen can also be located next to the living area. The commonly held belief that the open kitchen will make the whole house smelly is not true, if there is proper ventilation, and it does not require the installation of special chimneys and exhaust fans, which add to the maintenance and

2 cleaning eﬀort. The wash area can also be so designed that the dirty utensils are not visibel from the outside, even when it is an open kitchen.

1. Is there proper ventilation? Are there enough windows?

2. Are there counters for work, for stove, for dirty utensils? Are they of proper width? (The width of general counters could vary between 18 to 24 inches. The counter for keeping the stove, should be 24 inches or more.)

3. Does the stove counter have a window nearby? If the window is right on the stove, is it at a slight height (1 foot above the stove) so the external wind/draft does not aﬀect the ﬂames?

4. Are there 2 wash basins side by side, or only one? (Two are preferable, one to keep dirty utensils, and the other to keep rinsed semi- dirty ones. But the cost is more.)

5. Are there counters for work, on both sides of the wash basin(s)? (Strongly preferable to get working area on both sides of the wash basin(s) for ease of work, for example, keeping soaped utensils on one side, etc.)

6. Is the kitchen an open kitchen? Strongly recommended, particularly if the family members are engaged in cooking or supervising cooking. (Unlike popular belief, there is no smell even if the kitchen is open. If there are proper windows, no exhaust fan needed.)

7. If you have an open kitchen, you might want to block the view of the wash area. Is the view of the wash area blocked from outside?

8. Is the kitchen located next to the dining area?

5 Bedroom

Bedrooms are places for sleeping and rest. They should be quiet places but with very good ventilation, so that you get enough oxygen while you rest or sleep. It is desirable that there are windows on two sides of a bedroom for cross-ventilation. It is good if you get the morning sun into your bedroom. It provides a bright and refreshing light in the morning.

1. Does the room have cross-ventilation, that is, are there windows in at least two diﬀerent walls/directions?

2. Does the room get suﬃcent natural light particularly in the morning?

3. Is there a provision for a wardrobe or almirah for keeping your clothes? Is there space for hangers for clothes in the almirah?

3 6 Drawing Room

The size and connectivity of your drawing room depend on your lifestyle, and your nature. Are you a social person or a private person?

1. Do most of your visitors meet the concerned family member in the drawing room and go away, or they are invited inside the house? (If they are invited inside the house, you might like to have your dining area inside your drawing room.)

2. Do you like to show-oﬀ? You might make a larger drawing room? (Although, it might be the most under used space, if you do not get visitors.)

3. Do you collect art pieces and like to display them? If so, keep space for display stand.

7 Dining Room

Dining room is an important space. Many times the family sits and discusses together in this space, especially if there is no living room space.

1. Is the dining room next to the kitchen?

2. Is it a part of or connected to the family room or the drawing room? (For connectivity choices see, under drawing room.)

8 Ventilation

Ventilation is an utmost important aspect of house design. Natural ventilation is preferred as much as possible, as it provides good quality and fresh air. It also leads to a maintenance free house not dependent on 24-hour electricity. Moreover package air-conditioning units make us dependent and do not provide ventilation.

1. Is there suﬃcient ventilation in your house? Are there suﬃciently large windows in rooms? Is there natural ventilation?

2. Does each room have adequate windows, particularly the bedrooms? Are there windows on two walls for cross ventilation (preferred)?

3. Are there any obstructions inside or outside the house to air draft across rooms (if doors are open)? (It would be great to have a free ﬂow of air across the house, if inside doors are open.)

4 9 Lighting and View

9.1 Natural light 1. Is there enough natural light in the house? (Quality of natural light is superior to ﬂuorescence or LED or other artiﬁcial lights.)

2. Do you have suﬃcient number of glass windows to allow for natural light to come in rooms? (Check each room for suﬃcient light.)

9.2 Natural View – Have Plain Glass Windows A feeling of space and openness should come from inside the house, rather than a feeling of being cramped. It partly depends on how the house allows you to connect with the outside views and light.

1. Do you have glazed glass windows? (Do NOT have glazed glass windows, except perhaps in bathrooms/toilets, as these cut the outside view. They isolate you from the outside.)

2. Are the windows of your house painted or planned to be painted? (Do NOT paint the glass windows, except perhaps in bathrooms/toilets, as these cut the outside view.)

3. Do you have provision of curtains? (Have openable curtains to control light, instead of painted glass peins or glazed glass. Simple curtains with rings operating on rods are best, fancy looking ones with contraptions to open them or close them, are troublesome to operate as well as maintain.)

10 Bathrooms/Toilet

1. Is the bathroom or toilet of adequate size?

2. Is the wash basin at the entrance?

3. Is the bathing area at the end of the bathroom or at the entry of the bathroom? (Have the bathing area at the end of the bathroom and NOT at the entry of the bathroom, because otherwise your bathroom will remain wet most of the time. W.C. or pot should be before the bathing area or at the entrance.)

4. Do the bathroom doors open towards the wall or away from the wall? (The door should open in such a way that it blocks the inside view of the bathroom/toilet. This is the reverse of where the doors are put in the rooms.)

5 11 Multi-Story Blocks

In case your house is a part of apartment block with several stories, have common open sitting area on each ﬂoor so that residents come out and sit there with their cup of tea, or parents relax while the children play. Simply having a large lobby is not the answer because it would be a passage way and would not get used as a sitting space.

1. Is the common sitting area right in the middle of walking path? (If so, it would not get used for sitting.)

2. Is it so shaped that people can sit face-to-face or sit in L-shaped manner?

3. Is it open – visible to people using stairway? (Neighbors should be attracted to come and sit.)

4. Is there a wash basin accessible from the common area? (Have it, if possible. (optional))

5. Is there a larger common area on one of the ﬂoors? (It would be quite useful for parties in the apartment block. (optional))

6. Is there a common play area for children just outside the block?

Contact Sapna Sangal Email: [email protected], and

Rajeev Sangal Director, IIT(BHU) Varanasi, India Email: [email protected]

25 May 2015