Giving feedback to the architect

In relation to Neal-the-Architect's request for feedback on his initial designs (reproduced in our last post) a, Viktoria and the Android sat down with their crayons and their thinking caps, and this is the feedback we provided to him...

Hi Neal

As promised the committee has had many conversations, sometimes involving coloured pencils, about the floorplans etc and have put our collective heads together with some feedback.

Basically, the general consensus is that we are overall very happy with it:

• we love the interaction of the lines of the structure with landscape, and think it makes a very interesting and inspiring space to move through
• we love the stairs descending into the landscape, and are quite ok with the fact that it's not covered
• we also love the light garden

But because Viktoria is super-cautious and wants to make sure everything will fit, she has drawn your sketch onto graph paper, and filled it with furniture of equivalent size to that which we own. We make no apologies for its complete lack of architectural or graphic merit. Making a big assumption that Viktoria has interpreted the scale of your drawings correctly, attached is a picture of the scale floorplan with furniture added. From doing that exercise, we came up with some feedback / ideas / conversations. 

Essentially, what we discussed was:

1. Entry - we have seen several 'cold climate' houses that have a kind of "entry portal" (or airlock, if it was a spaceship) where you can leave coats, muddy boots. We looked at bringing the entry forward to have a small enclosed 'porch' before the main door.
2. This would mean that the coat storage could be removed, and instead the office desk & computer could be located in its space (it is highly likely that Viktoria at least will still be working , albeit remotely, and will need an office space which needs to be separate from her studio).
3. The pantry, kitchen/dining and living areas are fine the way they are
4. Viktoria's studio - doesn't really 'work' as a rectangle. I need a 'zone' with a desk where I do my design work, and another 'zone' where I can do painting. While I may not have as much sexy equipment as the Android, this is actually what I plan to be doing full-time when we move, so this space is pretty important to me.... I just don't take up as much room as the Android. We thought a solution may be that, because we aren't so prudish that the loo needs to be separate, we have moved the loo into the bathroom, included the ex-loo area into Viktoria's studio so that the studio is a letter "L" shape, and enclosed the former entry passage to the toilet so that it becomes storage for Viktoria's studio. Which means that the entry to Viktoria's studio will need to be through the wall that faces into the kitchen / dining. And Viktoria will be much happier .
5. The slightly crazy but "yes we really are serious" idea of having a secret entry into Viktoria's room through a bookcase (like in an old English stately home) we think will probably need to be discussed, rather than attempt an explanation via email...
6. The bathroom & light garden remain unchanged (except that the bathroom / laundry now has a loo, and there will need to be a cat door into the light garden).  
7. Now this is where all the changes actually come in.... neither of us were completely comfortable with having the Android's studio being next to our bedroom because:
• even with sound-proofing Viktoria can still hear him
• he gets sick of Viktoria whining about it being 3am and when is he going to turn the noise off
• it's a fair distance for him to have to cart equipment (potentially through rain & snow) if he is playing live
8. So, our initial thoughts at how this might be addressed were that the Android's studio is moved up onto the same level as the carport - this way he doesn't have to carry his equipment very far; and it doesn't have to be carried through the rain or snow; and Viktoria won't whinge at him (as much)
9. The space which was the Android's studio becomes the guest bedroom
10. the wardrobe space is made bigger (taking over some of the floor space from the now guest bedroom)
11. the main bedroom stays where it is but with a bigger wardrobe

Of course, all this means that we have just increased the footprint by 16m2, and also the cost.

And we have no idea whether it is feasible/workable and/or destroys the integrity of your design.

We just didn't want to come back to you and say "this doesn't work for us, fix it" and not at least have some suggestions (which either help or hinder)!

Similarly, if we have completely wrecked your design with all of the above, feel free to tell us off, complain bitterly about how difficult we are, and then do something different

We look forward to catching up with you.

Neal had a better suggestion of having the guest bedroom in place of the Android's music studio, but raise the music studio so that it is on top of the guest bedroom.
And he was quite comfortable with Viktoria's desire to have a pivoting bookcase "doorway" into her studio. You really know you have picked the right person when they don't baulk at increasingly nutty suggestions.
When we have some revised drawings, we will post them for you to see.
In the meantime, next week Viktoria is commandeering the shuttle to go down to Tasmania to (a) catch up with Neal and (b) meet with three builders (courtesy of Neal again) to see if any of them are just mad enough to take on our project...