Design Brief (I)
Style
"Practical Contemporary Tropical". I've had the luxury and privilege of holidaying in some pretty spectacular hotels and villas in Asia (all reasonably priced, trust me). One of my favorites is this one. These have shaped some pretty awesome dream-homes in my head. Unfortunately, not all of them have been practical given a)how limited my budget is for this build; b) how I won't have an army of staff to help with the upkeep; c)my fairly small plot of land. So what do I mean?Practical. The house should be easy to maintain. I love wood and would like to have this clad the entire house, but I am aware of the harsh realities of having to maintain wooden structures and/or architectural finishes. I would also like a home that offers some flexibility for current and future needs. I mean hey, kids grow up right? Also, I would prefer that the home is "idiot-proof" when it comes to maintenance - no lightbulbs I can't change without bringing in scaffolding please.
Contemporary. Below are some examples I've found from Houzz (great app btw) - sorry I know there's wood, but my point is that a) I need symmetry and regular shapes, but not necessarily monolithic ones b) classy, but not ostentatious c) plenty of light.
Tropical. Ah yes. Seeing how I live in the tropics, it seems to make oh so much sense. But I'd like some tropical greenery in the home (think of a Frangipani tree in a water feature in an air-well), but yet easy to maintain.
Also, what's really important about integrating the tropics in the design, is how it needs to be manifested in the design features.
Design Features
Maximization of space. I have 2,800 sg ft of land, but there are setback requirements meaning that I'll only be able to build on ~1350 sq ft. If we are clever about it and can go about building staggered floors, it would be ideal to achieve ~4,000 sq ft of space. But again, it would very much depend on how much we can bring the costs down for a build. See previous post on costs. :(Good ventilation + Passive cooling. This is absolutely key for the tropics. I cannot envisage having the air-conditioning on 24x7, so I need my home to be well ventilated. The problem is that my home is surrounded by houses that tower over mine. The struggle to ventilate, is therefore real. I think that one of the houses we've visited recently has addressed it somewhat - but they had the advantage of not having a house directly behind theirs. Our house is also West-South-West facing - meaning we get an awful lot of afternoon sunlight. This heats up the place so we'll need to think cleverly about how to cool the home passively.
External sunshades may prove useful for this purpose.
Maximization of light. One of the issues I have now, is that the house is sandwiched between 2 others (wall to wall), so very little light gets into the house. When we rebuild, we will detach from one of our neighbours - and that should let some light in. However, it would be preferable to allow the maximum amount of light into every crevice of the home.
Where necessary, I would also ask that the architectural finishes (read: doors, shutters, windows) be put in place that allow for the house to be cooled with an air-conditioner or darkened to enjoy the movies.
Design & Materials
Ultimately, it all boils down to cost. Wood & glass are expensive, I know - so I'll be happy to work within my means to find the best compromise. My preference, is to have natural (or natural looking) materials as far as possible.I am quite happy with homogeneous tiles as long as they vaguely resemble natural stone. I love for some of my ceilings to be decked out with timbre - but I'll settle for laminate simply because I won't be able to tell the difference.
I'll also settle for aluminium in lieu of wood - but I believe that we should as far as possible be avoiding materials and finishes that don't look natural. If possible, plastic should be banned in the design.
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