Ultimate House Design

I wonder if there is one ultimate floor plan that would satisfy 90% of all homeowners. As you know, must houses are laid out inconveniently. You have your “never use” rooms by the front door, your laundry room on a different floor from the bedrooms, and your dining room down the hall from your kitchen. Crazy.

So I’ve been thinking about a better design, conceptually. I don’t have the details worked out, but tell me what you think so far.

On the first floor, imagine the kitchen is the center, surrounded by a family room, dining area, bathroom, small TV/reading area, and storage.

The family room would be next to a storage room, so you can easily change the furnishings. If you want to watch a movie with friends on the big screen, just push some extra chairs in from the storage room. If you want to have a party with lots of dance space, push all the furniture into storage. Want to exercise? Push the recumbent exercise bike from storage into the main room. With hard wood or tile floors, and pads under furniture legs, things push easily. (I use this concept now, including the recumbent bike. It moves easily.)

The dining area would be casual enough for regular use, but nice enough for having friends over – like a funky restaurant look. No need to have both a breakfast nook and a formal dining room. One is always wasted. If you plan to entertain anyone fancy, go to a nice restaurant. Your friends and family will be fine with casual.

The upstairs would feature the laundry room in the center, directly above the kitchen. That makes the plumbing less expensive. Surrounding the laundry room would be the bedrooms. But here’s my real innovation: All the bedroom closets would have a door that opens to the laundry room but could be locked from inside the bedroom. On laundry day, you just unlock the bedroom closet doors and everything is a few steps away.

The laundry room would be totally tricked out with a flat panel screen, surround sound, folding tables, and an ironing board. Doing laundry will seem like a fun escape.

Anything wrong with that floor plan?

Comments

[Chris]

Why is the Dilbert Ultimate House no longer online??

[Rita]

I don't know what I'd do without my cleaning maid. My house would probably be in shambles right now and I wouldn't be able to find anything.

[Prithvi Bhargava]

@ Chris et al.

Yeah, I shouldn't have assumed what this site is about. After all, it's not like the site is called "dilbertblog" is it? Anyway, not reading/following the "blog" is a perfectly acceptable solution and I think I'll do just that.

@ Mark Thorson

Please stop indulging in stereotypes. Makes you look like the people the comic strip makes fun of. Thank you.

[Brant]

Bathroom and kitchen back to back with bedrooms on the bathroom side and public rooms on the kitchen side might work. If there were more than one bathroom they could be side by side and might even share some facilities such as linen closet, other storage, a large whirlpool bath, etc.

[Brant]

My cousin built a two-story 3,000 sq. ft. house with a laundry room on both floors. I hear putting laundry rooms on the second floor (where bedding and clothes tend to accumulate) is becoming more common. The only thing keeping them on the first floor is the awkwardness of moving the machines and maybe cheap, lazy plumbing.

[Richard McLaughlin]

Well, when I was in the military we all wore a uniform and over the uniform we (my unit) all wore a load bearing vest. In that vest the large right hand pockey had shotgun shells and the magazines for the .45 was on the right. Decisions made based on what hand 90% of people would reload with.
Hold shotgun in left hand, load with right, fire.
Hold .45 in right hand, load with left, fire.

That is how a right handed person did things and we aim to the greater population of people being right handed. Lefties had to learn to load differently, that's all. We did this because when i was out and needed ammo from a body the .45 was always left, shotgun shells right and the grenades were probably all gone if I am reloading from the dead.

How does this relate to a house?
My knees are bad, I don't want steps.
I don't want the doors to connect all the rooms upstairs, use the hallway. I have more kids than you do and because of the age difference they can't share rooms.

The military is great for making things uniform, but that does not mean that we all look good in cammies. You'll never find the house that fits all.

[babalabalu]

poop, a big fat poop

[Edward Snow]

Reading your house stuff. Looks like Dilbert designed it. A few comments:
Pull the garage wing to the front to align with the front of the porch. This will allow you to have a straight shot into your office.
Add another bathroom, or at least a Powder Room.
TV screen should not be in front of the window / outside wall. However a roll-down screen might be OK.
Garage must be about 22' deep minimum to accommodate cars and allow movement around them. Do you want your office that wide?
Mud room should be between garage and main house, with a Powder room off of it.
Mud room at entrance is better if recessed into house proper, at least 5' (better 7') deep, with a coat closet. (Need room to open doors.)
Guest Bathroom is better if moved to location of Bedroom 1 closet, so Bedroom 1 has a corner location (better light and ventilation) and Guest Bathroom can be used as a "Guest Bathroom" for party guests without guests having to venture into the bedroom area. (Also saves on area to clean before parties.)
This bathroom location is also more convenient for Bedroom 2 and allows the hall to be largely eliminated, and bedrooms made larger.
This is a beginning. I strongly suggest that you hire an Architect, (One who is a "worker bee" and not a "form-giver".) You probably have guessed that I am an Architect.

Regards,
Edward D. Snow

[Skip Tracer]

Regarding ventilation, and the need for windows in the bathroom.

We live in a cold state, the windows are kept shut much of the year. I find the ventilation fans work just fine, no need to open windows.

We don't turn on the vent fan when we shower, as the air in our house gets too dry.

[Hypnot]

Reminds me of my uncles' house. The one thing that is missing - a bathroom for every bedroom upstairs.

[Just Me]

I would be interested to see a house plan where the entire thing is underground. Much more environmentally friendly, never have to paint the walls. Quieter. Less attractive to burglars; they have no idea how big it is in there, and can't cruise by at night and look in the windows. Use some kind of prismatic skylight to get daylight into the rooms, and use your lot as a big garden/playspace.

It may be some plumbing/engineering work to get drain water 'up' into the municipal pipe system, but if commercial garages can go down 30 feet, why not your house?

Plus, there is a cool 'secret lair' factor.

[guest1]

with the laundry room above the kitchen would be more work for whoever is trying to multitask with both simultaneously (up and down the stairs). It does make sense piping wise, however. But it's still more work. And this is coming from a potential wife/ with the traditional "female" chores. (This applies to house husbands too!)

Hahah, which reminds me. I was working with this railroad consulting company which designed the bathroom of a new multi-level train. As a woman, I immediately noticed that the trashcan is all the way across the 6' long room! And toilet paper cannot be flushed bc the toilet is bio waste only! I half-joked about the poor engineering design right after!

[JST]

My cousins had a house where the first floor was more or less like you described, minus the storage room - the kitchen was the center, etc. It made sense from a practial point of view, but there was still always something a bit off about the flow of the house. We always ended up hanging out in the kitchen, and the living room was still never used.

[RPK]

How much time do you spend in the laundry room? My washer and dryer are in the basement, where they shoud be. The noise stays away from the rest of the house, and if there is a leak, it's no big deal. A leak on an upper floor would be a nightmare.

When doing a load of laundry, I take the clothes downstairs, (getting a little well-needed exercise), spend 5 minutes putting the clothes in the washer, adding detergent, and turning it on. Then I go about doing other things...I don't spend any extra time near the washer. Why would I need a TV there?? When the washer is finished, I take the clothes out of it and put them in the dryer, a few feet away. That may take another 2 minutes. Then I leave again, letting the dryer do it's thing. When it's done, I remove the clothes, fold them, and carry them back upstairs, burining off a few more calories.

The whole process takes about 15 minutes, spread over 2 hours. A fancy laundry room is the silliest thing I've ever heard of. I think you have too much money, Scott.

[Ben]

Isn't there the problem that the kitchen is in the middle, and hence doesn't receive much light?

[MissBert]

You want the kitchen on the edge, because you have to carry in groceries, and you don't want to lug them through other rooms or down hallways.
Making it the "center" of entertainment is a good idea, though.

[Sesh]

Sir, you are a genius.

[GracieMae]

Hey Scott, where can I buy the plans for this? Oh, but I will need the pet upgrade. You know, cat walkways near the ceilings, litter box on a platform (like in the virtual Dilbert house). Also, furniture that doubles as dog crates (I've seriously seen this). And, I totally agree with the hardwood floor statement! COOL!

[UTP]

I dont know why you tagged that as GENERAL NONSENSE....that is a novel idea...and that laundry thing ROCKS!!!

[Feanne]

There is no such thing as the "ultimate house design". Each person/family has a unique set of requirements and therefore the "ultimate house design" would different for each person/family.

What you describe sounds pretty cool though!

[olie]

Check out the book _Your Engineered House_. It's way out of print (1970s or so), but many libraries & used book stores have a copy. Good stuff.

[himanshu]

i am wondering....what percentage of architects are women?

[Paul Walters]

Iagree with the previuos post home styles are outdated for the 2008 modern family

[Chris]

A few thoughts for our friend Prithvi:

Nobody ever said the blog was about Dilbert, corporate humour or anything in particular. It's Scotts blog and therefore like any other blog by any other citizen, he's free to ramble about anything he chooses. Just because he's a semi-famous dude, does that incur the penalty that anything he writes about he has the responsibility to produce a quality piece? I think not. And when all's said and done dude, it's free and nobody is making you read it. If you don't like it, don't log in! Personally, I think the effort required to produce something almost everyday, and read most of the comments as I suspect he does, takes a lot of dedication. Even if half of it is bollocks, given the quantity of output, that's an awful lot that isn't. Much of the stuff is meant to be thought/discussion provoking, and sometimes he plays devils advocate - like suggesting there could be such a thing as a house design to suit everybody. Do you really think he doesn't possess the wit to know there's no such thing?

[Sondra]

the master bath/shower should have easy access to the closet and be separate from the toilet.

Feng shui - no water on the exact center line

everything on one floor - one day you may be unable to climb stairs

recommended reading: Creating the Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka

[Amy]

You're gonna hear the washing machine and dryer when you're trying to sleep. And hear people in there doing laundry when you're trying to sleep. The storage room is going to be a disaster. You're not going to even want to open the door, eventually.

[Victor]

The bathroom probably should not open off of a dining or kitchen area, awkward noise and sanitation issues, came up while renovating our house.

[D]

Wow. I've been toying w/ the same idea for a long time. Weird. I got there differently...

I wanted something that was energy efficient too -- and the kitchen, in the winter, generates all the heat. I wouldn't have an upstairs, I'd have a courtyard w/ a grill for the summer months. Or maybe a roll-away roof over the dining room.

I also casually studied housing patterns of "less civilized" people, and the hearth is usually the center of all. We've replace the hearth with the television. But if you look at parties long enough, most of them end up in the kitchen. Why not just make that the center to start with instead of moving the party there?

I have had various permutations from there, but like Scott, those things that we do most often (eat, commune, prepare food) should be in the center, and the things that are noisy or smelly should be further away (garages, teenagers' rooms).

Basement instead of upstairs-- thermal mass for energy reasons and then it's a place to go for severe storms. Maybe an upstairs for people in earthquake zones, or too close to water...

[BTTFVGO]

I like Dilbert's Ultimate House, http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/duh/

[Surabaya Stew]

As an Architect with over 4 years of residential home design experience, I think that your proposed plan is pretty darn good! I won't say that 90% of homeowners would find it useful; 25% is more like it, for the many reasons listed in the comments. Still, that is pretty darn good percentage considering how many different kind of family types and personalities there are in this country. Here are some of my observations:

Scott Adams idea #1. Kitchen as center of house and no formal dining or living rooms:
Part or all of this idea is already becoming a part of many homes; this is simply observing how many Americans really live. Good observation; I have already designed homes something like this, and they seem to work very well.

Scott Adams idea #2. Family Room storage area:
This was quite intriguing; basically, you are proposing an accessible basement or attic next to where people really need it! While many people would be against having their secrets so close to where everyone has access to them, it would make a lot of sense considering how many times people change (or want to change) their main room functions and appearance. (Architects always fill up extra space on a floor plan with closets, because we know that there is never such a thing as too much Storage.) Still, this is the part of the plan that would be the hardest sell, because most people would just want to assign a fixed use to this room. Nice try, though.

Scott Adams idea #3. Laundry as center of the Second Floor:
My personal favorite, as Architects have a mixed success rate of getting clients to go for a large and useful Second Floor Laundry. Why homeowners must insist on a dirty and rank Basement Laundry is something that i cannot understand for the life of me! Making a nice and accessible Laundry area close the the Bedrooms (50% of homes in the USA have all the bedrooms above the Main Level), is a personal priority for me. (The only difference I can think of is that rather than a flat panel screen, I would design a window, to the outdoors; but that's a personal preference.) Realistically, I can't see how more than 2 Bedrooms would have direct access to this Laundry, but the main point of making laundry an enjoyable experience is well taken.

Overall, this one of the most interesting posts I have ever read on any blog. Thanks for making my day!

[bunny]

I don't want the bathroom connected to the kitchen. That's gross. Other than that, it sounds pretty good. I especially like the idea of all the bedroom closets having a little door that opens to the laundry room. That's genius!

[Heather]

I think the biggest problem with this plan would be the high traffic through the kitchen, especially during a dinner party where everyone would be walking through the kitchen and disturbing the cook. Another problem is not having a bathroom on the same floor as the bedrooms, which is very inconvinient for night pee-ers.

[Trayce]

How cool! You just described the main floor of our house! Our kitchen is in the middle, and if you picture a clock, there's a door to the garage at 8:00 (a short carry for groceries), a family room with a full bath off that between 8-11 (I dunno why they put a tub in there, but it's come in handy), a large back room with skylights (we use it as the dining room but it was intended as another sitting area I think) from 11-2, the real dining room which we have a computer armoire and my animals in (chinchillas and an iguana) from 2-4, that formal living room up by the front door that no one uses except at Christmas (ok, actually I use it to read because it's the only quiet place in the house) between 4-6, and the staircase at 7. There's a hallway that leads straight into the kitchen from the front door, and the kitchen is open to all those other rooms with pocket doors and archways. I've always wished the laundry room was upstairs, but the house was built in the 60s so it's in the basement. I still find it a blessing just to have it IN the house tho. I'll take 2 flights of stairs over a laundromat anyday. Having the kitchen in the middle with it opening onto the other rooms is awesome for parties since you know everyone always ends up in the kitchen. There's an island in the kitchen too so we always set all the food out on that. It rocks. :D

[brian]

If all the rooms in the house come off the kitchen then the entire house will have smells from cooking which my not suit everyone the toilet is also off the kitchen so when your friends go they stink the kitchen up on their way back you need to have some corridor off the kitchen where the bathroom is.
If you have the laundry room next to the bedrooms you won't be able to run the washing machine at night it will keep you awake. unless you have a super expensive quiet one.
One Idea have a drain on the laundry floor so that when the washing machine gets blocked there is somewhere for the water to go.

[Pat]

What a novel idea. It won't work, but it's novel.

Some people like their bedrooms upstairs. Others are handicapped.

Some people like doorbells and others are deaf and need strobes.

Some like strobes instead of doorbells, but others are blind and need bells.

Some people have narrow lots and want narrow hallways. Other are in wheelchairs and want wide hallways.

Some people like windows facing every direction. Others like living in apartments and therefore generally don't have windows on side walls.

Some like entering through their kitchens. Some hate it when people come in through the kitchen.

Some people live alone and only want one bedroom. Others need a huge number of bedrooms and baths.

So in the end, their is only one design that will work for "everyone". It's to use portable walls so you can quickly and cheaply reconfigure the space to suit the needs of the people. So there you go, you've invented the ultimate house -- and it consists of reconfigurable cubicles. Cubicles. Cubicle house from the guy who draws about people who work in them. Go figure. I guess it was inevitable, wasn't it.

[James]

Those who claim laundry rooms near bedrooms cause to much noise must either 1) live in tin shack OR 2) are talking out of the wrong orifice.

I suspect the latter in most cases. Our house has the washer and dryer off the hallway next to the master bedroom. The washer makes a little noise when it's in the spin cycle and you leave the door open.

Now if you have a front loading high RPM machine then it might be a different story. But you should be able to account for this by making sure the structure is beefed up a bit in that room.

Alternatively you could flip the house and put the bedrooms and laundry on the first floor with all that other fun stuff up top. This doubles as a way to benefit from the nice views you have from higher up. This also deals with the problem of hauling laundry outside to line dry.

But, I have another solution for the line dryers. Up in rainy Seattle, I usually line dry INSIDE the laundry room. This works fine so long as you have an exhaust fan and maybe another fan to circulate the air. But you could take it a step further and go big city line drying style. Have a line outside the laundry room window on pulleys. This could go along the side of the house up under the eaves.

As for the basement, as west coasters know, we don't have a lot of basements out here. The best you can do is maybe a crawl space or even better the SW slab! Although I do like the idea of a chute, but you'd have to throw in a stupid waiter to get me to buy. Tie in the dumb waiter with access to the garage and kitchen and now you also get an easy way to unload groceries... Ah, maybe garage & laundry on the ground floor with bedrooms + chutes on the top and everything else in the middle floor. Nothing wrong with 3 stories and you shouldn't have to go upstairs much anyway. Bedrooms are only for two things.

[???]

I love it. ESPECIALLY the tricked out laundry room!

[Paul]

"I wonder if there is one ultimate floor plan that would satisfy 90% of all homeowners."

To summarise: no.

Now go read the rest of the comments if you have time to kill :-)

[naz]

IKEA have built the house for everyone.
http://www.boklok.co.uk/

[Oncoming Storm]

I'm too lazy to read the prior comments so here goes my ignorant, repetitive input: The kitchen pantry should be contiguous with the entrance you use most often, like the back door or garage door. Carrying those Costco-sized containers of everything is hard enough without having to dodge furniture and crap through half the house before reaching a place to set it down.

[Kenneth]

Not a bad attempt at a universal house, Scott. I would suggest, however, that there is no single house that will satisfy most people's needs. Single people, or couples without children will need a lot less space than a large family, and elderly or disabled people will have different needs as well.

Comments on the plan you mentioned:

As has already been mentioned, people like bathrooms. To simplify construction, these should be kept close to the kitchen and laundry room.

I like the laundry room being close to the bedroom. Our new house is built that way (with a bathroom antechamber between) and there is very little noise, even from our ancient washer & dryer.

Multi-level housing is a PITA. I know it's a more efficient use of space and heat/air conditioning, but those stairs are a problem for a lot of people. With a disabled mother and elderly grandparents, I ruled out every multi-floor house we looked at, because half of my family would be unable to use half the house.

What the heck is a storage room? Mere mortals don't have the money to purchace and heat/cool large chunks of storage space. We keep our extra chairs, our excercise equipment, and everything else out in the open, wherever we can find a place for them.

In the end, your design might satisfy the DESIRES of a lot of people, but not their needs. One of those needs is affordable housing, and I somehow doubt that what you've described would be affordable for most people.

[Diana W]

In my home the kitchen is off the garage, with the pantry immediately next to the entrance, making it easy to put away food. I wouldn't want to have to carry the food through other rooms to get to the kitchen. My laundry room is in the hall between all the bedrooms. I like having a hall - I'm not sure I'd like having to crawl around through closets to get to my room, or have the halls on the outside, leaving the bedrooms with no outside view.

[KP]

After reading through about half the comments, apparently I'm the only one who has issues with carrying large baskets of laundry UP stairs. I can appreciate the noise and flooding concerns. And sure, getting the dirty stuff to the basement or first floor is a hassle, sure. (Then again, it's soft and, as long as the cat is watching out, there's little harm in tossing it down the stairs.) It's that trek back up: attempting to fit in the narrow basement stairwell, not lose balance and negotiate the door at the top of the steps that is the FUN part. Guess that's why my husband just chooses to use the basement laundry as his closet...

[bvb]

I'd prefer the master bedroom be on the ground floor - I don't want to have to go up/down stairs so often.

Folks who mentioned using a laundry chute need to remember that clean clothes would then need to be carried back up stairs - could use a "dumb-waiter" though (still have to walk up/down stairs).

[Sotosoroto]

I couldn't even get past the first phrase of your description before disagreeing with you. The kitchen must have a window!

[Gekkobear]

Washing machines eventually leak. If you don't notice the leak immediately, you now have a heavy piece of machinery sitting on an upstairs floor that is suffering water damage... CRASH.

Admit it, you're really looking for some way to set up continuous work for subcontractors who'll replace that central piece of flooring.

[Jason]

That is similar to what I've been trying to cook up. My concept is largely based on the set of Good Eats, the one they mostly use for the newer shows. Seems very comfortable and functional.

[colin]

Why a guy who DRAWS FOR A LIVING would DESCRIBE A FLOOR PLAN WITH TEXT is beyond me.

[Jeff G]

I generally like the idea. Locating the laundry room upstairs where the noise and leak potential is high isn't necessary - install a laundry chute. It's been done for years.

Unlike a few commenters, I agree with the fact that some room(s) in the front of the house are often under used. Many home designs have a front living room or dining room that is rarely used for anything. Many houses use a "Great Room" format to mitigate the problem, but it's still a problem.

Instead of a storage room, which many families would just convert into an office or bedroom, why not scale the garage such that it can hold two SUVs and still have the depth to store other stuff? The modern definition of a two-car garage will barely hold two Mini's. I'm thrilled to live in a 20-year-old home whose garage can actually store both of our vehicles and quite a bit of our stuff.

I'd also like to see attic storage be cleaner and more accessible from the inside of the house. I'm sure you can work that in to your master plan. :-)

[TJB]

When remodeling we went a few steps further. The “laundry room” is a small bedroom we converted to a closet with washer and dryer, added an exterior door and a vanity. We ran out of room for a toilet though. There are shelves up high sized to fit large totes that are labeled according to contents. Several have different labels on each end, they contain seasonal decorations or clothing. One wall has a door to the master bedroom. The other wall is common to the main bathroom and has a laundry and linen closet common to both rooms. There is also a door to the living room. The living room has the dining table in it as well as TV and such. The kitchen is open to the living room and the main bathroom is right between them on a common wall. You can see and walk directly to almost any part the the main floor from any other part and all amenity's are on one floor.

[HannahsDad]

I'd move the laundry to the basement (for noise-abatement reasons).

I'd also have 2 other chutes - one for rubbish (trash) and the other for people. In winter, the person-chute could go directly into the kitchen/dining room (à la Wallace and Grommit). In summer, it would be re-directed to act as a water-flume and drop you into the pool for a refreshing dip before breakfast.

For those who would rather live on a single floor, and therefore miss the benefit of gravity, an 'air-tube' system could be used, similar to those found in large organizations for the inter-departmental sending of money, X-rays and photocopies of people's asses. But somewhat bigger.

[Rodger]

Do not have time today to read all comments to see if someone mentioned it already. your design has one huge feature missing. Where is the bar/gaming room? All I know is that when the housing market bottoms out here in FL and I start house hunting, there will need to be room for a full size pool table and a wet bar.

I can tell you that having the laundry next to the bedrooms is wonderful, as the apartment (townhouse style 2 floor) has the laundry closet off the hall between the 2 bedrooms.

[Bruno]

Won't the houses look like a big block though? A center area where the roof's bigger and taller (vents for the kitchen and laundry) and surrounding rooms that may vary in size, but will eventually make the house quite square. I can't actually see a flaw in your reasoning, but blocky houses don't seem trendy.

[Matt]

The victorians hated the smell of cooking anywhere near the dining area so the kitchen was always down the hall or on another floor from the dining room.

If you put the kitchen in the middle of the house, the exhaust hood would have to traverse the whole house. Also the stove would heat the house like mad durring the summer and any number of other problems come up.

Stick to drawing comixs monkey boy.

[Ibid]

Vent the clothes dryer into the greenhouse. The plants love the extra humidity.

[David]

I think that you could only ever get a 90% approval rating within certain demographics and not within the population at large.

For instance, when I turn 65 or so I do not plan to live in a house with an upstairs, bungalow for me.

I imagine that your design is perfect for the minor celebrity, hilarious comic, with a real laundry fetish type of guy.

[Ron]

Yeah, second what several people have said - kitchen and laundry room need exterior air. Vent fans and plumbing on the air will only go so far. Beyond that, well, laundry rooms grow things without sunlight as well ...

Might try this with a horseshoe-type layout on bedrooms and such, with said kitchen and laundry in the middle. Sound can be dampened from the laundry room with enough insulation, but windows and access to exterior for vents are a must.

Kitchens should also be opposite primary exits, in case of fire (reality is that, if you cook much at all, sooner or later you set fire to a pan of oil - normally easily enough controlled, but occasionally these get serious) ... unless you plan a Halon fire suppression system as well, and in that case, you need oxygen masks in convenient locations.

As for north/south facing and the like, the structure can be rotated and/or a few trees planted around the outside to balance out the effects of weather. Most houses have to do this sort of thing anyway. All concrete block construction will certainly reduce the effects of weather - this is the normal approach in most of Asia, although the States are still addicted to wood-frame houses (for inexplicable reasons having to do with being slightly cheaper to build).

But I doubt it would work for "everybody" ... might be somewhat popular among certain groups, but certainly not everywhere. For one, areas prone to hurricane or tornado damage build everything single-floor (less things to fall on you) - so the design will need to be compressed for those places.

Good idea ... bad plan.

[Keely]

Laundry off the kitchen is nice because you can multi-task (cook, clean, watch tv etc) and noise is a non issue. This also makes it easy for when you replace the units (no stairs up or down).

As for being far away from the bedroom...that's easy

Laundry shoots that go from the second floor directly into a bin in the laundry room. Maybe just one central one in the bathroom or in the hall so it's a straight shot down.

You also need a walk in pantry and closets.

[webar]

The chi flowing through a round house would be totally whack. Everyone's energy would be tied in knots.

Look at some feng shui books before proceeding.

:-)

[Dave1-20-2009]

It needs to be modular and built on rails so you could move the rooms around, resize the house when required (add, subtract, resize rooms) and also should suspend the law of gravity so it could be arranged like a mobius strip (I hate stairs like several posters here).

[kmd]

Couple of thoughts:

1. general rule: never have a bathroom coming right off the kitchen - can get gross :)

2. laundry room on 2nd floor: 2 problems, leaks and noise. Leaks aren't as dire when going into your basement (or into the ground depending on room placement) as opposed to your kitchen, and I know I like to do laundry at night and have the dryer going right when I go to bed - wouldn't want to sleep near that noise.

Other than that, great ideas! Why aren't they incorporated more??

[Euan]

Any layout will work provided that you keep the price of servants down to an acceptable level. In fact I personally favour the layout of Gormengast to keep my army of underpayed scullions in shape.

[Jeffrey Ellis]

This is a brilliant idea. You have a natural aptitude for human factors engineering.

[Shannon Knowles]

This reminds me of the tv show where dilbert got tasked with building the perfect office for all the mutating employees.

Start taking your placebos more often, and bring back sourpuss.

[Stewart Watson]

Sounds a good idea Scott - only one fault I can see in it fitting 90% of people - affordability. Or am I being too simplistic.

[Jeffry Houser]

Kitchen needs to be close to an entry way for easy loading / unloading of groceries.

[bruce wayne]

NO stairs! You will understand this as you age
The ideal house is underground, or earth sheltered
That gives you free air conditioning and heating, and solves the tornado problem

[Laurens]

Sounds fine with me but I would want to have the bathroom upstairs and a "computerroom" downstairs where you can place all the desks and computers etc. to comfortably work and study.

To make this happen on the same floorspace you make the bedrooms smaller since they don't have to fit desks etc. The room you thus save could hold the bathroom.

The room downstairs previously filled with the bathroom then could be transformed into "computerroom".

[Laurens]

Sounds fine with me but I would want to have the bathroom upstairs and a "computerroom" downstairs where you can place all the desks and computers etc. to comfortably work and study.

To make this happen on the same floorspace you make the bedrooms smaller since they don't have to fit desks etc. The room you thus save could hold the bathroom.

The room downstairs previously filled with the bathroom then could be transformed into "computerroom".

[ivy]

I like my house just fine. Oddly enough it's a tiny 2 bedroom crackerbox. We have a family and two home businesses, 3 dogs and two cats. One room is a work room and home office. One room is the kids room. There is another home office and sleeping quarters in the "living" room. Laundry is done in the kitchen. We eat off cafeteria trays. Believe it or not, it's all very efficient and orderly. Our secret? Well, there's the giant storage shed out back with labled shelves. Small is good...everything is convenient.

[Ric]

For people who lack Mr Adams work ethic, and ability to get out of bed in the morning, a laundry room near the bedrooms is a baaaad idea. Nothing disturbs a good midday lie-in like a spin cycle.

Could all be sound-proofed though I suppose.

[Phil LUFC]

Most obvious thing to me is no link between the laundry room out outside. In summer it is usually preferable to dry laundry outside rather than by machine. Probably the main reason for the generally accepted layout.

1 of my ambitions it to build my own house, I have a design in mind - based on a conventional approach but I've considered some kind of laundry shoot from the wardrobes so the only issue is getting the clean laundry back to the bedrooms.

[Andrew]

Stick the dull rooms underground - what's the point of windows in a bedroom!? If you want the dawn light, get light pipes installed - you can then collect light from what ever aspect has your favourite colour, morning or evening. Have the rooms extend to the entire area of the land you have - you can have your garden as the roof - or tennis court. Living, dining, kitchen - give them a good view over the roof/garden. Garage goes under too - as well as driveway, so no cars blocking views. All homes to have flat, strong roofs - cover it in more garden (it's a super insulator). If you need more space, put up a tent on the roof, or if it's more permanent, go up a layer, but make sure it's roof is strong and flat. Sure, you need good foundations, but having most of the house underground does suggest these are a given.

[Georg Buehler]

You should check out Sarah Susanka's "The Not So Big House" (http://www.notsobighouse.com/) for a really informed discussion of designing a house that fits your lifestyle and values.

Your design sounds like it would be perfect for you, since you seem to value time efficiency over practically everything else: aesthetics, privacy, sustainability, energy-efficiency, etc.

It also shows that you work at home and never see the light of day, because you have no discussion of entrances, yards, or windows (who wants to cook in an interior room with no windows?)

[Matt]

If this sort of thing is what you are interested in, you may like to check out the results of Project: LIFE in the UK where a builder built a high-tech house for a regular family and had everyone wear RFid tags to work out what rooms were used the most. The study was done in 2006 - the results are here: http://www.projectlife.info/home.htm
It may prove useful with your house design!

[Jay]

Anyone else wondering where the gimp dungeon would go....?

If you put it directly below the kitchen, the plumbing would be convenient for water torture. Mmmmmnnnnn....slippery....

[jennifer]

laundry machines tend to be loud, and have leakage problems. and when the washer leaks on the top floor of the house, it's catastrophic. that's why they're usually in the basement, or at least away from the bedrooms. install some sort of drainage system in the laundry room floor in case of washer melt down. make sure it won't spread to the bedrooms. use either super quiet laundry machines, or sound-muffle (as apposed to sound-proof) the laundry room. also, consider ventilation- the stove and dryer usually vent to the outside of the house. and if you're cooking bacon or burn something, you want a way to quickly ventilate the kitchen.

[H]

A laundry chute would be more convenient than a dumb waiter. And why don't more houses have firemen's poles?

[velkairiwyth]

My only comment is that all making a "more efficient" floor plan will do is serve to bloat the nation further. I think that unless someone is handicapped in some way, it is a good thing that people need to shuffle around a bit to get things done...

But I cant deny that it would likely be a good layout for convenience and lazyness... which is always nice!

*goes back to the refrigerator to raid some cream-pie*

-Velk

[Dave]

We have a traditional house with (fairly modest sized) formal dining and living, and relatively large kitchen and family. I like it because we can have board games, projects or homework on-going in the dining room and eat in the nook, or vice versa. The living room is great for quiet phone calls or reading while the family room is being played in or tv watched. I would definitely vote for either a "toy pantry" off of the family room or substantial built in storage. I like the kids to be able to play in the family room, but get tired of looking at toys. With bins in the "pantry" they could easily put them away.

A mud room/landing area makes perfect sense to me. It should be accessible from garage or formal entry area and have small nooks for each family member to deposit keys, backpacks, purses, coats, shoes, etc. A counter for staging returns, outgoing projects, etc. and to sort mail would make sense with a shredder for junk mail. Here is a logical place for a small "cat closet" to hold the litter box, and a nook for the dog bowls. The pantry should be accessible from here or the kitchen.

Still can't decide about the laundry. Ours is downstairs which I think ultimately may make more sense, as I'm only in there a couple minutes to move loads while doing something else and then fold or hang clothes (almost everything hangs). I do think laundry rooms should be designed for better ease of use with a counter above (front loading) washer and dryer for folding; a large rack to hold hanging clothes to one side, and a counter to hold laundry baskets to the other side. We also have a bar to hang empty hangers below the cabinets above the washer and dryer. This makes hanging quick and easy. I don't see the big deal with bringing clothes up or down the stairs (one flight) but a chute in the hall might not be a bad idea, although more for fun. With laundry baskets for each family member they can take one trip upstairs and put away all their clothes and hanging clothes. Problem solved.

I've always thought if you can solve the problems of having places to put stuff away, keeping the family well fed and in clean clothes the rest is easy.

[Daniel]

putting the kitchen in the center (ie without windows) is mad, because kitchen is the number one room for social interactions (including but not limited to this one thing). It is the number one meeting room and should be considered the most important non-bedroom. It needs windows. It needs to be nice. it needs to be on the edge. You need to be able to see what is going on outside (your neighbours) to have something to mock at.

Kitchen on the first floor: who gets all your groceries up there?

[Muppet]

All these issues with laundry...Moot point.
I want some of the things you mention, but direct sunlight is my thing. I hate facing west (like now). The sun doesn't shine into the windows until 2pm and this time of year, lasts only about 3 hrs. Grey days are dark and gloomy. I want a space that has sun in the morning, like the kitchen table and in other rooms until sunset. I want to sit on a window ledge, reading a good book with the sun on my reading material. I want to get Vitamin D from the best source!

[titch the clown]

The reason there could never be one universal home design to keep everyone satisfied is simple.
1. Some people are stupid enough to vote Demoncrat
2. Some people are stupid enough to vote Repulseigan

P.S. No I have not spelled them wrong - I am mocking you.

[ackbar]

a few points...

Wasted space inside bedroom for doors into laundry ?

and..
the noise of the laundry going into your bedrooms!

I often run laundry over night..

[whiskerfarm]

sounds great - kind of like my grandparent's house in Alta Loma, CA. the one thing you forgot - a bathroom for every bedroom upstairs. I'd buy it!

[Joe]

You could probably sell this to Ikea, but I am getting kind of sick of everything looking the same. I went to buy a valentines day card the other day and every shop had basically the same cards. Your partner has already seen every possible card before you buy it. It'd be the same with the house, you'd invite someone in and they'd be like - yeah, don't need the tour, its the same as mine, and since all the furniture is from Ikea I've seen that too. Or maybe it'd be down to which Ikea prints you chose for that corner that no-one quite knows what to do with.

Also, whilst I am ranting, this post would be offensive to the millions of people who will never have a one storey house, let alone two stories with multiple rooms.

And I don't like cucumbers either. They are slimy and taste disgusting.

[Jimeh]

The laundry sounds excellent!! Im going to go home this evening and have a look at making changes to my own :)

[Falco]

Hmm... either I have lived too long in mega-metropoles, or you guys have way too much space.

[Ang]

You would NOT want the laundry room directly connected to the closets in my house. My sons are capable on generating laundry funk that can eat through a brick wall.

[Matthew]

I'm a big fan of not having a formal dining room. I have one, it's really nice, and I eat there twice a year. I play board games in the dining room more than I eat there. But every day I'm in the tiny breakfast nook at least twice, a few steps from the kitchen.

Can someone explain the illogical nature of this to my better half? Explain how my computer should be in the living room, because that's where I want to spend my time, and I'm always on my computer? There just aren't enough guests to justify most of the first floor of my house!

[Bubba]

Amazingly you describe my home almost perfectly.

[Tom O]

Why don't laundry dryers vent into our attics? I live in Buffalo and would think that heating my attic would be WAY more energy efficient than heating the outside air. Would the high humidity ruin the roof somehow?

[Michael]

Well, the one that sticks out for me is how do you propose hanging out the washing? Laundry done upstairs in the middle of the house has to be carried downstairs & outside before being carried back upstairs & ironed/sorted. Sure you could just use a dryer but what about the electricity bill? If you're happy to embed an RFID tag in your kids to save a few cents of lighting bill using juice to dry clothes in the summer when they could be dried outside for free seems to go against the grain...

I'm in Australia, our houses aren't too different to what you describe in a lot of ways. Big family areas surrounding the kitchen. Laundrey near to the bedrooms etc. I'd have recommended looking at the "In Residence" website but they've taken down all the floorplans that they had there last year. Some of them are my wife & I's ideal - or at least as close as we've found.

[rd]

our lab does not have windows, but the ceilings are high enough so it's bearable
more windows, please, like everywhere, kitchens and bathrooms including
and you should not obstruct your southernmost-eastern wall with anything wooden, coz it obstructs flow of good energy and metaphysically flow of money too
Happy Valentine's!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DWRXwrSgHM

[Ray]

One Big Round Room:
In the center is a round bar.
Around the walls are booths alternating with johns/bedrooms.
What else does anyone need?

[jerry w.]

If you had returned from a trip to Mexico with explosive diarrhea, you'd be designing that dream

house of your with the bathroom at the core, so it's never more than two steps from any room.

Think of it being similar in layout to the bicycle wheel looking space station that

was featured on the 60's Disney tv show, with the hub being the location of the toilet seat.

How does Feng Shui apply here? In one word: "Depends."

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[D. Mented]

Sounds like somebody's got a little laundry obsession.
Not sure that would take such a central role in everybody's lives.
Also not a plan for the ever-more-popular extended family or shared housing setup. That would need to be larger, and would work better with one or a few bedrooms on each floor so people would have a little more privacy.
Many people have more action going on in the kitchen than the laundry room, and want it to be big and have windows with views. Kitchen connecting to the social areas of the house is a good idea, though. I like the suggestion somebody else posted, though, of having the living room connect to the garage, so that can be part of your storage area instead of using a lot of interior, first-floor space as a big storage room.
Keep working on it, though... you never know shat you'll come up with.
D. Mented

[Artemisian]

I think you'd like the design of the little townhouse I'm in. Only two bedrooms, but still. Laundry is in between the two bedrooms upstairs, dining table next door to kitchen. Small, but very handy. And storage is easily accessible downstairs.

My two cents.

[Danny S.]

As a "soon to be Chronologically Challenged person", it is the stairs that would put me into the 10% that would not buy this design. In the market I am in, baby boomers with a preference for single story homes are pushing the prices for single story homes up, and multi story family homes with three and four bedrooms are priced just barely above the cost of a three bedroom ranch. I fear that this need for single level plans would push the 10 percenters up to well over that number. How about a single story version of the perfect house, or at least a built in elevator?

[AJ]

The plan work for me. Very similar to a house I once lived in. The laundry was off the upstairs hallway, right next to the guest/hallway bath, and just a few steps away from any of the bedrooms. Not the party room you described, but the location was very convenient!

Another house I lived in had the laundry off the kitchen, connecting to the garage and the backyard.

If I had the means, I think I'd have two or three "laundries".

1) The full-blown laundry upstairs. Where bedsheets, bath towels, and most clothing gets washed.

2) A "mudroom" off the side of the kitchen and opening to the backyard, with a deep sink and lots of hanger / storage space in addition to the washer and dryer. The mudroom would be the "airlock" between kids outdoor activities / Mom's gardening / Dad's yardwork, and the rest of the house. It's also where table linens, kitchen towels, wash rags, etc get washed.

3) If possible, I'd give the garage an entry to the mudroom also. (That would be the route for bringing in groceries, and the pantry should be adjacent to the mudroom.) If the garage were not close to the kitchen and mudroom, I'd have a washer and dryer in the garage as well. Strictly for garage rags, muddy camping gear, pet blankets, the stinkiest of sporting clothes, etc.

Ideally the mudroom has three doors: one to the garage, one to the back yard, and one to the kitchen. The kitchen door should be a good one, to keep laundry noises from intruding into the kitchen. (There's no point in having a silent dishwasher if your laundry machine is going to make a racket after you clear the table.)

[Stui]

Don't people in the US hang washing outside on a clothesline anymore? I'm in Australia and only use the clothes dryer for underwear when it's raining. Everything else goes on the line in the back yard.

Carrying a basket of wet washing down a flight of stairs to the back yard is not high up on most people's list of fun things to do. Most new houses built in estates here that I've seen have the Laundry are on the ground floor with an external door leading toward the clothesline for easy access. That also means you just open a window for ventilation if you're using the dryer.

Kitchens are definitely landing in the centre of the ground floor, but most of the new designs are very open plan anyway so the kitchen isn't a room, but a part of a larger entertaining area.

[Xanthippa]

Sounds like the 'dream plan' I've been sketching....with one clarification:

The kitchen NEEDS a window...unless you never plan (and succeed) to burn things, or limit your culinary adventures to heating up doggiebags, having a window in the kitchen is essential! It helps keep the rest of the house from being choked up by thick back smoke on a regular basis....

Is it a sad comment that when your kids hear the smoke alarm, they come running because they think the food is ready? By the way, if you're in the neighbourhood, drop in for dinner...if you dare!

[reeverse]

so who's going to haul the wet laundry down and out to the line? not everything is good in a dryer! plus what if you dont own a dryer? I drip dry almost everything there is no way i'm hauling wet soggy clothes down the stairs! plus you have the chance of flooding. In countries like australia, where i am from, there are water shortages and having the possibility to water your garden with grey water is very beneficial. laundry chutes are a very old concept and highly efficient. why re-invent the wheel? you can even have, with planning, a chute from every bedroom and an upstairs bathroom with no need for locks and doors etc.. unless like myself your children grow expert at climbing up and down the chute. :-)

[Mike]

Why have a dedicated laundry room at all? Why not put the washer and dryer in the master bedroom closet? It just makes sense to put the thing that CLEANS the clothes in the same place where the clothes are stored. My closet is already big enough to get dressed in, all my clothes are stored in it, I have a chair to sit in to put my shoes on, etc, and it contains our dirty clothes hamper as well. If it was just marginally expanded, you could move the washer dryer into the same place where the dirty clothes are held, and where the clean clothes are stored. This would minimize dragging the clothes all around the house during the cleaning process. For water leaks, you could put a liner under the floor along with a drain during construction.

Our current master closet is not next to our bedroom - you have to walk through the master bath to get to the closet, so night-time noise would not be a problem. For that matter, you could add some noise dampening insulation during construction for noise control.

When I retire, I plan to build a house to my specs. It WILL have a combo Master closet / laundry room.

[Lillian]

i know a lot of people who don't like bathroom next to the kitchen. and where is the bathroom for upstair?

[Old Gary]

My wife runs 10 times a day from the third floor bedrooms to the laundry room in the basement. She has great legs. Why mess with that?

[Mark Thorson]

Mr. Prithvi Bhargava, are you
an IIT graduate? If so,
they should have a course on
Americanism, so you can better
understand American thought
processes.

You aren't ready for Dilbert.
As a beginning, I suggest you
start with the comic strip
linked below. When you fully
understand it, come back to
Dilbert and you will perceive
more of the content you missed
before.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/comics/Zippy_the_Pinhead_Color.dtl

[Justin]

Didn't really sort through all the comments just to see if someone already said this, but wouldn't that idea have come in a bit handy when you were designing Dilbert's virtual house?

[Zac]

Didn't you already design the ultimate house?

[Adrian Rodriguez]

It's too way futuristic for average people

futuristic = complex, expensive, uncommon.

nevermind

[Bill Tkach]

A few ideas.

I think that you need to have those flip up rotating in floor systems, so that you can have a couch in the middle of the room, but if you want to get rid of it, you just grab the edge of the couch, and it rotates into the floor, and pops up a blank patch of floorboards.

Laundry - you just need a maid.

As for location, you should have a house built like a lazy suzanne, so you can rotate whatever room you want to face, or not face, where the sun is at. You just go outside and push on the doorjam to spin it.

[Tim]

The plumbing wouldn't be less expensive for the owner, it would just make a couple extra bucks for the plumber.

[Michael]

Do the bedrooms have windows? Does the laundry room double as the hallway, or does the hallway wrap around the bedrooms?

[Ken]

Sounds like a lot of square footage which is nice.. but not all of us can afford it. I am looking for a house in the 15-1700 square foot range and even with prices down I may not be able to get what I am looking for.

[Yvan]

1. We dry our clothes outside, a 1st story laundry would be crazy!
2. Kitchen needs outside access for the vegetable patch and herbs.

[Justin]

Prithvi Bhargava - seems like you're missing the point. You've pidgeonholed Scott into the "corporate humor" category, and no matter how you slice it, he doesn't really fit into that category. Dilbert does, but not Scott himself... not really. What's wrong with sharing his sense of humor and imagination with others? If you're looking for more Dilbert, read Dilbert books. This blog isn't really meant to be related, nor should it be.

By the way, Scott, sounds awesome.

[phaser]

I agree that open floor plans on the main floor (up or down) are great for allowing multiple uses. But, I do like the breakfast nook/eating area in the kitchen and the separate dining room. In the mornings, when making breakfast and lunches, this allows our kids to sit and talk with us while we work in the kitchen, same for lunch on the weekends, rather than having them in a separate room. This is also good for non-dinner parties, when so many people congregate in/around the kitchen. We use the dining room in the evenings for dinner so that we can all sit down together. I like the idea of a storage space just beyond the kitchen/family room for extra stuff, but if you aren't anal about keeping it clean, what a hell hole it will become.

The one thing I hate about your layout is the laundry room upstairs next to the bedrooms. Washers and dryers are noisy. We do most of our drying at night to save on energy bills so that just doesn't work. But here's my idea: a dumb-waiter type elevator with multiple sides that goes from the downstairs laundry room up to the bedroom level. Imagine 3 bedrooms and a linen closet make up the 4 walls of a central core. Each wall of the dumb-waiter has shelves and hanger rods in the upper half for clean clothes and the lower half is a dirty clothes bin. When in the up position it forms the back wall of each closet. Take your clean clothes off the back wall as needed and put dirty clothes in the bin. (Or, the bin could just be a hole so that the dirty clothes drop directly into the laundry room.) The clean clothes are folded and put on the shelves/hooks and raised up to the bedrooms, but the utility laundry room stays on the floor below.

BTW, who in the world has concrete in the base of their washing machine? If it is that unbalanced, get a new machine! Jeepers!

[Phil Goetz]

My pet peeve: Why do people put the bathtub - a place for relaxing in privacy - in the same room as the toilet? It's disgusting, and it means you can't ever actually TAKE a bath, unless you have your own private bathroom.

[CH]

I don't like the idea of the bathroom off of the kitchen. I'm thinking of unappetizing smells wafting into the kitchen and overpowering the scent of my cooking, or worse, drifting into the other rooms and having people think the smell is coming from the kitchen itself.

[Larry]

It seems like someone is planning to build a house! When are you going to get to the home theater?

[Stomper]

Kitchen should be near the garage, so you don't have go too far to schlep the groceries in and the trash out. Plus, that gives you an outside wall for a kitchen window.

--Stomper

[DPWally]

Good start. I'd also merge the garage and front door entrances.

Most suburban houses (I assume that's what you're designing) have a front door than enters into a pleasant mini-room/foyer with useful things like closet, coat rack, and someplace to wipe your feet. Most suburban residents enter their homes from the garage through an entrance that feels like a service entrance.

I'd put the front door near the garage and have both entrances feed in through the same foyer.

[Nicholas]

I hope you have more than one door into the house on the ground floor, or ways into the house that bypass the kitchen, or you'll have severe moving around problems.

Also, as others have said, more bathrooms required. And the noise issues.

[Chris]

My wife likes to hang the washing outside rather than use a dryer. We have one, but here in Western Australia most days are a good drying day. Better for the clothes, energy resources, and my electricity bill. So the trek from upstairs, middle of the building, to the yard, would be a right pain. In our single level home, the whirly dryer is right outside the laundry door. And most of the bedrooms are around it, at the back of the house. Except, I might add, for the master bedroom, which is at the front of the house, away from the other bedrooms. Which is also ideal as we dont have to worry about our teenage kids being grossed out by any strange noises from our room, if you catch my drift.

[Chris]

I like the concept, but I don't see how it could work:

1) Where do you put the hallways / access to the rooms?
2) If the hallways are on the outside of the house, would the rooms have no windows?

[mirky]

The only problem with ultimate designed houses is that it would take way too long to figure out youve landed in the wrong house. Some cases might even remain undetected.

[effika]

It's a decent floorplan. We had a similar one in an old rental I grew up in (and it's still my favorite house by far). The kitchen was central to everything, we had a combined living/dining area, and bedrooms were all upstairs. The bedrooms had laundry chutes, too. That house was the only place my mom never had to yell at my sister and dad about picking up their dirty clothes.

[Deirdré Straughan]

Reading and TV in the same room? I can't do anything with the TV on - totally distracting for me. So I could never read there if someone else wanted to watch TV.

Maybe having the laundry room far from where the clothes are stored is a good idea - it seems to be the only way some people get any exercise. Do it enough, and you obviate the need for exercise equipment at home (our home is on four floors, with the garden going another three floors' worth down the hillside...).

[mr tom]

Laundry is loud. Don't put that room in the middle of the bedrooms. If needs be, put it in the cellar and have a laundry chute.

[GrainBrain]

Where's the gimp go?

[J. Peterson]

Why is a zillionaire cartoonist still doing his own laundry?

[The Anti-Shopper]

Forget about residential floor plans - somebody should start fixing these grocery store designs. Over 90% of the time I go to the grocery store, I need milk and/or bread. Both of these items are typically located at the back of the store, or at the "other end" of very long aisles. Of course, I realize this is done on purpose to make customers walk past all sorts of POP displays of "impulse items" and other crap. That's all fine, except that I never, ever, have had an impulse to buy spinach and artichoke dip when my goal is milk and/or bread. I always, always leave the store with milk and/or bread and nothing else.

I think it was Petroski who came up with the circular design concept for grocery stores. The chains should wise up and start implementing something like this - aisles that are spokes on a wheel with entrances doors all the way around the outside, along the "rim." The outside of the building could be labeled "Produce Door" and "Dairy Entrance" and what-not. I could park by the dairy door and the milk would be conveniently located at the exit-end of the aisle. (They could put clove-flavored cottage cheese, gorgonzola, and all those flavored coffee creamers towards the hub.)

Same thing with department stores. Men want to buy socks and leave, so put socks by the door. For that matter, put the whole men's department right by the exit. Put purses, sunglasses, and coffee grinders at the ass end of the store...

Can you tell how much I LOVE shopping? :)

[Ivo Pedanto]

I don't live in a must-house, so I don't have a layout problem.

[Jaime Bakulic]

what about the dibert house? are you forgetting things? you're not 92!

[Derek]

Since you asked what's wrong with it, I will focus on the negative.

You said it was a single plan for 90% of all homeowners. Normally when you are thinking of an idea, you are more interested with "who will love it" than "who won't like it", but when you are looking at mass market generic products, you want it to compete with what people love, but the most important thing is that enough people will like it to get an advantage from mass production. Essentially the benefit here is a nice house which costs less. The more people you get, the cheaper it is (architectural design costs split between more people). So let's look at who your plan eliminates.

Anyone who can't afford a 2 story house and a flat screen for their laundry room is out. Conversely, people who demand something original (actors, designers, and eccentric billionaires) are also out.

Anyone who is a bit disorganized is out. Think about it, anyone who is disorganized will want to be able to do their laundry right before they go to sleep. If the laundry room were even two rooms away it would be fine, but with just a closet separating it from each bedroom, people like myself are out.

Lastly, you haven't put in enough bathrooms. Right now, people are demanding tons of bathrooms. This is a minor tweak, but would have to be considered in the design. Common demand now would be for 1 guest bathroom (more like a powder room), 1 bathroom for the head of the house (bath and shower), and 1 bathroom for every 2 other residents. Also, an additional bathroom is required for each floor with no bedroom, but you already have one on the ground floor which doubles as the guest bedroom.

Other things you may think about including: nice small alcove for the entry, garage, storage room, office/library, small gym room.

[loki]

great concept but i'd put it on one floor and add a walk-in fridge (wine).

[Kevoh]

Architecture student here, with some comments. I'll keep them as non-architect-speak as possible.

The reason why there should NOT be one, universal/ultimate house design is location.

A house in Florida should be designed quite different from one in Maine. A house should be designed with compass orientation in mind (ie: what rooms are on the north side? what rooms are on the south) This is important because of the sun. In the winter, you may want sunlight to warm the interior spaces, while in the summer you'll want to be in shade. You'll also want less glazing (windows) on the north side. There are a number of other impacts location has on a building, but if I explain too much, then what's the point of getting this fancy degree?

Others have made good specific comments about circulation, daylighting, proximity between program elements, and effective use of space, but location cannot be ignored.

[DB]

Re Round house -- this one is great for a larger family. Potential for exterior doors in any of the bedrooms, if desired. I picture a big deck all around it! And the setting is a nice woodsy hilltop.

http://www.deltechomes.com/images/floorplans/2500-1-2.jpg

[FMS]

Just be sure you have some reasonable way to vent the dryer. My current house has a great laundry closet for washer/dryer, but it's completely internal, no external walls, similar to what you're describing here. The venting for the dryer was originally down through the floor, across the basement ceiling, out into the garage and then outdoors, because the silly builder (who was the one who lived in the house for the first 7 years, which is why I find this really weird) didn't think about venting the dryer. The number of curves and such that collected lint was just horrendous, so we ripped out the whole thing and sent the vent straight up through the ceiling into the attic (it's a single story house at that point) and out through a side wall from the attic. Still too long a run in my view, but at least it only has 2 curves instead of 6 or 7...

[Peter Fleming]

The Laundry room needs to be located away from the bedorooms because dryers are noisy when you dry jeans, or any type of clothing with metal buttons. Also, I hate stairs, so a 2 story house is out of the question for me. The laundry room does need to have a drain, in case of disasters, and maybe you should consider putting it off to the side of the kitchen, so the kitchen could share the same disaster drain. I don't like washer/dryers located in the garage or basements because those are often cold, and I like to walk around my house barefoot. If I have to put on slippers/shoes to got to the washer/dryer, that's an inconvenience.

Scott, you need to incorporate a garage next to the storage room. The storage room should form a hallway between the garage and the kitchen so when you bring in the groceries from the car you only have to leave them in the storage or pantry area. The Pantry in the kitchen would then open into the storage area so when you put groceries up they could be reached in the kitchen. Also, I see the refrigerator set on a rotating base so you rotate it toward the storage when you bring home groceries, put your groceries in, then rotate it back so it faces the kitchen when it is loaded. You could also do the pantry the same way, have it rotate toward storage to load, then back toward the kitchen to use. This would also allow you to buy in bulk, put the bulk items in storage