Hi All,
I’ve been working on a little renovation project for my house for awhile, and I am really interested in getting some opinions or ideas (especially from people with an interest in architecture). I’m a civil engineer, so mentally limited to straight lines and right angles :stuck_.out_tongue:
We live on a fairly steep block (Fall is about 1m in 5), beautiful view from the front and I want to make an area for kids to play/for us to host guests. I thought about either decking, or retaining walls. Decided a combination might be nice on the lower level of our house (our main living spaces etc are all upstairs though).
Currently front of my house looks like this, though I converted the garage into a rumpus with triple double glazed sliding doors:
Have been fiddling for months, and been through a few iterations, what i have so far is shown below. It would be great to get a few opinions outside the square, or tweaks to what i have got.
hi Lyndon, i might not change anything drastic, it think its quite neat and surly acceptable what you have thought of already.
the photogrammetry was made before the current picture obviously and its not visible on the current picture how the situation where it meats the street looks like now. in your design this is edgy which can be so no doubt, but you are taking yourself a little bit space away and it also looks like you are not using the whole area generally. i made a quick sketch to show what i mean.
thinking about the stairs, it would be interesting to know what leads to the side behind the house, garbage dump? maybe there is still an alternative for the layout for this since you obviously will not run over the grass with whatever is behind there but along the porch.
where is north? i assume you will be having plenty of sun anyway but just to know it may help finding something still.
Hi Richard,
Thank you for the reply! I like your concept for the stairs - gets it out of the way of our downstairs guest room - will have a play after work today (8.50am here in AUS) and post my results.
Down the side of the house (where you proposed stairs) I have a gate to the backyard and a fairly coarse treated pine fence. On the other side its some tiered rock garden beds - just to fill the space. See below (again from photogrammetry)
I may be able to curve the front (I presume thats what you suggested in your sketch?) - it will depend on the contractor to some degree but I will find out. Not sure how easy it is for a blockwork retaining wall
yes thats what i meant, either they have curved panels for casting if you would consider concrete which might be more epensive or they chop a few panels into smaller segments and facet to an approximate rounding or you get the facets of the bricks, but anything closer to a curve will increase your space of course. you can also retain the front with some metal sheet piling and decorate the outside with anything you like. go right to the street as far as your local laws permit it, pull up the wall there and let some grapes or ivy grow over or whatever you wish, you can also cover it with wood or make some geometric structural pattern.
one idea which is a bit more intensive which would require digging some amount of soil away first, would be to place your garage and the entrance or at least a walkway entrance right below the coming grass field connect it to the house from underneath if you have a cellar or at least lead a small staircase up to where you are planing the new stairs and use the “old” garage for a part of the house. then you could even widen the grass field to the entire width of the house there are probably a lot of ideas which could be implemented depending on your pocket book and your will to rearrange
checking out your address on google i see that the approaching street belongs to your house if thats true, meaning you could comfortably rearrange the street entrance to accommodate your needs.
not very sure how this will behave so far below the equator but i assume you have something like morning sun and the rest of the day the house throws some shade to the front of it?
there are probably a lot of ideas which could be implemented depending on your pocket book and your will to rearrange 