PLAN VIEW ANALYSIS
Most of the times your plan view distribution will dictate a big part of what your facade will be. For that reason, the first thing to do is to analyze the existing plan view of the house. A plan view is a top view where you can see all the interior spaces and connections.
Horizontal Proportions
You will need to analyze and study the horizontal proportions of your house. Depending on your land shape and size, you can have a very long 1 story house that extends through a big area. On the other hand, you can have a 2-story house in which the footprint occupies only a small portion of your land.
Vertical proportions
Analyzing the house proportions from an elevation perspective will show a lot of important information at the time of designing the façade. Now you will study how tall you want the different areas to be. The maximum height you can go will depend on every area restriction and structural/architectural code. For a house, it is very important to know how to highlight the important areas and create contrast.
Materials and textures
Selecting materials and textures for the façade is very important and it will be affected in a positive or negative way according to the construction budget. See our blog post “5 steps…for more information”. Materials and textures are used to create a contrast between the different areas, to highlight an important area and to add more character to the house facade. Usually, these materials are different than the basic stucco used for the rest of the house. In addition, they are used in small proportions, so the façade is not overloaded and keep the modern and clean style. On the other hand, colors can be used to create contrast and highlights in the facade as well.
I will provide some examples of materials used in facades:
- paints that create contrast
- wall stones
- polish concrete
- exposed concrete
- wood planks
- metals
- bricks
Plan View Manipulation
Action can be taken to modify a plan view without affecting structural components or space areas in a harmful way. We can add or change elements in the structure to make our facade work as we want.
Ceilings
Sometimes you will want to have a difference in ceiling heights to cause an experience or to highlight a space. As an example, imagine you’re walking through a hall with a 9’-0” tall ceiling and all of the sudden you enter a 14’-0” tall ceiling area, that is going to provide you a sense of a huge space. That area will be highlighted on the facade as well.
In addition to the ceiling height you can play with the ceiling shape, that will also affect your facade. A flat ceiling can work in some cases but sometimes a sloped ceiling would work better.
Interior Spaces
Interior spaces could be modified adding or subtracting area and changing the shape of it. It all depends on the facade intentions and the contrast needed.
Walls
Walls can be added to extend the sides of the house to give it a greater size on the facade perspective. These can add a lot of value to the design.
Doors and Windows
The location on the plan view for doors and windows can be modified, especially the location and size of windows in the vertical profile.
Sketches
Every design will begin with sketches such as diagrams and then it will grow to detailed sketches.
Diagrams
First, you start with non-dimensional diagrams to see how the facade is going to work. Begin trying different shapes, heights, locations, etc. These could be divided into groups to see how they blend together.
For example, you can assign a perfect square shape to be the public area and a rectangular shape to be the private area. In addition, the private area can be set to be taller than the public one, etc.
Detailed Sketches
In the details, you will apply real scales, dimensions, final locations for doors and windows, material application to create contrast, illumination, etc.
Conclusion
Designing a house facade elevation is a very important step and needs to be done carefully. These steps will help you create a stunning design from start to end in an organized and efficient way. In this blog post, you will learn about analyzing the existing floor plan, what elements can be manipulated and the type of sketches to do in order to achieve the desired facade. For more ideas on home, facades visit:
www.houseconceptstore.com/shopping
