Dancing with a Design

Dancing with a Design

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks. There's been a few questions asked about the potential house design by the land owner and it's position. This is driven by a key question relating to the adjacency of a major road on the far side. Will the Roads Authority permit a building to be build close to the boundary wall with the road? Will I have to share a driveway or get my own access to the cul de sac? For me, these are deal breakers as the site is already narrow enough.

I felt at this stage a sketch would be useful so engaged an experienced Architect to come up with a design and use this to get answers from the Roads authority first and if that was positive, show it to the land owner for their approval. The fee agreed was a % of the overall Architects fees if the works progressed so it limited my financial risk as negative decisions by any of the parties mentioned would close this project down.

The design proposed by the Architect is bold. I've gone from surprised, feeling it doesn't suit me, to respecting it again. The front of the house is south facing and a lot of glass is concentrated there and also at the rear to join up an open plan space with the rear garden. It brings in a lot of light but the foot traffic using a rat run between the estates at the front means I'm very conscious that they can see far into the house and what you're up to when passing by. with high glass windows up to the sloped ceiling, how do you darken the room for a movie?

My main concerns currently are as follows:

• Lifestyle - both bedrooms and main bathroom upstairs. What if I can no longer climb the stairs? We can enlarge a downstairs WC to include a wet room and shower, but there is no downstairs bedroom. Do I want to have to traverse the stairs to have a shower, or waste money having two in the house? Do I put a bed in the dining room when I can't climb the stairs? 
• Privacy - with a very open house front, how do I control the ability of passers by to see what I'm up to at any minute of the day? Will it be very obvious when I'm not in? 
• Security - There are windows positioned facing the main road above the boundary wall, very tempting to weekend brick throwers coming out of the local nightclub. They've already forced a local bus shelter to install plastic sheets instead of glass. How do you hide a bike hanging up on a wall or a laptop on a table from being a reason to break in when they are so visible? 

The design feels like an extrovert design but I'm an introvert by nature. I'm picturing myself sitting in the open plan space but over my shoulder are people passing by looking in on me. I know shrubs and blinds can help but there's a Feng Shui idea: "propect" in front, "security" behind - this translates to expansive views before us and a wall at our back! The front to back open plan layout feels to me like you're always looking over your shoulder and don't get that shut the world out feeling when you close your front door.

Well, the decision by the Roads Authority will quickly show where we're at. I wonder if I would choose to live in this house if it was already built? Will my concerns break the design or be sufficiently addressed? Or should I roll the dice and ask for a different design altogether?