Description
A floor plan idea reflects the interpretation of a certain notion of living. It is expressed in the internal organization, in the opening and closing of the rooms, in the connection and grouping of rooms, in the connection or isolation of functions and, last but not least, in paths and sightlines. Some floor plans subordinate everything to the spatial idea (cf. “Dividing Elements”), while others emphasize the link between the spaces, and optimize or celebrate the internal path (cf. “Floor Plan with Circular Path”). A floor plan may also articulate an apartment as a “space of social interactions”: in this case, the spaces are assessed on a scale from highly communicative (social) to extremely private, and the floor plan is arranged accordingly. The result can be a largely balanced mix (cf. “Zoning”) or a type that gives priority to privacy (cf. “Corridor“), or, conversely, a floor plan in which the communicative aspect of cohabitation dominates (cf. “The Living Room as Circulation Center”). These social interactions naturally influence how every floor plan is organized. However, since they cannot be assumed to be constant or universal in nature, new attempts are always being undertaken to render floor plans modifiable, open to multiple interpretations (cf. “Flexible Floor Plan”, “Neutral Spaces”) or even involve the future user in the design process from the beginning (cf. “User-defined Floor Plans”).
The following classification is an instrument for reading and designing floor plans, whereby it must be noted that the pure type should not be mistaken for the best type: for truly exciting solutions most often lie at the intersections of these categories.
Corridor/Hall
The apartment is organized along an axis, with the rooms arranged in sequence on one or both sides (figs. A 1, 2). The advantage of this classic corridor type lies in the opportunity for simultaneous use of the rooms; completely enclosed and independently accessed, they offer all manner of freedom and flexibility for all kinds of users (families, co-op, etc.). The apartment can be accessed either in the axis or orthogonally (figs. A 1, 7).
In both cases, the layout of the apartment is instantly visible; a pleasant clarity is achieved. The end point of the axis is important, a common room in the best scenario, as is the case in example A 1 (Villa Olímpica): the corridor widens in the direction of the living room. With the balcony in the sightline, spatial quality, visual experience and light intensity increase for the visitor, walking down the corridor becomes a pleasure. The width of the corridor determines to a great degree whether it is also suitable for other uses, for example, as a play area; natural light in a corridor, in particular, allows for a multitude of individual purposes (fig. A 3). When corridors are no longer simply linear but widen into small bays or even entire rooms, for example into a wardrobe niche at the entrance door, an anteroom in front of bedrooms, or even a dining area (figs. A 1, 4), the experience becomes enjoyable. The corridor is therefore wider and more generous in certain areas, but more importantly, it is structured and thus becomes interesting as a room in its own right. Given the linearity of the form, the corridor type quickly awakens a need for change in direction and widening of the space. Floor plans respond to this need in a variety of ways: with large, open living rooms oriented in all directions at the end of the corridor, or sightlines and room-to-room relationships set at right angles within the corridor (figs. A 1, 3, 6). In the classic type, encounters between inhabitants in the corridor are inevitable. A second corridor preceding the rooms and conceived as a loggia, for example, can alleviate this situation by affording a second access, as in fig. A 5.
Similar to the corridor, a hall also provides access to all rooms simultaneously and the rooms are also individually usable. However, the hall is also distinguished by the fact that it welcomes the visitor in the form of a well-designed space that is often used to impress the visitor and allows for additional functions that the corridor cannot provide: one can set up a table, the space invites you to stay (fig. A 7).
The Living Room as Circulation Center/Floor Plan “Without Corridor”
The floor plan fans out from and around the living room, which is both the center of the apartment and the distribution zone (circulation center). Nearly all paths lead through this room. The living room gains in floor area since less corridor space is required; sometimes, individual rooms are reduced in size in exchange for a larger living room. The concept is exceptionally conducive to communication, but it does restrict opportunities for privacy. Hilberseimer refers to this type of design as a “cabin system,” Alvar Aalto called his all-purpose living room a “market square” emphasizing its lively nature. The apartment benefits from having a clearly defined center, while the remaining rooms are kept neutral with regard to use (figs. B 1, 2, 3). The living room can also be defined as a large continuous hall determined by the spatial boundaries of the rooms (fig. B 4). The paths through the living room must be designed in such a manner that the living quality is undiminished (fig. B 5). Some cases feature a separate corridor with bathroom leading to the bedrooms. There is, of course, no need to place the living room in the geometrical center of the apartment (fig. B 6).
Zoning
This type of floor plan clearly separates the different functional areas within an apartment: it differentiates between the common living area including living room, kitchen, and dining area, on the one hand, and the bedroom area with individual rooms and bathroom on the other (fig. C 1). Studies or home office rooms can form a separate, third zone. The goal is to achieve an uninterrupted course of the individual functions, which can occur simultaneously and side-by-side; the individual member of the family or co-op is given as much freedom and privacy as possible. Each area has its own hallway, and the hallways are either gathered together at the entrance or arranged in sequence. The kitchen often separates the different zones; sometimes a bathroom core, which should, if possible, be accessible separately from both the common area and the bedroom area, fulfills this separating function (figs. C 2, 3, 4). However, the living area can also provide indirect access to the bedrooms by letting the living room hallway lead directly into the bedroom hallway (fig. C 5). In order to achieve privacy even in the case of a direct link between living room and bedroom hallway, some plans offer a second path to the rooms, which may lead through the kitchen or even through the bathroom. The shape of the building can be chosen in a manner to ensure that a spatial separation of specific areas occurs naturally, for example, in L-shaped apartments, double rows (fig. C 6), apartments arranged around an atrium (fig. C 7), or, of course, maisonette apartments.
Examples from the 1990s often display a different type of zoning: the “service” spaces of an apartment (kitchen, bathroom, pantry, maisonette stairs) are bundled in a service core, with the living and bedrooms on the opposite side (fig. C 8). This approach bundles the shafts and stacks the most noise-prone spaces one above the other. This zone is often employed as a buffer to the access area, especially when covered walkways or central corridors are used, and the rooms lie undisturbed. The latter – no longer squeezed between a variety of ancillary rooms – can therefore assume a clear, attractively designed form, frequently neutral (that is, flexible) in character.
Dividing Elements
Visually, the apartment reads like a large, open space with prefabricated dividing elements (for example, installation core, maisonette stairs, wall pieces). Since the sense of space is derived from the large open space rather than the dividing elements, these apartments appear generous and open despite their real dimensions. To ensure that the core (with kitchen, bath, pantry) is perceived as a freestanding autonomous body, it is often rotated away from the axis (fig. D 1). It guides the movements of the inhabitants, divides the paths or allows for a circular route. A pantry or storage room, a bathroom, or an installation core can also separate the corridors leading to living or bedrooms (fig. D 1) or separate the living room from the bedroom wing (fig. D 2), while a core with galley kitchen and bathroom can structure the link between living room and dining room (fig. D 3). In example D 4, a core with a galley kitchen, bathroom and integrated hallway structures the entire room: the only room partitions are sliding walls that can either enclose or open rooms, depending on the time of day or living configuration. In example D 5, five large cores even accommodate small individual apartments (with bedrooms, kitchenettes and bathrooms). Through their juxtaposition to one another, spacious shared living areas are created with differently sized and shaped spaces suitable for various uses.
Continuous Floor Plan
The continuous floor plan reduces room boundaries to a few walls, which are placed with great care in order to make the space dynamic and divide it into specific areas. The rooms are rarely separated from the traffic area and hardly at all from one another; they merge into each other, open up sightlines, extend an invitation to move forward (fig. E 1). As a result, the apartments appear more generous and more open, the individual room always relates to the entire space. In examples with horizontal interconnectedness (fig. E 2, 3), living room, dining area, and kitchen blend with the corridors leading to the master and children’s bedrooms; the rooms are set off from one another. In the case of vertical interconnection, this approach results in different room heights and room relationships, which increase the desire to move between spaces (fig. E 4). The spatial flow is sometimes enhanced by the deliberate use of light, such as placing a source of light at the end of a path attracting the visitor to walk in that direction: in example E 2, the source of light is provided in the form of the glass door leading to the garden; in example E 4, it is the skylight, the entire house being arranged around a column of light. Example E 5 is emblematic for the continuous floor plan. It is a promenade at its purest: a single, continuous space is structured through branches. Spatial relationships and sightlines are deliberately orchestrated through cleverly designed bends in the room branches; each branch ends in a quiet zone, even without a door as separation.
Floor Plan with Circular Path/ Emphasizing the Internal Path
This kind of floor plan takes the path through the apartment as its theme. It creates the greatest number of functional and spatial relationships between different rooms, which can be experienced and actively utilized. Each space, each room can be reached via two or more paths in this type of floor plan. The multitude of possible paths allows the user to experience the apartment from ever-new perspectives, it appears to be more varied than it actually is. The path often circles around a center, for example, an atrium (fig. F 1, 2). The visual contact with the other side ensures that the overall layout is clear at all times. The rooms can thus feel like “showcases” strung along the route. However, the circular path can also make the kitchen and sanitary zone into the center (fig. F 3) or even the stairwell (fig. F 4). The bedrooms can also lie at the center (cf. section “Neutral or Ambiguous Spaces” in this article, bottom variant of H 3), in which case they form the internal quiet zone, while at the same time functioning as a pass-through zone and filter. They can open toward the intimate side of the house or the common areas as needed. In examples F 5 and F 6, the individual rooms absorb the traffic area. The rooms are arranged in such a manner that the openings in the center of the wall surface allow for the “circular path.” The downside of this arrangement is that it diminishes the floor area where furnishings can be placed and one can assume that these openings are left open or closed off by the users according to their individual needs.
Flexible Floor Plan
The constantly changing user requirements for an apartment (number of users, preference for close proximity/distance, live/work dynamic, financial situation) and the increasing diversity of forms of living in general have a tenuous relationship with the idea of real estate as an “immovable property,” which – from an economic perspective – should be used by the same occupants for the longest possible time. In this case, the favored solution is conversion within the existing floor plan rather than a move to another apartment.
The approaches range from removable room dividers or additional rooms that can be connected to one apartment or another to changing the shape and size of the rooms by means of movable wall elements. By means of special removable interior walls, the residents of example fig. G 2 are always able to fulfill their personal demands on the layout. The load-bearing exterior walls allow for a high degree of design flexibility (interior fittings play no structural role), and the shallow depth of the building guarantees adequate lighting for every alternative constellation.
“Connecting” rooms or groups of rooms require even less renovation effort: rooms with a neutral character (in apartment buildings, these are usually located across from the stairwell) can be added to individual apartments (fig. G 3). Alternatively, the design is conceived to anticipate different room constellations for different living concepts within a house, so that several apartments can be easily connected or separated into individual units. Separate access to the different levels and room groupings is here the prerequisite, see example G 3, where the position of the staircase at the entrance to the apartments allows four separate units to be combined to create a multi-generational house spanning across all floors.
While these concepts provide an answer to the needs of different life phases (and require building alterations), floor plans with movable wall elements can immediately react to the changing demands on an apartment over the course of a day. Such fixtures can take the form of sliding or folding doors that disappear into walls: in the daytime scenario, a large, multifunctional room is created by folding away wall elements, while at night they are used to close off individual rooms (fig. G 1). The beds are stored during the day (here: under the raised hallway), similar to the Japanese living tradition. See example G 4: the apartment size can be reduced to a minimum as there is no hallway, and no separate living or bedrooms otherwise occupied only part of the day; by day, the sliding doors of the bedrooms are opened to form a continuous living room. Personal items are stored in the built-in shelving units. A system of sliding and folding walls running both crosswise and lengthwise between short wall segments opens up the possibility to continually recombine the separate rooms in different ways, so that the apartment is open to reinterpretation, both over the course of a day and on the whole (fig. G 5). Similarly versatile, yet without interior walls and consisting of only a central core and sliding walls is G 6. The shape of a dividing element can also be more complex: rotating walls, closets, and room corners achieve surprising new spatial forms and connections (fig. G 7).
Neutral or Ambiguous Spaces
In this concept, the use of the space is not predefined by the size, form and arrangement of the rooms, which increases the opportunities for different uses to come into play for one and the same floor plan (figs. H 1, 2, 3). There is no need to modify the apartment in order to meet new requirements (as is the case with the flexible floor plan); the occupant can and indeed must invent his or her own form of living. Personal requirements can be met by rearranging the interior. Occupants with different ideas on living can realize these ideas within the same floor plan model (greater mix of residents within one housing complex). To this end, the rooms need to be of a certain size and proportion and, ideally, with independent access. As a result, more floor area is required for corridors and rooms, and the best solutions for this type of floor plan are therefore found in more exclusive residential buildings. In most cases, the rooms are intentionally indistinct and able to accommodate a variety of uses. However, it would be interesting to explore yet another design approach to creating neutral, ambiguous spaces: instead of creating identical rooms with little to no character for the purpose of ensuring that they can accommodate the widest range of uses, the rooms could also be deliberately designed with distinctively different characteristics (room size and shape, light, etc.), thus inviting a very individual use – as is the case in many old buildings, which are once again popular (fig. H 4).
User-defined Floor Plan
In the end, every resident is involved in determining his or her individual floor plan through use and furnishings, and in particular when it comes to flexible and neutral floor plans. However, in “user-defined floor plans,” this potential to participate in the design is dramatically extended: for instance, in self-build scenarios, where the user “finishes” building the apartment, or in participatory floor plan design, where a floor plan is designed in cooperation with the architects. Both strategies provide the resident with a high level of personal identification with the apartment, since he or she helped design it, and the shape, size, furnishings, and price are suited to the user’s current life situation. Because the structure of the house was devised to accommodate changes, the user is able to modify the floor plan again in the future – and in doing so stick around a bit longer.
In order to allow for such self-determination in a multi-unit residential building, architects generally design a basic building structure, which can facilitate numerous changes in the facade, interior walls and fittings due to the well-thought-out positioning of load-bearing elements, circulation areas, and building services. In smaller projects, architects can invent a personalized floor plan directly with input from the future users, for instance, if they form a Baugruppe – a joint building group – ahead of time and work together as one client. Beyond their individual apartments, members have a say in how the entire development and the shared spaces should be designed, and the opportunity to realize new living concepts. Example I 2 illustrates the point: by inserting lightweight wooden walls on each level, individual floor plans can be created within the concrete skeletal structure. In order to minimize the coordination efforts with the future residents, architects can create a catalogue of options to choose from, which can be modified (fig. I 3). Example I 4 is an extreme case, in which a “residential shelving unit” is filled with individually designed apartments developed by the residents with the aid of multiple, independent architects. The result is a side-by-side juxtaposition of very different living concepts and styles (and social mix).
In self-build scenarios, the design is created so that expansion is not only possible, but encouraged: to some extent, the apartment/house is handed over in an “unfinished” state. Such a concept is particularly suited for low-budget situations. The architect specifies the structure and design in such a way that the user is free to finish the rest on his or her own, either in consultation with the architect, or with the aid of instruction manuals. In the case of the “growing house,” only the circulation core (which is load-bearing and contains the building services) is handed over to the user. The house can then unfold step-by-step both vertically and horizontally (fig. I 1). In example I 5, two-story enclosures of space were handed over to the residents – kitchens, bathrooms, stairs, and gallery levels are added as desired; the accompanying handbook explains how the support system works and presents further examples of possible building elements. For example I 6, a construction manual describes the building steps and techniques (for example, brick-laying), thus empowering the residents to complete the entire flat (including the exterior walls) in an affordable way.
Maisonette
The floor plan typology of a maisonette is characterized by the apartment stretching across several full floors. It is usually two stories high, rarely more. As a building type, the maisonette is above all dedicated to the idea of zoning: the two-story layout facilitates a spatial separation of specific functions. At the same time, two-story atria are often an impressive feature of maisonettes. The apartment with its connecting stairs, which can be designed with great flexibility, feels generous and spacious: one has a sense of being in a house of one’s own. The stairs and the internal path can be staged in the manner seen in example J 1, where the open stairs change direction on each floor and also serve as a room divider between living room and kitchen. Atria are also employed to merge the different levels: the clear height in the stairwell often widens so that the entrance area, kitchen, and dining area communicate with the bedroom wing, as seen in example J 2. Conversely, this air well can also extend to the size of an entire room (fig. J 3). But it can also be entirely separated from the stairs themselves, as in example J 4, where a set-back dining gallery overlooks the living room below. A generous sense of space can also be achieved by not simply stacking the living levels between two partitions, but by arranging them in a staggered form. In this case, the apartment extends not only across several floors but also across several structural units (fig. J 5). This multiplies the views and suggests a larger floor area than the apartment actually offers. In multi-story buildings, the maisonette type is often found in combination with a central corridor or covered walkway, because it allows for undisturbed front-to-back interiors despite the orientation to one side only on the entrance level. The entrance is usually located at the level where the common rooms are; kitchen, living, and dining room then function as a filter and protect the private sphere, even the stairs can serve as a buffer to the access path (see J 6). However, the entrance can also be located at the bedroom level. This is often the case in center-corridor types, where only half of the building width is available at the entrance level. In this scenario, the stairs are designed and placed in a manner that draws the visitor directly into the living space (fig. J 7).
The scissor-shaped floor plan, a variation of the “back-to-back, crossover”-type, is a unique form (fig. J 8). In it the functions are bundled and stacked: a central corridor divides the house into two halves, for example, a living area that is more prone to noise and a quiet bedroom area. On one side, the corridor provides access to apartments with their living area at entrance level; on the other side it opens to apartments that have their sleeping area at this level; within each flat a set of internal stairs leads up to the next level and crosses the corridor to reach the other half of the house, where the second part of the apartment is located (with living room or bedroom, respectively). Each apartment is thus identical in structure and orientation, profiting equally from the advantages of the different sides of the building in terms of view or light.
Split-level
Split-level is a floor plan type in which the apartment is usually distributed across at least three (often five to six) levels, staggered in half-level steps. The connecting stairs tend to be short, the levels small; what is at play here is a constant progression upward, the pleasure of how the spaces flow into one another as the path winds through the apartment – the qualities of the continuous floor plan. In extreme cases, each room, each function has its own level. Views into rooms and across spaces, sightlines of all kinds combined with a fine-tuned spatial separation characterize this type. Since one is constantly looking at the apartment from new positions, it can appear to be very diversified within a minimum of space. This type is often used when different functions must be accommodated in one apartment, for a room can be specifically designed in size and height for each of these functions and accordingly connected to a greater or lesser degree to the other activities in the home. Split-levels are most commonly used on narrow lots, for row housing, high-rises or in a building gap, and especially on hillsides where the topography can thus be utilized to best advantage. The internal stairs are centrally located, with landings of identical or different sizes for differing functions. The common rooms – following a sequence of entrance, kitchen, dining area, and living room – tend to transition seamlessly in a typical split-level plan. The spatial continuum is thus palpable and emphasized. At the same time, this generates a contradiction between deliberate openness and the need for withdrawing into a private sphere, to which each split-level floor plan must respond. One possibility is to place the stairs with oversized landings, which can serve for different work and living activities, apart from the main levels of the unit, separating them to a greater or lesser degree from these levels. The facing between the levels and the stairs becomes more and more closed with the increasing height of the building and the increasing need for intimacy called for by the uses (of the levels). Thus it is possible to optimize the degree of isolation provided (fig. K 1). An atrium next to the stairs can further enhance the appeal of wandering through the apartment, as in example K 2. Here, the atrium creates generous sightlines between the levels and the stairs all the way to the roof patio. The stairs, now merging with the main living areas, can also be closed off from these, creating a separate stairwell thanks to the careful placement of the stairs within the layout. Thus, when the requirements for use change, new individual rooms with separate access can be easily created (this is contrary to the prejudice that split-level types offer no flexibility). The split-level type can also be employed strategically, as in example K 3. Here, several different split-level apartments unfold across three levels around the stairwell core of the multifamily home, whereby all three levels have a private entrance, some from the floor landing and some from the mezzanine landing. This independent access opens up new possibilities for subdividing the apartment and for different uses such as subletting, flats for adult children, in-law apartments, housing for a caregiver, or a home office space.
Originally published in: Oliver Heckmann, Friederike Schneider with Eric Zapel (eds.), Floor Plan Manual Housing, fifth revised and expanded edition, Birkhäuser, 2018.