Balinese House Design & Others

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hi,

There's a really neat pavilion-style house being built in Perak. The design has a load of Bali-type features (pools, water courses, outside pavilions) and some great solid timber columns and roof trusses (saw1). A smaller section of the house forms an internal courtyard. If you look past the builder's rubble, it becomes a great space (saw2).

These pictures have been compressed. Click on the picture for a bigger view, you'll have to wait a short time for loading.

regards, Scott

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As we can no longer DIY applications seems to make sense to save a bit of cash (well maybe) by DIY house designs. There are loads of off-the-peg designs on the net, but it's fun to design your own.

I've posted on the Fee Scale for Malaysian Architects. This is full service, so it includes taking the brief, discussion, sketch design, scheme design, final design, production information and documents, tender action, and site supervision. The whole 9 yards.

If you're well prepared then you can get an architect to act simply as someone who draws up the plans/elevations/sections and then submits for planning. Anyway if I was the architect and someone walked into my office and begin chatting about maybe this particular design, or something local, or perhaps a neo-colonial design, I'd think, "wow, this is gonna take a lot of time and patience," and I'd be reluctant to reduce fees.

So the first thing is to forget about what it will look like, and prepare your own "Schedule of Accommodation." No need to expect the Architect to translate your "make the master bedroom big" into sqM. You've already done it, and you'll be right.

Decide if you want a 2-storey or a 1-storey house. A 2-storey cube is the cheapest and most efficient way to enclose space - the foundations are pretty much the same as for single-storey and there's less roofing. A 1-storey rectangle has a bigger footprint, same foundation strength but more of them (linear dimensions) and more roof.

A 1-storey house doesn't have stairs (I didn't say that this was brilliant) which is great if you're getting on, or planning to be in a wheelchair sometime soon. It's a basic decision, 1-storey or 2-storey.

For me, I'm going for a 2-storey but with the ground floor as a usable void. I want something similar to the traditional house-on-stilts, it avoids floods, snakes, and gives an automatic covered car space/storage area and workroom. As all the living space is upstairs, that's where I'll spend most of the time so stair use will be limited anyway.

So my Schedule of Accommodation starts off with 2-storey. Now to fill-in the other areas as a list of spaces required, and give an approximate optimum area for each:

050 Entrance Area/Hall
200 Living Room
150 Kitchen
150 Dining Area
100 Laundry
100 Study
120 Guest Room
200 Master Bedroom
120 En Suite Bathroom
100 General Bathroom (also for guest/cloakroom)
080 Kitchen Store
200 Patio/Verandah Areas

The best way to get the areas is to use a tape measure on the spaces you're already using, and expand or contract from experience. You could also search out a copy of Neufert's Architectural Data which gives sizes for everything.

Totaling the above gives me 1220 sqft. Adding about 10% for circulation/walls gives 1340 sqft as a starting point. So the design is for 2 people, with a spare (guest room), and a study (maybe this becomes a TV room), 3 to 4 star hotel-sized bathrooms. There's nothing too big, maybe the guest room is a bit small, but for now it's OK. Maybe I'll add a walk-in wardrobe space for the master bedroom. But for now it's approximate areas just to get a feel for the overall size.

To be continued ...

regards, Scott

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Scott,

I like this Balinese style, although, as you may recall, my preference is for a condo unit, but you never know I might e swayed by the time I get to retirement.  Have you any idea of costs for this, or what you are planning.  Obviously land will vary considerably by location and building costs not just on size, but probably more so on the finish specified.

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Hi, Paul,

I'll be posting 3 or 4 more DIY suggestions - the Schedule of Accommodation is a first. At the end of this, or concurrently, maybe some members will end-up designing there own places, or at least clarifying their ideas.

I'm looking at no more than RM120 psf and that's using good quality finishes, good timber (expensive now), and roof slates rather than cheaper concrete tiles. I also want to get most of the items, including infill walls, made up off-site as it's easier to control quality. The less wet trades the better.

I think, and I'll be getting quotes from builders over the couple of months, that I can get it down to RM80 to RM100 psf.  At least there won't be a developer's profit, and it will be built solid rather than shoddy.

regards, Scott

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Scott, where about your house is going to be built?
Al

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hi, Al,

I'm going to check out the east coast areas between Mersing (northern Johor) and Kuantan (northern Pahang). I thought about Kuala Terengganu but it's too far north for me.

regards, Scott

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I would recommend Kuantan - really nice place have visited there a few times. Not too far from KL either - about 3 hours by car. If you play golf a couple of really good courses in the vicinty and cheap to play

Cheers

Brian

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thanks, Brian,

I also think Kuantan could be good. I need to check the "Eastern Corridor" proposed development to find out what is envisioned. Maybe someone on this site knows?

regards, Scott