When you all design do you start with a plan or do you start with an elevation? Do you start with a sketch or do you start with technical drawings? Whenever I try to design something it seems to be more functional to design the plan first but sometimes more aesthetic to design the elevation first.

I start with plan, doors/windows/rooms. I find out where the posts are.
Then on to elevations and corrections. 10,000 times.

Derek, Does that mean that you don't do the "bubble diagram" to establish rooms and needs. If you don't, do you design a timberframe, then design how it fills functions. I guess I mean, do you let the function dictate the timberframe, or the timberframe decide what functions are possible?

I wonder if I can post on every topic? HA!

DO IT!

Mo:
There are many tools in the design tool box that some people use and apparently other people don't.
Use whatever tools you feel comfortable using and try and keep an open mind about other tools that you haven't used, yet.
Jim Rogers

I start with the customers budget. No sense wasting everyones time designing a house you already know the customer can't afford.


Then we look at the site... size, orientation, lot layout, driveways, setbacks, figure out where the septic and the well will go. They aren't always negotiable.

Then we find out what the customer wants... Everything first floor????, First floor with a loft, open floor plan? nooks and crannies? decks, porches,

How do they cook and where do they generally eat? breakfast bar? more formal dining room? How much intertaining do they do? How many people come, What do they do on the holidays, were do you have coffee in the morning now and do you like that.

How many houses have you lived in? Have you ever built a house before or is this the first one? Give me a list of the things you disliked the most of the houses you have been in or lived in.

Then we draw first floor plans until the customer sees something they like. We keep drawing and revising until the house becomes what the customer wants to pay for. We never draw something that will be beyond thier budget or can't be built.

After that... then we embelish the first floor plans, add second or loft if there is one, add garages, decks porches and ball park the windows until we get a window schedule.

Then 3d drawings of the frame and 3d elevations of the house.

Don't think I've ever seen a tree or a timber that knew the answers to all of these questions.

My feeling is if a customer wants to drop a half million dollars on a house,,,the timbers will just have to cooperate .

Nice write up pegs....

Pegs

That is a great description of the process.

Budget is always the first question. Next the physical and regulatory constraints of the site. Then the lifestyle questions because its their house and the house has to function well for the occupants.
That’s where the bubble diagram comes in. It is a tool for composing the where of the spaces without getting lost in the how.
First you place rooms and functions (not necessarily the same thing) where they work for the client and then you look at how to build. The problem for carpenters and framers is that we want to get to the structure, the fun stuff. But we have to make the house function first and tools like bubble diagrams keep you on task or this phase of design.
Of course then you start the iterative process or as Mark calls it "10,000 corrections" because new ideas, opportunities and issues will come up and you will be tweaking spaces to conform to the frame design.


Good topic

J.E.B.

One of the books I read on this subject suggested creating a list of room names.
Such as:
First floor:
Living room
Dining room
Kitchen
1/2 Bath
Mud room
Laundry room

Second floor:
Master bedroom
Master bathroom
Bedroom
2nd bedroom
3rd bedroom
2nd bathroom

Then add to this list things that will be on both floors like stairways, section open to rafters such as great room, any laundry chutes, chimney chases and things like that.

Then as you do your bubble diagram you check off the list the things you've done, or placed on each of the floor plans you're creating. I find using a check list helps to keep track of all the rooms and where they will be located by floor level.

Then the bubbles can be arranged on each floor level to make the functions near each other that apply.


One good exercise we did at a class was to create two floor plans of the same size house one on tracing paper (the second floor). So that we could see through the second floor to the first floor. This helped us to line up the locations of posts for the interior bents.
These posts would need to go to the second floor ceiling to hold up purlin plates or other roof system timbers.
This was a good exercise to understand how moving a post on one floor effected it location on the other floor. And how it would effect windows locations along the walls and door locations in both the interior walls and exterior walls.

Sometimes it can be a challenge to get everything to work out right for both floors.

Jim Rogers

I use the bubble method when I trying to explain to people at shows.... it isn't difficult to design a home especially a lake home. If its under $500,000.00 and its a lake home then it WILL have either these 3 facing the lake... masterbedroom greatroom and kitchen, or these 3 ...masterbedroom greatroom and dining room. Either that or you have a really ugly lake.

From there its usually geography and dollars that determines what else happens.

Once you get over 1/2 a million then it gets more interesting