Deciding on Roofs

 Now that the site plan had been created, it was time to decide on a roof plan to go along with the house. There were many different schemes to go with, as I created at least seven different ideas which I thought plausible in my first round of thinking.

From these seven designs, I discussed with my mentor how I should narrow them down. I looked into three main categories: Feasibility, Closeness to Passivhaus, and Aesthetics. From this I narrowed down my choices to options 2, 3, and 5. These three in my mind offered feasible solutions that didn't seem too far out there and could be integrated into neighborhoods easily. They also for the most part followed Passivhaus's ideas of sustainability through the use of sunroofs. In addition, I thought these three designs all offered a different aesthetic which I wanted to explore further. that lead to me to making a roof plan and more detailed elevations of these three designs, totaling 15 different drawings excluding the ones featured above. 

For each of these roof designs, I drew a roof plan as well as an elevation for each side of the building. This helped me really decide which roof design I wanted to move forward with, as it gave me a holistic view of the building with the roof on it. From the left, I started with design number two. This design was the best in terms of its Passivhaus implementation, as a large portion of the roof faces southward, meaning a lot of windows can face the south. The design as well is very practical and feasible, so it can be implemented pretty easily. Aesthetically it is a little plain, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. A house doesn't have to be groundbreaking, but that isn't an excuse for boring design. I think my house compensates for this plain roof with its unorthodox layout when compared to the other houses it is surrounded by. 

The second design I will straight away say was not as good as I envisioned when I started out. It looked more corporate than homelike, even with the slanted roofs and such. Not much else to say, it just wasn't that good. 

The third design was a decent competitor for the final design. The symmetrical look of it from the front made it very appealing to me, but it fell flat in other areas. For one, the street view just looked like a sheer surface with little variation. In some instances this is good, but for what I'm going for it doesn't exactly provide a welcoming feeling. Also, the roofing on this faces east and west, so it can't take advantage of sun roofs as well as the other options.

From this, I decided to move forward with the left option, and plan to make larger-scale drawings of it soon.







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