The Importance of House Position

If you are in the enviable position of being able to afford to design and build your own dream home in a dream location, what should you do first – design the house or select the lot on which it will be built?  

How a home is placed on a lot is definitely a key consideration, but your options will vary on what part of your dream project you’ve done first.  If you’re building a lakefront home the lot will probably come first and the house can then be designed to fit the lot.  Sloping lots call for different designs than flat lots.  However, there are some placement considerations that apply in all cases.  Let’s look at a few of them, beginning with the position of the home in relation to the sun.

Obviously the climate in the location in which you’re building the home is a key consideration, as windows with northern exposures will allow the warmth of the sun to help heat the home in the winter; but they will also make the home more difficult to cool in the hot summer.  A lot with ample shade trees helps compensate as the summer’s leaves help block some of the sun’s rays.  In addition, designing an extended overhang will also provide needed shade during the summer months.

In some cases, the orientation to the sun may be overridden by the homeowner’s desire to take advantage of a desirable view.  A lakefront home with a window wall facing away from the lake doesn’t make sense.  However, suppose you’re a tree lover, not a water lover?  Then you might place the home the lounge area with large windows facing the surrounding forest, not the waterfront.  

This of course does not mean no windows on the western, eastern, or northern exposure of the home.  If simply means you minimize the size of the windows on those exposures.  In fact, for cross ventilation purposes, it is desirable to have windows on both sides of a room wherever possible.

For areas with a prevailing wind direction, orienting the home’s outdoor deck into the wind allows for pleasant evenings sitting in a cool breeze.  Water flow is a consideration that is sometimes ignored.  For a home you’re building in an area with few homes around it, you’ll need to consider how water drains from the lot you’ve selected.

Homes built in more inhabited areas have additional placement concerns.  If you’ve always wanted a home set back far from the street and the zoning of you lot allows it; if the surrounding homes are placed closer to the street, your home will look out of place.  The same consideration applies if you’ve always wanted a home with a side entrance.  If every home on the block is oriented with a front entrance, your house will stick out in contrast to the prevailing style.

Modern technologies that allow homebuilders to overcome some of nature’s disadvantages have led to less concern with designing homes to take advantage of the surrounding area.  If you’re interested, spend a little time on the Internet or in the public library researching how ancient peoples oriented their living accommodations to fit their natural environments.  A design concept that is becoming increasingly popular – the Chinese principle of Feng Shui – was originally used as a way to orient buildings. Good luck with your dream home!