Design for a Cottage

Also: A Residential Complex for senior citizens



This blog has posts on design of compact cottages suitable for countryside living. Here is another design of a compact two room cottage. As a engineer my attempt is to design cottages that are simple and sturdy to construct from an engineering point of view. The present design consists of three nine inch brick walls set apart by eleven feet only to provide an economical and sturdy roof supported on these walls. A Kitchen towards the back and a bathroom towards the front is carved out by partitioning walls along with closet spaces. Since side windows are not necessary in this design, such cottages can be constructed in a row as well of two or more cottages for a group of persons.



Design for a Cottage

More on First Floor

Either as a row house or an independent cottage the present design is eminently suitable for creating more residences on the first floor if desired. The first floor rooms can be single room with washrooms or two room suites as shown. They would require a staircase on the side of the building to reach. It goes without saying that while constructing the ground floor roof required beams should be placed along the kitchen and bathroom to make this possible and avoid unnecessary load on roof. This is a simple engineering detail that can be worked out by any architect. The window and door openings on ground floor have been placed so as to make possible the creation of identical single room units on the first floor.
 
 
A Complex of Apartments ( Suitable for a group of Senior Citizens)

Since the present design has no side windows, a row of such cottages can also be set side by side. The following figure shows a complex consisting of such cottages adapted as 20 ground floor apartments for seniors owned by the seniors and more apartments for rent on the first floor in a community complex with a central club on an approximately 2.5 acre complex. The twenty apartments are broken up in four groups of five each to break the monotony of a single long row. The present plot is rectangular but if the plot is odd shaped, the elements of the design can be moved around to fit the shape. The design can easily be scaled up to 25 or thirty apartments too but larger groups may make management more unwieldy although perhaps somewhat more economical.

A luxury complex on the same concept can be developed by making the apartments more spacious and with more land for swimming pool, sauna, lake, meditation and music cottages, Japanese tea room on an island in the lake, bar amidst the orchard, more agricultural and horticultural activities etc.but in this latter case it may be better to rent out most on the first floor as resort/retreat to select clientele for short stays rather than longer term rent.

A Community complex owned by a group of 20 senior citizens


Read why residential complexes for seniors are badly needed in the modern age here


Compact Version

A more compact version of the cottage based on the same design concept is show in the figure below

DESIGN FOR A COMPACT COTTAGE


Check out these older posts for more cottage designs



top most cottage image from:

Comments

Ashok said…
Since the cottage design was posted it has been updated a few times. In the latest version a kitchen cupboard has been added and the counters placed so as to permit some vacant space for a fridge or kitchen table. The Fridge can also be placed against the living room wall adjacent to kitchen.
Ashok said…
My experience with design of cottages is that it is a good idea to tweak a design further when one comes up with a good design. it is so much easier to do it on paper or computer rather than on the ground when construction begins. Therefore the original design posted here earlier has been tweaked some more and just re-posted.

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