Julian Owen
This house by Giles Pike Architects (
www.gilespike.com) features an open plan living-dining space on the ground floor, which also allows the views through the floor-to-ceiling glazing to be seen from the various zones
The crunch point of a house design – the first time that all your ideas and hopes come up against hard reality – is when the initial scaled plan is drawn up. This is because, whatever the budget, most of us would like a larger house than we can afford and it is painful when a size limit has to be set. Obviously the larger the planned building the more it will cost, but it is impossible to predict the exact price of each square metre.