BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – MODEL DRAWINGS
Architectural Design, Spahaus Enclosure Symmetry
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In this section, we focus on design. Symmetry to be clearer, some of its obligations and opportunities. The Spahaus is our design du jour when it comes to symmetry.
As background, the Spahaus is a standalone, residential structure the design of which was commissioned in order to overcome several building challenges while enclosing a large hot tub and supporting concrete pad. You've seen the wall framing and the foundation and some plumbing aspects of this Spahaus enclosure elsewhere on this website in Builder Drawings,
Now it's time to address the symmetry of the Spahaus structure.
The eye favors symmetry (broadly defined). Or better, the mind's eye favors the symmetrical — an expected regularity, pattern, a repetition that signals safety, soothing, security, satisfaction, an awaited coherence, certainty, correspondence. In architectural design, the usual opportunities and obligations of symmetry are manifest and plain and rarely implicit and complex.
Unusually, symmetry pervades the Spahaus. You'll see a cascading or sequencing effect to symmetry starting with a geometric form – the octagon – and extending to all sorts of design points of size, shape and site, including . . .
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foundation layouts, |
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wall framing, |
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deck framing, |
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framing windows and doors, |
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roof framing. |
This Spahaus building design isn't anything if it isn't symmetrical. Once the clients suggested an elongated, octagonal footprint and the Autocad Granddad decided that he liked it too, much of the remaining floor plan design and elevation design was self-determined conceptually. Elsewhere in this website, the discipline of symmetry is just brushed up against now and then in the other highlights of the Spahaus.
Now, Spahaus symmetry is all we'll talk about here in modeling the structure's design. (Since shapes and their relationships are key to this tutorial, the AG omits any reference to dimension, except to say that the spa is a big 'un. The overall structure of the Spahaus is about as long and broad as a double-wide trailer, and roughly twice as tall to the Spahaus rooftop.)
Let's begin with a look at the primary lock on our designing liberties, the very first design image with which to work — the spa's concrete pad, below in 2d; namely, we see the certain, patterned shape of the octagon.
Symmetry: The octagonal shape of the existing concrete pad.
Adding the smaller square of the spa, the octagon persists to dominate. (The octagon form would not have prevailed had the spa been centered on its concrete pad along both axes and not just one axis. Then, the constituents to the Spahaus design might have been quite different.)
Symmetry: The square shape of the spa and the coherence of the spa with the pad.
Designing from here, it's six steps to Spahaus symmetry.
Step #1. As you can learn in other website pages dedicated to the Spa Haus, practicality suggested designing direction: the existing pad turned out to be an unreliable foundation. So, we needed another subgrade support at the spa end of the structure to-be and for the structure as a whole. Both the clients and the AG found that mirroring the octagonal pad was irresistible. Practicality suggested designing direction: the existing concrete pad turned out to be an unreliable foundation. Mirroring the octagonal pad was irresistible. So mirror I did in this 2d plan view of the continuous stem wall foundation drawn sufficiently large enough to rim a structure to enclose three functional areas —
the spa at one end,
a small, open area in the middle, and
a three-quarter bath at the other end.
Symmetry: Elongated octagon of the exterior stem wall foundation.
Step #2. Since the existing concrete pad is set several inches below the uniform elevation planned for of the new concrete pad and top of the stem wall, the two pads not only could be but should be separate structures. This separation accomplishes several different objectives —
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preserves the existing pad's lesser elevation undisturbed |
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allows a uniform concrete surface of new stem wall and pad to abut the existing pad |
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lets a uniform concrete surface of new stem wall and pad to be elevated above the existing pad |
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assures that neither concrete structure bears on the other. |
The AG had to ring the existing concrete pad on its interior three sides with foundation in order to further support and isolate the new concrete pad elevated higher than the existing pad. The new interior foundation is to be tied structurally to the new exterior foundation. Symmetry, thy name is Spahaus. (While this interior foundation could have been a turned-down footing, I opted for the more stable continuous stem wall.)
Symmetry: Octagon made out of the interior stem wall foundation's 3 faces wedded to 5 faces of the exterior wall, in plan view.
Step #3. This is the only no-brainer step in Spahaus design symmetry: the exterior walls. Of course, the exterior walls must mimic, or repeat, the course of the exterior foundation. Yep, it's the same elongated octagon. For perspective, here's a 3d look at the framed exterior walls as seen from the non-spa end of the Spahaus. ( I have added color to this and subsequent drawings to help you get your bearings, and, additionally, I have left in the foundation to get a new, visual vantage on it.)
Symmetry: Elongated octagon of the 8 exterior walls, in perspective.
Step #4. There is to be an interior deck around the hot tub spa. The hot tub's walls rise about 2.5' up from its concrete pad. The AG shaped the interior deck to conform to the octagonal symmetry. To an extent – 5 sides in all – the deck is bound and defined by the abutting wall structure, so that aspect of the interior deck design was obliged. He simply continued that regular pattern to the three non-abutting sides of the deck with one exception: he broke the octagonal symmetry at the interior stairs connecting the deck to the middle (lower) area of the Spahaus. The old boy does not design stairs out-of-square, in pie slice shapes, or otherwise irregular if at all possible, most especially at landings and the first riser up or down. There's too much to risk and lose in a mistaken footfall; the mind's eye expects a squared-off staircase landing. So there is an asymmetry to the interior deck just where the stair landing abuts the staircase.
There is also an exterior deck rising from ground level outside, allowing direct entrance to the spa deck. It is centered on the proximate spa face. How symmetrical of the geezer!
Here are the interior and exterior decks framed in 3d from the same perspective as the prior picture and in 2d plan view. The 3d background is black so as to more clearly distinguish individual framing members and groupings. The 3d foundation is reduced to its top face for added clarity.
Symmetry: The octagonal interior deck and on-center lineup of the exterior deck to the spa itself, in perspective and plan view.
Step #5. The Autocad Granddad designed the placement of windows and doors to be symmetrical, too. At either end, the door and several windows are centered on their respective wall segments. More subtly, the placement of windows and doors on the two long walls is symmetrical as well. Opposing windows or window and door by the spa deck are set on-center to each other across the Spahaus width, and are spaced equally along each long wall. The lone window in the long walled bathroom is similarly spaced. And all the windows are the same size and set up from floor level.
All these symmetries are difficult to show clearly. The two pics to follow take some explaining. The first one displays the Spahaus looking at its long sides in landscape tipped 45-degrees forward. Everything is omitted except windows and their framing, doors and their framing and the concrete stem wall foundation. (The dark area in the upper left wall space is where the corner shower will go sans window. The gray blocks in the right foreground are the footings and piers for the exterior deck.) See how the wall features are rigorously, regularly on-center and evenly spaced on their respective wall segments.
Symmetry: Opposing centers of windows and doors, in perspective.
In this second pic from another perspective, we can visualize how the site and shape of the decks (and the windows and doors) add to the Spahaus symmetry.
Symmetry: Perspective on decks, windows, and doors, in perspective.
Step #6. The roof. The clients sought out a local truss roof designer to form up a unique structure and look to the planned cathedral ceiling interior. So all the Autocad Granddad had to deal with was the outline. Yep, it is symmetrical. It follows the elongated octagon from early-on, lapping it for a soffit all round. Each end is a 3-faced hip and the middle is a gable. Here it is outlined in plan view.
Symmetry: Roof framing outline, in plan view and perspective.
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Retrospectively, the elongated octagon offers a lot of design versatility and only a few potentially difficult challenges.
The versatility is in its —
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Width and length — Plan view dimensions are remarkably elastic while maintaining balance and proportion. Make the Spahaus wider and longer to comfortably accommodate a swimming pool, longer to expand the middle area for entertainment, wider to enlarge the interior decking. |
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Height — This structure imposes; it is born to loom. Lift the roof slope. Add a clerestory. Include a second floor or loft with lookout. |
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Symmetry — You can go farther than geezer did with Spahaus symmetry. Design the exterior doors to appear the same vertical dimension as the windows. Regularize the interior layout as between its functional areas. Repeat the octagonal theme on the interior with outset corners in lieu of squared corners. |
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Exterior — Build out any area of decking at or above grade anywhere in conformance with and reflective of the Spahaus' symmetrical roots. |
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Plastic styling — The Spahaus is not a visual convention. It is a structural form to be fitted and finished as you like it — rustic, Romanesque, colonial, contemporary, antebellum South, Arts & Crafts, faux-Disney, or otherwise as you like it. |
Additionally, hardscape and lighting opportunities abound to dramatize views from both exterior and interior.
The challenges —
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Given other interior functions, it could be more difficult to deal effectively with endcap space and exterior window and door symmetry. |
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The hip roof sections at the endcaps can give you fits in working out adequate rafter bay ventilation, particularly at the upper-ends where surface areas diminish to points. |
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