If you happened across a home built from an underground house floor plan you could be forgiven for thinking the owners might be Hobbits because the only things visible might be a door or window set into a foliage covered hill. This type of home is actually a series of small, interconnecting domes made from cement and partially or completely submerged into the earth.
Such unconventional house floor plans are actually a step in the right direction for those persons thinking outside the box in terms of energy conservation and environmental benefits. Living underground in such earth-sheltered housing has its merits and takes a very conservative view in energy usage.
When considering an underground house floor plan, look for the following applications:
1. The house floor plan should blur the distinction between indoors and outdoors. The purpose is to exist in close harmony with nature.
2. The windows should be honeycomb style to harness solar energy.
3. Since the windows for this type of floor plan don't open, an intake vent system with filters should be installed to draw fresh air from outside. The filters help keep out unwanted pests.
4. Air should be fanned from a solar collector through the home duct work into a rock store beneath the main living space. The store system maintains an efficient heat-exchange which works with the insulating soil to maintain a comfortable temperature year round. A good system would require no additional heating or cooling.
The dome shaped rooms give rise to maximum floor space and minimum wall area. Floor areas do not to conform to traditional housing expectations and and the living spaces are defined with curved walls with no sharp corners. Natural sunlight can be channeled into the house via the use of a skylight lined with natural reflective materials.
Underground house floor plans got their start in the 1970s from an Austrian architect named Eisenhofer. Sadly, most dismissed his energy efficient and unconventional house plans as nothing more than a hippie experiment. It has only been within the past few years that interest in earth-sheltered housing is attracting some interest. As people become more environmentally conscious, the popularity of underground house floor plans as an energy efficient alternative can only increase.
House And Floor Plans
There are many advantages to town house floor plans, particularly for renters and urban dwellers. Years ago, this type of floor plan was known as a "row house." Townhouses are generally multi-story units that are attached to units on either side give you neighbors living closely together similar to apartment style housing. Once found in abundance in large cities, townhouses can be found all over the country.
Town house floor plans offer more advantages than apartments in several ways. Because they are multiple units arranged in a row, townhouses generally have a single entry per unit and therefore allow for more privacy than living in an apratment building. They also tend to have more square footage of living space per unit than apartments although townhouses are smaller than duplexes. Town house floor plan designs are also more varied than apartments.
Most townhouses are arranged in typical fashion with living spaces on the bottom floor and sleeping spaces on the top floor. The number of bedrooms can vary from one to three and the number of bathrooms generally varies from one to two and a half bathrooms per unit.
While the number of bedrooms and bathrooms can vary, almost all townhouse floor plans have garages,patios and at least one walk-in closet. Kitchen can be traditional, galley style, or in the case of a very large floor plan, an island kitchen. It is also possible to have a fireplace with openings toward both the living room and kitchen giving it an old world feel.
Although townhouses are also known as "row houses", some current configurations include one unit per side and others have two side-by-side units facing front and two more units on the back side. Whatever your choice, town house floor plans offer a wide variety of options for singles, couples and small families.
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