Site Design

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Well, we have been busy over the past couple of weeks. Two weeks ago we packed up and left sunny Los Angeles for the biting cold of the Missouri plains. The LV model home was a fine shelter from the 30 mph wind and the 16 degree temperatures. As planned, we were impressed enough to write Rocio her deposit check, and we had some time to set down with her after the open house to review our rather exhaustive conceptual design set.

We also managed to close on the property yesterday, utilizing a construction loan from Indy Mac that was arranged by Scott Engel, a mortgage broker at Santa Monica based First Capital. Scott not only provided us with good service, but is now up to speed on the kit, so seek him out if you are in the area.

Our survey was completed a couple of days before we left for Missouri, just in time for me to rough out a building footprint and drop it on the site. Our site design is now evolving heavily as our soils engineer continues his report and our structural engineer gets up to speed. Note that we are likely going to utilize a Los Angeles based structural engineer due to the potential complexity of the foundation system and the other retaining walls that will be required on site.

We started off site design with a couple of guiding principles: (1) minimize cut and disturb as little soil as possible, (2) try to work between the two eucalyptus trees.

So our first pass at locating the structure on site was as follows (by the way, you can see the outline of the existing house in yellow at the bottom left of the site so you can reference back to the photos):

"Site 1":img:http://www.livemodern.com/Members/angeleno/blog.2004-12-28.9356638419/image.2005-02-02.0149686521

Now, those of you who have been following closely know that, due to the 62' spread between the two eucalyptus trees, we decided to go with the 50' LV instead of the 60' LVL. However, we also planned to modify the LV by adding a lower level and a stair as follows:

LOWER LEVEL
"Lower":img:http://www.livemodern.com/Members/angeleno/blog.2004-12-28.9356638419/image.2005-02-02.0684881358

UPPER LEVEL
"Upper":img:http://www.livemodern.com/Members/angeleno/blog.2004-12-28.9356638419/image.2005-02-03.9927344718

SECTION
"Section":img:http://www.livemodern.com/Members/angeleno/blog.2004-12-28.9356638419/image.2005-02-02.1455147376

Now, you will notice that the sketch above shows a large unexcavated area. This was a response to the steep topography on the north of the site - an attempt to avoid cutting into the hillside more than necessary. However, as we studied the site plan more, we realized that some retaining walls were approaching 16' tall with the current house location, and that by moving the house to the "flatter" center of the site, the maximum retaining wall height could be brought down to approximately 9' tall. Unfortunately, this means we have to lose the 50' eucalyptus we were trying to keep. We'll plant two more as a replacement.

Here is the latest site plan reflecting this "centered" plan. This plan will also allow us to capture the entire basement as usable space. You will also see the diagram of site access and retaining walls:

"Site 2":img:http://www.livemodern.com/Members/angeleno/blog.2004-12-28.9356638419/image.2005-02-02.9504770758

We are awaiting our soils report to further evolve the site work. This is about 2-3 weeks out still.