wife provides the architectural insight, and i provide the engineering standpoint.
i can understand why architect and engineer fight all the time.

been designing things and building them for a few years now, made that much easier with the advent of sketchup.
it's much easier to use compared to autocad (for 3d design/editing in 3d space), much faster result, less hassle, while retaining much of the precision that you get from a cad software.

some of my past projects designed and fully built with the help of sketchup:

all built with less than 1mm error. the precision is there, provided you could accurately follow the design.
project is documented over in lowyat's home entertainment section and hifi4sale's DIY section.

i freakin love sketchup. because i freckin hate autocad.

somewhere in kedah, near the perlis border.
not revealing the exact location.

thanks for the offer. i (we) already have a plan that we're comfortable with.

i've order individual smd chips supposedly from epistar. well the seller says it's from epistar, can't confirm even he's lying.
0.5w chips, from 3 different sellers. 100 pieces each. testing purposes

hopefully i could hit the targeted 100w power usage for overnight lighting.
in no way possible with off the shelf solution.

it's not space partition, but internal bracing for the outside walls. it's a subwoofer, a high power at that.
the internal pressure at high output causes the outside walls to flex. so internal bracing is designed to provide more support than is needed, to avoid the flexing issue.

the internal space can't be partitioned as it'll reduce the effective internal area. large opening for the bracing is needed to avoid wind noise when the sub is pressurized.
thus the maze look.

roofed.
17 & 19 degrees pitch.

floorplan is relatively unchanged. tho it won't hurt experimenting with 13 feet high walls just to see how that will look like. 13 feet wall would allow us to go with 11.5 feet high ceiling. that will certainly improve ventilation throughout the entire house.

guest outboard deck attached to the living room/guest dining area looks like it'll be nicer if it's extended. shaded of course.

the house layout is really straight forward. there's not even a pathway or walkway inside the house.
there's no change to the floorplan when we erected the 3D.

we purposely went with a straightforward design to maximize space.

no idea if it's gonna be dark. but there's gonna be a large glass opening at the kitchen wall to aid lighting. wife did say that the kitchen area looks like it won't receive much natural lighting as it is. the dry kitchen needs a lot of lighting for cooking.

for family area and living hall i think we're keeping natural light off of those. the house area usually gets too much sun during midday.


good question. someone also asked previously, mentioning roof turbine.

it's gonna look horrendous spoiling the entire modern outlook of the house.

tho to aid roof ventilation, we're incorporating 3 solution. the first two was mention before this.
first being the outdoor ceiling with opening.
second being the roof insulation with an air gap, supposedly moving air from the roof edges to the top of the structure.

and third, we're incorporating this:




i'm gonna put aluminium louvres on the wall. that will force and channel wind from outside of the house into the roof structure, promoting better ventilation. air will escape at the outside ceiling.

there's a risk that rainwater will be forced into the ceiling together with heavy rain and strong wind.
but if we didn't put up the holes right now, there's no way to cut the walls later on. at the worst case, i could just seal off the louvres at the back if there's too much problem with water.
or change the angle of the fin.
or redesign the louvres.

it's an experiment

skinned. materials added.
my son's room will have an attic since he wants a staircase. sorry son mommy and daddy can't afford a double storey house. but your room will have a play area overlooking the nice view.





so with this we're proceeding with negotiations with the contractor(s). house outlook and floorplan is finalized.

thanks for the pointer. wife did her part 2 in aussie so i hope she's versed with the architecture there.
we do have a large folding door that opens nearly all the entire wall span at the family deck and guest deck area. 12 feet of folding door.

yes it's very hot. but even during midday it's naturally windy. sometimes too violent.
and we have to endure this:

which causes lots and lots of small insects at night.

then this:


which causes lots of smoke and flying ash.

there's gonna be 2 harvesting season a year, which will last for a week. so everything have to be considered. we can't have an open plan, or an indoor courtyard without needing some major cleanup during the harvesting season.

thanks for the suggestion.
your idea is the same as mine. tho i have to consider that we're gonna see wind from both direction. so i can't exactly implement the rising hot air movement as wind will force the hot air from rising and move to the bottom of the structure. so in my design the ceiling is sealed from the room to avoid hot air from the ceiling structure being forced into the room during heavy wind.

got back a quote.
RM88 per square feet.

which translates to RM320k for the entire structure.

IDs and maybe other contractors will say it's gonna cost me another RM600k or at least RM300k more to do the interior.
much bloated price IDs charge, eh?

included.
single phase wiring. each room will get a set of basic downlight, one plug point and one ceiling fan. extra item must be paid directly to the electrician assigned to the project. if i'm not satisfied with him, i can appoint my own wireman and the company will pay the wireman for the cost. single metal db.

interior and exterior plumbing is included with the quote. also full house apron with cement drainage. PE septic tank. 4 water closet at all 4 toilet location, can't remember the brand but we are shown our options to choose from. acceptable quality.
the company also agreed to cover the fancy stone tile at the structure beam that my wife wants.

everything will be done in black and white agreement, signed by both parties with a witness present. if should i choose to proceed with them. not just verbal agreement, and valid as evidence in court.

6 years warranty for the paint. 20 year warranty for the house structure.
the owner is also willing to put it in black and white for both warranty.

but it's not without downside, right?
the contractor won't proceed with the proposed roof pitch at 17 degrees. he wants 28 minimum. else he won't cover the roof leaking issue. but that would put my roof too high of an angle. and will look terrible.

will try and mod the design to see how it looks with 28 pitch.

forgot to mention.
it's a sendirian berhad company. 20 years track record. 3 large hardware shops at 3 different location. 2 main warehouse. they even branched into retail supermarkets, hotels. previously built mosques, shoplots, hotels.

and yet i don't see any of the housing development projects giving any warranty after 1-2 years.
this one is willing to cover 20 years if should there's any crack on the wall.

i see lots of housing over here have crack forming on the wall under a year.

some people say red clay brick have better insulation against heat by sunshine. better cooling effect.

wife says red clay bricks have better heat retention ability, thus frequently used in western countries. they absorb heat during the day, making the house cooler during the day but they excrete the stored heat during the night. thus heating the walls making it warmer. a welcomed trait for western countries where night time is very cold and it would reduce the heating costs.
not exactly an appealing proposition for the weather here.

anyway we're planning for AAC bricks for the west facing walls to improve the insulation. it's only ~60 feet of walls that face the evening sunshine. and the rest of the house probably the normal cement bricks. undecided yet.

thanks for the pointer guys.
will make more info available once we receive more reply from the contractors.

it's previously a paddy field.


if AAC is cheaper i might just go with AAC blocks just for the west wall.
if not have to consider double bricking that wall as i did to the HT room.

if even that is too expensive i just consider double bricking the master bedroom wall. but seeing that we have lots of 7'x7' windows, brick cost can't be that much anyway.

predicting that there's gonna be quite a problem with the room size.
room mode distribution is nice, distributed evenly throughout the spectrum. giving me this:


but room simulation shows that the interaction between the walls and the planned listening position ~6 feet from the back, there's gonna be a null at 100hz in all listening position. and another null at 145hz. probably because of interaction from the back wall.

should be able to take care of these by minidsp and arc, but the null directly at 100hz is worrying.
these nulls happen even though i had good distribution of the room modes. really perfect for the length. don't think you could get much better than that first graph.

anyway simulation shows that 14' 9" is gonna be better in all listening position:


14' won't do much:


increasing the ceiling to 9.5' is even worse:


10' is the worst. not planning for a ceiling higher than 10' for the ht room, otherwise i'm gonna need more subs to pressurize it.


have to consider increasing the ht room by another 9 inch. 14.5' looks better than the planned 13' 9":


but that will reduce the porch length to 17 feet.
3 feet overhang from the roof, i should still get ~20 feet cover at the porch. hopefully my wife agrees haha.

confirmed interaction with the rear wall. changing the crossover frequency also didn't do shit:
100hz xover

90hz xover


meanwhile changing xover freq for 14.5' did wonders:



also did wonders to 14' 9":



pretty much confirmed my fears. the planned size is gonna pose a problem with that huge null at 100hz. it doesn't happen at the middle of the room, but interaction with the rear wall at the listening position causes that huge null that's gonna be hard to correct with EQ.

not gonna risk it. ht room will be widen by 9 inch to 14' 6".
room mode distribution isn't as nice as 13.8', but the freq response at the LP is the absolute priority.

turns out you can't just design a room based on the mode distribution huh.

solid.

nope. we suka suka draw draw and give it to the contractor for estimation.
nope. not gonna hire a dedicated contractor for the ht room. it's diy, remember?

care to explain why a horn setup will solve this null?

a tapped horn will be even worse in this room. tapped horn have a fundamental null at 100hz-150hz. it's not suggested for rooms where freq above 100hz are required from the sub.

simulation is pretty accurate when it comes to soundwave. even tapped horn design process are heavily dependent on the hornresp predicted responses.

see that null? it's not gonna improve the room null that's already there.

room response could be accurately predicted. refer the paper "Subwoofers: Optimum Number and Locations" by Todd Welti, Research Acoustician, Harman International Industries, Inc.
my own testing shows the room simulation could predict actual responses to a high degree of precision. findings are posted before in the audiophiles subforum.

can't trust my own ears as the room have yet to be built. so it's all simulation to avoid building a problematic room.

not by myself. me and my wife.
the first, initial drawing and planning started last year so it's been a year.

there's no electrical and plumbing drawing yet. it's a work in progress. have to finalize the walls and structure first before drawing the electrical and plumbing route. there's a proposed lighting arrangement though. posted before.

calibrated mics could be bought for ~RM300. tho i have to agree that preference plays a major part.
but it's been a few years since i've started with audio measurement and i could judge my preferences from the graph.
if you did enough measurement, for long enough time, you know what's your preference from a brief look at the room response.

here's my previous experience with the simulated response:
predicted:


measured:


overlaid:

see how accurate that is? pretty darn accurate that made me a believer. google for 'rew room simulation accuracy'.

anyway... contractor appointed.
RM32 psft



basic structure.
piling.
main structure beam as per JKR spec.
y12 steel with r6 link throughout.
13 feet wall.
16 inch high main structure beam.
effective ~20 inch raised floor from the ground.
cement brick.
concrete support block for all windows and door. dunno the exact term.
concrete overhang for all windows as shown in the drawing. 30cm x 5 cm.
no roof.
no windows.
inclusive indoor plumbing.
inclusive outdoor drainage.
inclusive outdoor apron with cement gutter.
2 septic tanks for toilets, separated for family area and guestroom.
1 septic tank for greywater discharge.
no wiring.

RM115k for 3621 sqft (indoor + outdoor area).


now my wife wanna add another toilet next to the laudry area.
5 toilets for 4 people? what for need so many toilets ah?
initially she wants the toilet inside my garage. saying the garage is too big for me.