The Uplands

I decided to post some of the renderings and plans on a blog to make sharing easier. After much discussion we decided to name this new project on Chase Road, "The Uplands." It's all uphill from the flat ALR farmland across from Chase Road. There is a community in Victoria called Uplands, and it has some of the finest homes... a very desirable address.

The architect prepared this first rendering from our townhouse plans. I have no intention of doing a Craftsman theme... but since he spent a lot of time on it I asked for a copy.  It shows the street scene on the lower road for the three buildings between Celeste Road and Chase Road.

These renderings were done from unfitted sketches of floor plans... and since then we have plans that are totally completed ready to go for permit. 

This is one idea of what Contemporary style may look like.  The colours, window and door styles need to be selected to reflect the price point we are going to target. We want to look very nice but not with full glass front doors or all those lights in the garage doors.

It was from this sketch that the finished floor started. The size grew slightly to 1013 on the main floor.

This sketch of the floor plan of the town homes is 970 on the main floor with master bedroom and master bath, plus a powder with stacking washer/dryer. Lower level with two more bedrooms, a full bath, family room and some storage, using some space under the garage.

I knew from the onset that we would need some serious site preparation for most of the lots... but didn't realize until the engineers had completed the road design, that to keep the driveway close to level with the garage we would require some retaining walls on a few of the lots.  

This shows the road with a 4.5 meter (15 feet) setback to the garage... a variance that we got approved for these three lots only.  The other lots on the loop road must be 6 meter setback for the garage.... but other parts of the house are ok to be up to 4.5 m. setback.

These three renderings show the style and character of the south condo building.  The north building is similar, with a few minor modifications for parking to the lower level. Each building has six condos on the lower level and middle level, and four condos on the upper level. It is good selling feature to have most of the parking on the same level as the owners condo is.

These four elevations are of the south condo building.  Most of the condo has 4/12 pitch roof but portions of the garages have some flat roof to give the character of Contemporary style. 

The architect thought it would be cool to have a green roof on a couple of the garages... but the District of Lake Country never even picked up on it and I'm not sure that the cost is justified. This will need some cost analysis before I would say we do it... but it no doubt looks cool.

As I was shooting some of these plans on the patio table on the view side of our house the ferry to Saturna went by. It was a pleasant afternoon, and it was nice enough that Shirley and I had our lunch outside on the lower deck today. Not bad for November 4.

"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." 

-Winston Churchill

1. Here is a group of photos that we took on Friday at Lakestone in Lake Country. Check it out...

and browse thru these photos to see applications of the Hardiplank panels with various colours and patterns.

2. There are aluminium extrusions that come in a variety of colours as well... with corners, drip caps, and vertical joints like H-clips ten feet long.

3. This was stucco, but we liked the look.

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6. There is an aluminum product called Longboard... finished to look like wood but without the maintenance.

7. They even used it here on the soffits.... but it is too expensive for us to use it there.

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14. The product comes in 4x8, 4x9 and 4x10 foot size panels.

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16. I think this is a good affordable garage door look.

17. This is the show home at Lakestone... Of course they were closed on Friday!

They do not use lawn in here.

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22. We talked to the owners of this home and in less than a year their pine exterior is showing need for attention.  They wouldn't do that again.

23. Here is a combination of panels and conventional siding boards. We may elect to do a little of this on part of the side walls to save costs.  But only where the houses are vary close to each other and hardly seen.