Want to get a few practical aspects clarified before you start building your luxury duplex?
Are you planning to build a duplex house, and wondering what are the tips and tricks you should know?
Unsure what the essentials of duplex house design are, and want a walkthrough?
Want to make an informed decision of the duplex house interior plans submitted by your designer, but don’t know the practical warnings to watch out for?
Then this is the blog post for you!
Crucial aspects of duplex homes you should know
A duplex house is essentially two home units in one building – they share a common wall but can have unique rooms and floor plans.
Usually, a duplex house is built to accommodate different households within the same family.
However, people also go for duplex homes as an investment or to build a luxury living place – duplex houses are generally considered upscale living.
Given all that, here are the essential factors you must consider when building or planning a duplex house.
The location
As a long-standing interior design service in Dhaka, allow us to assure you that location plays a key role in determining the quality of life in a house.
As the most common use of a duplex is to accommodate a growing family, generally a family-friendly and safe location is assumed to be an important consideration for a duplex house.
Even if you are building the house as a luxury home or as an investment, a good location will boost the value of your investment, getting you higher rent and a good price if you decide to sell.
The weather (whether the house can get sunlight or not, whether it rains excessively or not), privacy considerations, and surrounding buildings (for example a very tall building right beside your duplex will block sunlight and air from reaching your house) are some of the things you must consider when picking the location.
Planning restrictions
Your local government may have planning restrictions that affect your project.
Make sure you know the applicable conditions and restrictions and conform the entire design planning to those.
From plot size to number of bedrooms – there could be any number of features you will have to set according to the local regulations.
If you hire a professional interior designer, this is something you will not have to worry about as ensuring compliance with the laws is a part of our job.
As we explain in our blog post on interior designers vs architects, a full-service interior design company like ours will have various specialists in its team, to handle all the necessary functions required.
The budget
Whether you’re opting for a renovation, an interior design, or a full-scale house construction, you need to think whether you can cover the budget required.
Please remember, there are two separate parts to it – the duplex design and the building.
When estimating your cost, remember to add in the following heads:
- The bill for the interior designer/architect who will handle the planning and project implementation.
- Acquisition of materials.
- Labour costs.
- Other costs and overheads.
- Taxes and compliance costs.
There is always the chance of the project going over budget, so remember to account for that.
If you feel overwhelmed by the budgeting, feel free to ask the designer for help.
Get in touch with us for a free estimate and consultation on building your duplex home!
The design
This is where you will discuss with the designer your requirements from the duplex, your aspirations on how it should look, and what it means to you.
As trained interior designers, it is our job to understand not only your physical requirements but also your emotional needs and mental setup and set specifications accordingly.
From numerical characteristics like how large the house should be to other features like who will live in it (middle aged folks, younger people, children, pets, and so on),…
And even aspects like what kind of home environment you will feel comfortable living in – all kinds of details will be discussed.
As an example, say you have children who will live in the duplex.
It is our job, as interior designers, to understand what the children want their play area to look like and do, and then create an actual design from abstract ideas.
The designer will be able to bring their experience and training to the table and supplement your ideas with informed design plans.
For example, if you’re building the duplex as a luxury pad and you have a vertical duplex (one storey on top of another)…
You can go for an open floor layout on the lower level. This gives your duplex a spacious and chic look.
Making interiors efficient according to the function of each room is part of an interior designer’s job, as revealed in our post on signs you need an interior designer.
Selecting a designer
As we have been saying time and again, a qualified interior designer will be able to make the design and building process smooth for you.
From understanding your expectations to ensuring compliance with laws and regulations to managing the entire project – a professional interior design service will be able to handle every aspect of the design, leaving only the bare minimum of issues for you to have to sort.
You should have an extensive consultation with the builder on the plans and layout, and also ask for periodic updates on progress and estimated finish time.
Meet our design team and take a look at the various functions we perform in a project.
Your own ideas
The designer will discuss the duplex project extensively with you…and you should contribute to these meetings.
Many times we have met a client that simply left most of the details – whether for efficient design or for aesthetics – to us, and later on expressed disappointment at the final result.
While we try our level best to understand your personality and infuse the same into the design, the more you contribute to design discussions, the better we can plan.
So, go through interior design and real estate journals and magazines, surf the internet, and also look through various builders’ portfolios to see duplexes.
Then, jot down all the points of interest you see in those.
What are some of the most popular design requests in duplex home design?
Open layout living areas, more bedrooms, and a home office.
Further, people also look for lower power consumption, and use of modern materials on exterior walls.
As a starting point, look through our interior design portfolio and have an idea of what duplex houses look like and what you can achieve in yours.
Storage capacity
Does it sound surprising when we mention something so specific as storage capacity in a blog post on things to consider when designing a duplex house?
It actually isn’t all that strange.
Efficient use of space is something that needs to be a part of the planning process from stage one.
Various storage-only options are available in a duplex – from the attic to the basement, the garage, but…
Say you don’t have space for a basement. However, you do have wide stairs – so you can fit a cupboard under the stairs, which somewhat recovers the space you lost as you don’t have space for a basement.
This kind of strategic thinking is required to maximise storage capacity, and that is why we have included it as a separate point in this post.
Picking the right furniture
Selecting furniture that matches your requirements, specifications, and aesthetics is no less important than the design and building phase.
That’s why in many cases designers themselves will pick out most of the crucial and central furniture pieces for you.
The main consideration in furniture selection is that the furniture should be scaled as per the room’s dimension – it should be neither too small nor too large.
It should not make a room look full of clutter…it should not block free traffic around the room either.
Good furniture is long-lasting, easy to use and maintain, and also looks in tune with the rest of the room design.
Want furniture designed specially for yourself? Consult our custom furniture making team!
Some duplex design angles for you to think about
- Does the staircase match your needs: Remember, a duplex is essentially two house units under the same roof. The staircase can be the main connection between the two (in a vertical duplex). It can also be a style statement. The placement (in the centre, at one end) and design of the staircase needs to match its role in the duplex.
- Maintain a connection between units: You need to make sure the two house units don’t feel disconnected from each other. At the minimum, allow for some visibility from one unit to the other (for example via glass walls around the staircase).
- Display artwork on high walls: Many duplex homes include high (double-height) ceilings. Rather than leave the walls empty, display large artworks on them, creating feature pieces that will draw eyeballs.
Duplex house design: what you should keep in mind – concluding remarks
Whether you are getting the duplex to accommodate a growing family, as a style statement, or as a real estate investment, duplex house design comes with its own set of considerations.
From whether the location is suitable for a duplex residence to the budget, from selecting the right designer to having your own ideas, from making sure the house has sufficient storage capacity to picking the right furniture – there are many things you should consider…and it is these that we have collated in our blog post.
Did you find this post useful?
Are there any duplex house factors that we overlooked?
Do let us know in a comment below!
And if you are designing a duplex yourself, here are top 10 interior designers in Bangladesh for you to select your designer from!
