I doubt it's the concrete mix. Certainly looks like a workmanship issue. Definitely not enough control joints for that span. Also very surprised that they didn't have a layer of stone beneath the pour. I think it's acceptable to lag the concrete to the house with rebar but in my opinion it would be preferable to add an expansion joint. I would call in a pro for a professional opinion so you have so ammo to go back after the builder. Good luck.

Hi Jason. Whatever gets talked about or recommended via a picture still needs to be worked out in plan view. So you'll either need to draw a plan or maybe you already have a plot plan of the yard that you can use in order to create a "to scale" drawing (map) of your walk and drive. It's the only way that you'll know that everything fits properly and it'll serve as the instructions when the time comes to build. Depending on where you live and what is required by your applicable building department, it may be useful for permitting. You'll need to check with them. It looks like your drive will be straightforward and without any unusual quirks. You'd want to add a backup turnaround space at the left side since you'll always be turning around and never backing down to the street. Because the grade falls off there, you'll need to bring it up for the turnaround space, accounting for drainage so that you don't end up blocking any route of escaping water. You'd want to make the space large enough to get in and out of the car and also blend the flanking space into the grade fairly gently. You don't want a sudden drop-off at the edge of the turnaround space. You may want to make it large enough for two cars if it must also do duty as a parking space while simultaneously being used as a turnaround. A chronic, ongoing problem created by builders is in making the walkway to the front entrance too narrow. If too narrow it cheapens the look of the whole house and feels unpleasant to use, especially if there is more than one person approaching the door at a time. I would call 4' the absolute minimum in all cases. 5' or 6' may be fine. Once one arrives at the front door/porch vicinity the walk should expand into a landing that fits the set-up of the porch and the steps. Steps also need to be fairly wide. How wide depends on porch. Another chronic, ongoing problem with the walk created by builders is placing it too close to the house, consequently killing the possibilities for nice landscape plantings and pinching what plants can exist so they look like they are desperately and distortedly trying to escape. For the health of the plants and the house, plants should not be jammed onto the foundation wall. Shrub centers should be set at least 30" away. Larger shrubs or small tree forms would be set even farther away. In my world a bed should be minimum 6' depth from front to back. If push comes to shove, I would concede to 5' but not like it as much. 6' of bed plus 4' of walk is 10' away from the house as a minimum. It looks like you could do that without running into trouble with the hill. In the real world there are constraints that sometimes force one into making concessions so we do them when we have to and avoid them when we can. Fortunately, the porch projects outward from the house (since the front door is hidden from the drive) helping to make the destination obvious to a guest. You'll want the entrance to the walk to be obvious as well. The house looks a little exposed. A couple of small or medium trees at the right side would help it look integrated into the surroundings. The hill looks like a b to mow. I'd consider converting it at some point to some type of farm friendly, rough and tumble groundcover. Some flowering or fall color trees on the hill (not blocking the view of house from below) could be a great seasonal thrill show.

"But I also don't want it to look like a concrete prison yard ..." I don't know how literally you are worried about that. A prison yard is going to be plain, undecorated concrete without plantings along its edges ... and some weeds growing in the cracks. Given that you have a garage at either side of the house, and need access to the front door between the two garages, there's not any way to avoid a sizeable expanse of paving. And it would be a mistake to shrink the entrance walk beyond a certain minimal size, attempting to compensate for the amount of paving. But I don't think you need to worry about it looking like a prison yard because you can use a decorative paving, in a fitting sensible shape, with landscaping around its perimeter, and without weeds in cracks. Still, it's going to be a lot of paving -- because that's the layout of the house you built. To try to shrink paving beyond its functional necessity is only going to backfire. It will look bad simply for looking inadequate for the garage arrangement. So basically, accept reality and get over it. That you don't already have a site plan, you will need to create a simple base plan. That's rectangles for the house, a line for the road, showing the apron to the drive -- with everything in scale so it's an accurate representation of the space available for making the drive. This is just measuring in real life, and making measured lines with a pencil & paper. If there is no base plan, how would anyone communicate layout ideas back to you? It would be difficult to do with words alone, which is why your architect did not write an essay only in order to convey the home design to the builder. Something like this, but accurate... It would be good to show the property lines, too. (BTW, not having a base plan on which to try out ideas would go a long way to explaining why your are "drawing a total blank." You've got nothing to work with.)

Mark's initial list of questions are all the right ones to ask when looking at driveway placement. My thoughts: if you install a circular drive and people park on the drive (assuming no parking pad for guests) you'll want to have enough room that another guest parked behind them can still leave without having the person in front move their car. So person A arrives, then person B and parks right behind A. B gets a call that forces them to leave the party early, A doesn't have to move their car, B can just drive around them. Unless you use that inner grassy circle as the "bypass." Are you expecting to park your cars in the garage and guests to park outside of the garage on the parking pad? Or will you use the garage as storage and park your cars on the parking pad (as 90% of America seems to do) and have your guests park on the circle? If you have a lot of "old biddies" you'll want an easy way to drop them off at the front door--make sure you have railings on the steps. You ask for assistance/advice, people give that to you and more because there is a lot to consider. You'll be grateful for putting more thought into this now as it will avoid spending the next 5-10 years trying to implement "patchwork" solutions.