Oh dear, the pics stretched a bit. I do hope they are legible. TIA for any advice, thoughts, or warnings!

I'm building in SW Fl with all views to the West. All public areas and tons of windows facing West. Getting top of line impact resistant windows with Low-E glass. Low-E is the key. 12' deep covered porch beyond those windows. Builder tells me I won't even need shades or blinds on those windows. We'll see! (pun intended)

Well keywest you still might need them. We can discuss later tonight. ;) BTW: Keywest has absolutely the most killer views. If I had his views, I'd manage to "suffer" with the west exposure. LOL.

The best orientation even in hot OK (I'm also in SW FL, right near keywest) is still north/south with most of the light coming from the south.

Minimize east/west exposures, but especially hot west exposures.

The way I'm helping is by having deep eaves (32" deep) and my lanai on the south will be shaded. I've minimized windows on the west, will use Low E windows as keywest says and if it's in your budget, go with metal roofing.

Thank you for the advice! My issue is that the best view is to the hot west, so windows will be needed and I would love for my Living R to have sunlight from at least two sides. But with this current diagram, that would mean west and south! Would that be terribly miserable? Unlike many of the GW members who live in colder climates on here, I actually WANT my kitchen to get the soft indirect North light. I wish it could all be the north indirect light! Balancing all these "wants" is difficult!

Hire the best architect you can find that is willing to visit the site, no matter where they live; and work out your concerns with them. See if Architectrunnerguy already has a client in Oklahoma or is planning a vacation there.

There are several creative architectural shading techniques that could be applied to your project. See my advice above for the best application for you project site.

Are you anywhere near Stillwater and the university's School of Architecture? I'm sure there are some talented architectural faculty who might be interested in working with you if you are in that area.

Even if your best views are to the west, minimize the orientation of the majority of the house in that direction and minimize the windows/glazing on that side. The sun gets so low in the hot summer afternoons that no amount of shielding will defeat the sun.

The southern exposure is always the best, but it's the direction of your road and access.

Best compromise is your northern exposure, but you will have to deal with Oklahoma's ice and snow storms there.

Hi! We just built on 20 acres in rural OK. Our best views also were to the west. We have a deep front porch, and are having the 2 biggest trees we can afford planted in the front yard. Land is hard to find in our area, and this was on a paved road, near family, in a good school district. So I understand your dilemma. Good luck!

Is there a reason the house needs to be oriented on a straight NSEW axis? What if the line from Dining-Living were more at NW? By evening in June/July it will still come beating in but it will delay the direct light a bit longer. Obviously not ideal in the winter with those northern winds but depending on your distance from the tree line and their height they'll help break the wind a bit.

Here's a quick sun study of a 12' deep porch June 21st, the summer equinox. The wall with the doors faces west. In the morning and early afternoon, the porch and doors are mostly shaded and would be a nice place to relax. But once late afternoon hits, the entire porch is left unshaded and begins to heat up. By 7, the doors and any windows are also are in direct exposure to the sun.

So you have to ask yourself what times you see yourself using a western porch, and come to accept that most summer nights when you want to eat dinner outside or enjoy a glass of wine after dinner, its possible that space could be very uncomfortable due to heat and glare. I don't have a solution for you at the moment... just wanted to help illustrate how a even a deep western porch isn't effective in the long run.

You are looking at a bubble diagram as if it is a floor plan arrangement. That's not what bubbles are for. Bubbles are explorations for primary and secondary adjacencies--what spaces must be closely related and what spaces not.

I don't see an entry in the bubble diagram. I see stairs in your notes, but no stairs or functions related to the stairs in your bubble diagram.

You need a bubble for every desired space. Then start connecting them together in primary, secondary or unrelated groups.

Once you have established the desirable adjacencies, then you can begin looking at floor plan concepts which make sense for your site and budget.

I truly appreciate all the advice I've received. Thank you each of you for your time to respond.

Low E windows- do you all place Low E on areas with direct sun and then go more basic window for a less direct sun exposed wall? Just curious what you are doing in your own builds.

Mr Virgil- I had not even thought about reaching out to OSU for assistance. I have no idea where to start there but I perhaps google would be good start. I do think I needed to just hear someone tell me to minimize my western exposure despite the view. I think perhaps I am trying to force it.

The Bubble drawing is basically "unfinished"- I should have clarified that! My notes are a list of spaces that I need help on adjacency of all those areas. Am I still approaching the idea wrong? Getting the cart before the horse? Its hard for me to stick with simple adjacency ideas and not leap to immediately overly detailed and start inventing the floorplan.

Nick- your diagram helped tremendously. I can't tell you how much I have googled and not come across that particular sun study type example. It helped drive home the fact that maybe I am trying too hard for the west and need to work toward a compromise.

Jen- thanks for the fellow okie sympathy! Its brutal here in the summer isn't it? Did you work with any designers you might recommend?

Mark- Oh so true. I do wish I could hire this entire group of GW brilliant minds to come make a visit to the prairie! Some of the awesome improvements and creations posted on here by the pros/regulars have made me a bit disenfranchised with my local selection of pros that I've talked with.

If you want to follow up with the OSU School of Architecture, contact Interim Head, Professor Suzanne Bilbeisi and ask for recommendations to contact. Tell her I recommended you contact her. She's a former student of mine. :-)

With the windows it's just not about low-e but how it is applied which effects the solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC). The higher that number the more heat is passed through the glass and into the house. I am in Michigan,. So my home has two different glass packages. On the southern exposure we spec'd a high SHGC. Using the free government software BeOPT we were able to model the home and figure out the best ROI. I believe you can play around with overhangs and run a sun shade simulation like above to get a visual representation for different times of the day and year based on latitude.

Mr Virgil- Thank you so much. Just having a name to call helps tremendously! I will contact her today and say you sent me. I Appreciate it!

Fred- So you want a higher SHGC in order to increase your heat gain. I'm assuming I would want the opposite here in my warmer climate? If I had a long southern exposure but shade it with a porch, then would I still want Low E windows under the porch? The upstairs windows would not have benefit of porches so I would want to invest more in those windows I assume. Thank you, you have given me more to think about and google.

another sun exposure tool http://suncalc.net/#/51.508,-0.125,2/2016.11.02/11:04

For my climate it was advantageous to have the higher solar heat gain because my heating load is well above my cooling load so the "free" energy from the sun helps offset some of that heat load. For a warm climate you most definitely will want low SHGC. Luckly the lower SHGC coatings typically help the overall U-factor of the window. I wouldn't get too hung up on the visual transparency numbers though.

Windows were one of the most stressed items I had in choosing. You can go round and round trying to chose a brand, a style, a material, coatings...the list goes on and on. For us we went with Sunrise windows, whom are regarded as a top of the line Vinyl window. We chose vinyl because we wanted white interior and exterior trim. I personally think the best all around value is with a high end vinyl window. There are lots of options though and figure out what is important to you in a window and go from there. When you get to a point of trying to narrow it down I found it easier to have the places just quote one or two windows, use that to get my shortlist and then have them quote the full window schedule.

Fred

I think sometimes the guys living up north don't realize what 110 days...for months on end..can be like! Deep porches, good windows, and you can always plant trees, although you'll have to wait on them to grow. Unless you can take advantage of some mature ones on site? As Nick said, too- how do you live, and how will various orientations affect this? You can look up sun patterns online, but I find it more useful to go on site morning/noon/evening, and see how the shadows and sun fall. Keep in mind how winter vs. summer can affect this!

Where's north in the sketch above? If it's at the top, and the living room has west-facing windows there is no way that the sun can be kept out of the living room in the late afternoon, except for full-height shutters or drapes on the inside. On the other hand, if the living room faces east, that's a good orientation to defeat solar gain, but not for the site views.

PS: Nick has done a good job with a creative plan, but where's the garage and how do the groceries come in and the trash go out? Where's the furnace, water heater and main electrical switch gear?

Thanks Virgil. Forgot my north arrow. North would be up. Those west windows would not be uncovered... some sort of solution would have to be devised. Garage would be detached/semi-detached as shown in the OP's original sketch, somewhere southeast of the house. I see trash/groceries going through the family entrance (door across from stairs). Completely spaced on the utility closet, yikes!

Not to worry, Nick; you've done a fine job. After knocking around the architectural world for a number of decades, I developed a very simple litmus test of the care and quality of architectural design. For commercial and institutional buildings, the test is how well designed and finished are the toilet rooms? If something so mundane is well done, then chances are the rest of the building has had considerable creative thought. For single and multi-family residences, the test is how do the groceries come in, the garbage go out, and where's the HVAC, WH and switchgear. If there's a place for it, chances are it's a thoughtful design. If not, probably not.

As for the site, the OP has purchased a very problematic site in which solar orientation, site access, privacy for public spaces/indoor-outdoor spaces and best views are all conflicting with one another. This is one of those situations where an "L" or "U" or "T" plan probably is the best compromise. A rectangular plan just wont address everything. Some compromise is going to be needed somewhere.

Nick- Wow! I can't say thank you enough for giving your time and creativity. I can't believe you drew that out after only a paragraph of info given to you. You put a lot of stuff that was in my head into an actual plan that I would have never been able to articulate. You've also shown me some things that I didn't know I love until seeing it. My favorite is the idea of the kitchen being as wide as the house and giving us two sides of sunlight. If the porch is on the south that sunlight will be (pleasantly) indirect right? I also love the entry way set up with storage and how it opens into my hearth room. I believe you would immediately feel cozy seeing this when you walk in, and that is a main goal of this house- cozy, welcoming rather than imposing and "impressive" if that makes sense. I also love the "recessed" desk area in the guest room. How did you know my husband is messy and it needed to be out of the sight line?! ;)

I really like the idea of the living having multiple views and am wondering about the wrap around porch option to this type of layout you've drawn. I do realize I would still be facing west, but if I am doing my math correct based on the sunstudy you posted, it would be about 2-3hours of sun during the middle of June. I do understand there would be a period of time where it was completely direct and fill the entire window. I can see the "cons" would be the price of a 12ft deep wrap around porch. That can't be cheap. And during the hottest part of the year it would be unusable during the evening, but then again this is also the months of the year where we limit our time outside because it is sweltering no matter what amount of shade you can find. Lots to think about, and a lot of wants and needs to balance. Thank you so much for sharing your talent and time with us. You've shown me a lot of possibilities and ideas.

Mr Virgil- you are most correct sir, I picked a problematic site. When we found 20 acres I never dreamed it would be hard to "place" a house on all that space! I do believe there needs to be a lot of compromise and thinking through activities of daily living when we are making these decisions. I will definitely be posting to GW to help me "talk through" some of these big decisions.

Actually, to help make Nick's plan workable, all that is needed from a solar point of view is an 8-foot to 12-foot deep porch only on the west side, where the living room windows are, and a roll-up, roll-down bamboo screen to use for those late afternoons when the sun becomes a searing beam and starts to burn up your living room! No need to spend tens of thousands of dollars for wrap-around porches which do little except consume your budget.

PS: Ask Nick to figure out the garage-groceries-trash route and the location for your HVAC, water heater and electrical switch gear. When he gives you the answer, forward an appropriate gratuity! I believe he's an architectural student, and all of them are working mid-night hours and are destitute, as I recall from my teaching days! :-)