how do I figure out the proportions I want?

[Brigitta]

There is an old church down the road. I've always admired its proportions and hope to build a house that looks like it but a smaller version. It is a simple rectangle with gable roof. I'll see if I can get a photo today if that would help.
I should of paid attention in math class... [smiley=sad.gif]

[Brigitta]

I meant for my house, not me! [smiley=shocked.gif]

[Jimmy C.]

This may sound silly.... But, I would take a 100 ft. tape measure and get the perimeter.
If you had a "fat max" 25ft. tape you should also be able to get up to 20 feet high against the wall.
It might be good to let someone in the church know what you are doing and why.

[Amanda_931]

Getting the proportions of an old church built before air conditioning was common might well be a perfectly good way of finding out what works in your area.

I've been reading a couple of books on climate and housing.  An oldie (60's), and I'm told a goodie is Design with Climate by Victor Olgyay.  (alibris had less expensive copies than Amazon when I got mine).

He looks at building orientation, shape, airflow, land contour, etc. in four different areas.  Cold (although occasionally parts of North Dakota are as hot as anywhere in the summer), temperate, hot-humid, and hot-dry.

Shape he believes is always a bit longer east-west than north-south, the ratio going from a near-cube in really really cold areas--two story is good there--and the hot-dry, although his drawing there shows one story with a  courtyard.

Other two can be longer and narrower.  Involving both access to ventilation and solar gain.

And this has nothing to do with whether it's less expensive to build a small two-story house than a one-story with a larger footprint.  Or whether there are perfectly reasonable strategies to ventilate a two-story house in the "Old South."

[n74tg]

If you really are having problems with the proportions from a math point of view, here's a little help.

Let's say the church is 40 wide by 80 long by 30 high (at the ridge) and you want to reduce it proportionally for your desired house size.

First, let's calculate a couple of ratios; length to width ratio is 80/40=2.  Width to height ratio is 40/30 = 1.33.  You now have enough info to downsize for your house, but you do have to decide for yourself on at least one dimension; so let's say you choose that you want your house to be 18 wide (it could be any number, I just chose 18).  You could also choose length or the height to work from; they will all work the same.

Your new house length is two times the width (from the ratio), so your house's correct proportional length is 2 * 18 = 36 feet.  Proportional height is 1.33 * width (18) = 23.94 (use 24).  

If you don't have a "Fat Max" tape measure (and you don't want to climb up a tall ladder to measure; and nobody in the church knows how tall the building is), just measure the width normally.  Let's say it measures 40 feet.  Now walk a couple of hundred feet away from the front and hold a ruler or tape measure horizontally at arms length.  Put the zero on one corner, and measure the length to the other corner (you just created a ratio).  Let's say the ruler measures 4 inches.  So now the forty foot church width shows as 4 inches on the tape (ie 1 inch = 10 feet).  Now rotate the ruler or tape vertically and put zero at the roof peak and measure down to the ground; let's say it measures 3".  Using the same 1" = 10 feet we now know the height is about 3*10=30 feet.    

[hunter63]

Might want to Google
"The Golden Mean"     http://goldennumber.net/
Lots of math but the pleasing proportions your seeing are would fit into the formula.
Roughly 3-1/5ths  by 2-1/5 ths.

[Brigitta]

Great! This is exactly what I was looking for.
I live in southwest Virginia mountains, but will probably build in south central Indiana. I think despite the distance, the climate is not be too different but I will certainly look into this aspect of it.

[Amanda_931]

When I lived in the Bloomington IN area years ago, I gathered that whole communities or families (the name Fleenor had a column and more in the phone book) had moved from the Appalachians somewhere.  Knew a couple of Penningtons from farther south (the same family as from the Penningon Gap--that kind of thing).

I got used to the area in Brown and Monroe counties, thought that it was the most gorgeous in the country.

(thought that of the Sandhills of North Carolina when I was a kid, now I'll happily settle for where I am sitting.)

[Brigitta]

Amanda, where we end up moving to is still "up in the air" but the Bloomington area is high on the list, it is beautiful around there.