Since the lot you describe is smaller than my open living area, I would suggest looking at some of the "shotgun" house plans around New Orleans,LA. I think you can build up and back and get an interesting home with a loft for space. It can be done, A porch with an entry to a narrow hall at the back might work best for you. Will you plan a courtyard (closed)? or what? What part of the country are you in? What are your local codes?

Manipalgoyal: I like your basic plan. It is well thought out....What does the top floor look like? The only thing that I would do differently from my very "Western" perspective would be to move the rear right bedroom upstairs and open up the back courtyard to the kitchen area. I would create a "great room / kitchen area with doors that open both to the front courtyard and to the back. This allows for good cross ventilation to help keep the house cool and comfortable on a hot day. It also provides easy access to the rear yard area without having to walk through a bedroom. Now all of the precious outdoor space is easy to use. The other element that I would introduce would be an atrium (or an opening in the floor) all the way up to the second floor with openable windows high up on the second floor to allow hot air to escape to the top of the house and out (since hot air rises) This is called the "chimney effect" and is another way to keep the house well ventilated. Of course this is how it has been done in hot climate countries for years, so you might be familiar with this technique already. Even if you don't change it, your floor plan is very nicely laid out. I would be happy to help you answer any additional questions that you might have. I do have a few questions for you: 1. Where is the laundry room? Is it in the storage space? This does seem a little narrow. How wide is it? You might want to work on how this space actually lays out. Is there a sink in this space too? 2. Why do you have such small openings to the outside from the drawing room and the rear bedrooms? Are they doors or windows? Wouldn't you wnat a door with an openable window with a screen adjacent so that you could have ventilation at night without having the door open? 3. How will you lay out the kitchen? Who is doing the cooking in your household? Is cooking a family event or is it done by a helper? You either want a bigger more open kitchen (Western design) or a more private kitchen (Asian design) Or a combination of both.......To me this is the most important part of the house where the family gathers and hangs out..... I would love to hear back from you. Christine Lampert

When you use the term "Duplex", you mean that it is a two story house, correct ? In the USA, the term "Duplex" means two separate living units side by side......but in other parts of the world it means a two story residence. Please clarily that you are talking about a two story single familly house...... If so, the footprint that your house will have on the ground floor will be approximately 1000 square feet. Do you need to park a car on the site or is parking offsite? If the parking is offsite, then you have lots of room for a two story, 1800 plus square foot house. The design will be dependent on your personal criteria, and it would be helpful if you could hire a local architect to help you with the layout of the rooms. It should be relatively simple once all of the factors are considered.

x2 what Dytecture said, this is not enough to go on. Most important thing before you do anything, is you need to know lot restrictions in that area and what are the zoning requirements, i.e. side, rear,front, set-backs. In addition the size of your house will also depend on the total percentage of a lot that can be covered by impervious surfaces (structures, decks, and surfaces likes asphalt or concrete driveways etc, which reduce natural infiltration, etc and after you obtain that information, only then you can contact a local Architect and you can roughly come up with the size of your house and layout on the lot... until that, the information you get here it will be useless to you in your case and a waste of time for everyone else. With that said, 40x104 is not a confirming lot for most of the area around here and you will need variances because confirming lot sizes usually start at 50x100, unless you in a section where ordinances permit residential cluster development. Good luck.