When architects get a holiday-home brief it includes everything that helps to catch that vacation spirit, from generous views to open fires and ways of fighting off gales, writes Emma Cullinan
HOLIDAY HOMEOWNERS want their retreats to have a different spirit to their normal homes and that comes out in the brief to architects.
"It is all about the views, as well as capturing the sun and integrating the landscape," says Máire Henry of DHB Architects in Waterford who is also head of the school of architecture at WIT (Waterford Institute of Technology). "In a holiday home they will spend a lot of time relaxing and entertaining friends; it is not going to be a home where you come and go from work each day and are worried about where to park the car."
Her practice designed a home for a woman, in Dunmore East, overlooking the harbour that was reversed from the conventional form. It has three bedrooms downstairs and the open-plan living area on the upper floor opens out onto a deck, to make the most of the sea views.
Cork-based Carr Cotter and Naessens Architects designed a house in Kerry with big sliding doors to make the most of the views but there are also more closed-in parts.
"It is not all about looking out on balmy days, it is also very important to be able to close the house down against howling gales. You could perhaps have shutters on windows and a combination of big picture windows and some rooms with small openings.
"In Ireland it is not so much about the cold as the wind and such homes need a sheltered zone where you can sit out and not be tormented by gales."
The Kerry house also has an open fireplace for those all-important marshmallow toasting sessions.
"My brother lives in Italy in an old house where the fireplace is high up, nearly at table height, for roasting meat. I would like to try that in a house one day."
The Kerry house began as a holiday home but now the artist owner and his family have pretty much moved there permanently and the family's city apartment has almost become the holiday home.
Clients of DHB Architects are also placing a strong emphasis on their holiday home. One couple, an Irishwoman and Chinese-American man, live in an apartment in Hong Kong and have a traditional style house in Whistler, Canada; they are spending lots of time working with DHB to create a home in Baltimore, west Cork, that reflects their personality and style. The uber-smart, Zen-styled home will also bear the hand of top-notch interior designers and they are introducing kitchen appliances that no previous client of DHB has been able to afford.
This shows how holiday home budgets can vary. Cotter points out that such homes cost the same to build as regular homes. Money can be saved by making them smaller or, as in the case of one of her clients, with more basic materials and a utilitarian look: it's rare to have carpets everywhere.
The Irish Landmark Trust, which converts heritage and often listed properties, has found that simple interiors, albeit with a good-standard, practical and modern kitchen and bathroom, appeal to the holiday psyche.
"People seem to enjoy being in a house that is totally different from their own. It gives the brain a change and a different outlook on life. Maybe it is because our properties are older and people are not surrounded with the trappings of modern life, but they say they feel less stressed in them," says Mary O'Brien, executive director.
The trust works with conservation architects and aims to keep the character of the old buildings while sensitively making them habitable.
Tough interior finishes tend to be in tune with the country lifestyle. "In the Kerry house people come in with sand and muddy boots and the clients have accepted a harder level of finish with stone and lino floors," says Cotter.
This makes utility rooms very important in such homes. "The clients have surfboards and curraghs and we have designed a huge area that has a shower and sinks, where people can take off wet suits and dump them."
The lifestyles of country dwellers vary and designs often need to reflect this. Both Cotter and Henry have clients who represent the trend for lifestyle downsizing in which the holiday homes switches to become the main home, while there is a pad in the city. Two of Henry's clients have retired to their holiday home and, in this case, their house in Bettystown had two simple extensions added.
Flexible living arrangements have led to various requests from architects. One couple who have commissioned a holiday home, in Youghal, from DHB Architects have asked for a self-contained apartment as part of the property.
To start with they envisage it being used as a grandfather flat for an aging relative; its next incarnation will be as a teen escape for their children and then, when the children have kids of their own, the clients see themselves in the apartment while the children and grandchildren have the run of the house.
Such transient living arrangements also tie in with planning restrictions on one-off houses in the countryside: it is increasingly required for people to have a strong link with the area and to be resident in the house for much of the year.
Architects find that different planning authorities vary widely in what they allow; and there even seems to be confusion as to what constitutes traditional design.
"It tends to be accepted as the type of thing that local builders will do," says Cotter, "which means stone cladding and dormer windows. If you create a two-storey house with a hipped roof, like they did 100 years ago, you will probably not get planning. You will be asked to make it a single storey home and be asked to add some stone cladding."
In one holiday home she designed she was required to have a pitched roof, "but the shape of our plan means that the pitch is more interesting than it would be on a rectangular plan".
Henry says that some planners will regard a flat roof as strange, as they associate them with offices. She is a great advocate of pre-planning, where you can sound out the planners. "If you feel that your design may cause controversy you can justify your reasons: be that building into the hill, trying to maximise views, attempting not to have to park cars in front of the house or destroy hedgerows. If you explain why you made these decisions then sometimes that will help your case."
