As both houses were to be occupied by different generations of one family, the project offered a unique opportunity to make visual and physical connections linking the design of each property and to explore both a shared language in the use of materials – brick, concrete & timber – and the emotional context of a shared history.

5 Ideas to take from TAKA’s House 1 | House 2 (after pics):

5 Ideas to take from TAKA’s House 1 | House 2:

Brick Doesn’t Have to be Boring

Dublin has a rich tapestry of residential brick buildings primarily from the Georgian and Victorian periods, but its use in modern housing as a whole has been less than inspiring. Here, the mews house uses brick as a reference to the main house but in a playful way also shows how construction methods have changed in the intervening centuries. The sculptural ‘extruded’brickwork to the front and the ‘perforated’facade to the rear are polar opposites – positive and negative – but sandwiched together, they would form the standard ‘stock bond’pattern of the brickwork on the original house. Innovation in building often involves an unknown quantity, something untried – a scary concept for home building and renovation. Here, it is the use of a familiar material in an unexpected way that is innovative – reminding us that even humble or everyday building materials have the potential to surprise and scooping the ‘Best International Project’prize for TAKA at the BDA Brick Awards 2009 in the UK, in the process.

Sustainable Use of Land

We hear the word ‘sustainability’bandied about a lot these days – to me it’s about using resources in the best way to ensure we can carry on using them for as long as possible. In urban environments, one of the scarcest, most valuable resources is land. Building a second house on an existing plot not only makes good use of available land but also of other existing resources like schools, public transport and services like water and drainage. Increasing ‘density’– the number of households within a given area – guarantees continued local authority investment in these services and, therefore, their long-term sustainability.

Memory

The creation of these new homes was also a time of sadness as it meant saying goodbye to a long-term family home nearby – a place full of memories of their shared lives together. Both houses contain markers – reminders or experiences to tie back to the earlier life.  Alice and her siblings have memories of the staircase in the old house being like a room, where they played as children. The wide wooden staircase in the mews house echoes this, with built in seats on the lower steps, like the an amphitheatre, and opens onto a generous landing on the first floor. Making these spaces larger than necessary creates the opportunity for other activities to take place there  – for the next generation to discover the house in new ways and create their own memories. We often think of a home in terms of size – number of rooms or activities – but the idea of creating spaces that evoke memory takes ‘putting your own stamp’on a home beyond mere style statements into more emotional and unique expressions of individuality.

Ritual

Down-sizing to a new home, the parents worried they would see less of the whole family and a large altar-like concrete dining table was created in a glazed extension to the original house to bring everyone together around the ritual of eating. The solidity of the table gives a sense of being grounded in a time of change and upheaval. So many rituals form part of our everyday lives – bathing, cooking, eating, sleeping. As with the idea of memory, recognising the rituals that are important to us is another way of approaching how we design our spaces to reflect our own individual needs.

The ‘Hearth’of the Home

Both houses play up the domestic rituals of the hearth and cooking. In the mews, the staircase wraps around the exposed brick chimney of the fireplace as it rises up through the house, forming a central core to the home; the activity of cooking is separated from the kitchen and brought into the centre of the living space forming a focal point to the room. A nice touch is the specially designed ceramic tiles on the wall beside the concrete table in the main house – the same tiles are used in the open fire hearths of both houses. This idea could easily be adapted to suit a house extension project – taking a detail or feature from the original house and incorporating it in the new space, creating subtle links between old and new.

If you found this article of interest, you may also like:

Dublin Open House: A-Rated House by FKL Architects (and 5 Ideas to Steal…)

It’s Not About Looks – Good Design Works

The Hidden Potential in Your Home

Do you have any any pet peeves about housing or home design? Please leave a comment with your thoughts on this subject or any other home improvement or design issues you’d like to see featured.

Wishing you all a very

Happy Christmas

&

Best Wishes for 2010!

Now help is at hand.

As part of the new Home Energy Saving Scheme announced by the Minister for Energy, Eamon Ryan, yesterday, it is possible to apply for a grant of up €200 to cover the ‘before and after’costs of a BER certificate. The energy rating assessment must be carried out before and after the improvement works, in order to be able to qualify for this grant.

The scheme will be run by the SEI and, along with the BER rating assistance, will allow homeowners to apply for grants of up to €4000 for carrying out various measures to improve the energy efficiency of their homes – insulating attics & external walls or upgrading central heating boilers and controls.

Although Prof. Owen Wilson was quoted yesterday as saying that the SEI are ‘open for business’, there web-site is currently stating that the schem is not yet open for applications from homeowners. I contacted the SEI today and confirmed that they are currently recruiting contractors to apply for registration under the scheme – the actual grant application process will open before the end of March. Homeowners who wish to apply for a grant can register their interest with the SEI by sending an e-mail to hes@sei.ie.

Despite the fact that the SEI already has a list of approved BER Assessors, grant applications for assistance with the before and after certificates will not be available until the overall scheme is up and running.

More info at www.sei.ie

Did you find this article useful? Please leave a comment to let us know your thoughts on the subject and also any other home improvement issues you’d like to know more about.

As an Architect, there are 3 questions that Clients invariably ask when we first meet to discuss extending or renovating their homes:

‘Do I need to apply for Planning Permission for the changes I want to make?’

‘What’s involved in making an application?’

‘How long does Planning Permission take?’

I’m dedicating an article to each of these topics which I hope will shed light on any questions you may have about your own home and extension project.

It is not always necessary to apply for Planning Permission when carrying out work to your home. Under current Irish planning legislation, you can add up to 40m² (430ft²) to the rear of your home, subject to certain restrictions, without having to apply for planning permission – this is known as Exempt Development.

The Exempt Development guidelines relating to housing have been developed to permit small, relatively straightforward projects to go ahead without the need for a formal application. This allows Planning Departments to focus time and resources on larger scale, complex projects which may have a more obvious impact on the local built environment.

The guidelines place restrictions on what is possible without an application in terms of floor area, height of walls, height of roofs, distance from boundaries etc., to ensure that the proposed alterations do not have a negative impact on the existing house or on neighbouring properties.

So what kind of work can you do around your home without having to apply for planning?

• Ground floor extensions to the rear of the house of up to 40m² (430ft²) - any previous extensions will be counted as part of this additional floor area, unless they were built before 1964;
• First floor extensions to the rear of the house up to 12m² for terraced or a semi-detached houses and up to 20m² for detached houses;
• Front porch of up to 2m² (22ft²);
• Demolish existing extension or outbuilding but not an existing house;
• Garage conversion to side or rear of the house, for use as part of the house;
• New garage to side or rear of the house;
• Walls, fences and gates up to 1.8m high;
• Internal alterations;
• External painting & repairs, as long as they don’t change overall appearance of the house;
• Chimney or boiler house;
• Paths, ponds and patios;
• TV Aerial or Satellite Dish to side or rear of the house.

This is not an exhaustive list and further information can be found in the DoEH&LG Leaflet PL5: ‘Doing Work Around the House – The Planning Issues’, available for free on their web-site.

It is worth noting that all of the above items come with restrictions – the Exempt Development guidelines do not give carte blanche to completely change your home. I would always recommend working with an Architect when planning the changes to your home – and not just because I’m an Architect! What an experienced Architect brings to the process is the experience and ability to guide you through the various guidelines, as well as the skills to make the most of the space you have and to help you make the changes that are right for you. See also The Pros & Cons of Exempt Development.

If the work that you want to do to your home doesn’t fall within these categories then you will most likely need to apply for planning permission and I would recommend contacting your local planning department, in the first instance, to check if this is required.

For an example of what could be achieved without applying for Planning Permission, take a look at the Case Study at www.livingroom.ie

If you already know that you need to apply for Planning Permission, then take a look at the other articles in this series, for more information:

What’s Involved in Making an Application?

How Long Does Planning Permission Take?

The Pros & Cons of Planning Permission

Did you find this article useful? Please leave a comment to let us know your thoughts on the subject and also any other home improvement issues you’d like to know more about.

Here at living:room, we are passionate about good housing design and have a proven track record in both achieving planning permission using the Irish planning system and adding value by design. In addition to helping individual home owners discover the potential of their homes with our property potential reports – see the about living:room page above or go to www.livingroom.ie – we will be responding to your questions about the potential of your homes, offering tips and discussing developments in the housing market, including features on:

• Planning Permission – do you need it, what’s involved and how long does it take?
• Working with an Architect to get the most out of your home;
• Top Tips when buying, selling and extending your home;
• What’s happening now? – Up-to-date housing market news;
• Design ideas for your home and more…

Over the coming months we will be developing the living:room service to include interactive features providing you with up to date information on issues affecting the potential of your home – watch this space for more information or keep your finger on the pulse with the living:room newsletter.

If you have any burning questions about making changes to your home – renovating, extending, attic / garage conversions or negotiating the planning system – let us know and we’ll do our best to help.