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Who Will Design Your House?
There are a few different approaches to the house design
phase.
Firstly, you can have a designer, be it an architect,
architectural
technologist or a building surveyor, to
design a custom built
house based on
your requirements, ideas and the
landscape of the site.
Secondly you can take the package build route whereby
you can choose
your design from a selection of pre drawn
house
plans. Package builds
offer building novices a
safe design solution and are generally built faster but
can work out more costly
and you won't have a unique house.
Alternatively you can design the house yourself.
The obvious danger in this is that if you do not have
enough
self-build
experience you may design an unsightly, impractical or
inefficient house that does not comply with building
regulations.
House Design Issues
Irregardless of which house design approach you take,
you should take the following issues into consideration
when deciding
on an appropriate design for you.
:: Integration
You should aim to integrate your house into the
landscape as much as possible. Try to
retain at
least two of the natural
boundaries of the land such as stone walls or hedges so
that the house
sits into the landscape instead of
imposing upon it.
If your site has contours
you should try and
integrate
them into the house design as much as possible.
:: Location on Site
When deciding on the location of your house on the site
shelter and orientation are among the most important
factors.
Avoid building on unsheltered hillsides and look for
hollows/tucks in the land or tree cover to provide
shelter from the
elements.
You should identify the direction of the wind and the
sun path throughout the year and integrate these into
the design
of the house. This will save you money on heating
bills.
The Waterford Energy Bureau can provide you with more
information in this area
www.waterfordenergy.ie
You may have conflicting issues when
deciding on house orientation
when you take views, the sun path, shelter, privacy
etc
into consideration. A careful house design can
resolve these issues
even if you have to look at ways of rotating the
house
on the site.
Top Tip: Planting deciduous trees to the south
will offer you shade in the summer and light in the
winter.
 :: Landscape Composition
When designing your house you will have to take into
consideration the type of landscape
your site consists
of. For
example whether the ground is predominantly
sandstone or
limestone will influence what raw materials will be
needed
for construction.
House Design - Other Articles in the Series
Factors to Consider When Designing Your House
Reference: Colin Buchanan and Partners Ltd and Mike
Shanahan and Associates, Architects. Cork Rural
Design Guide:
Building a New House in the Countryside. December
2003. Cork County Council Planning Guidance and
Standards Series
Number 1
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