the importance of house design

I’m starting to go full circle on this. When I was a student in the 80s there were almost no apartments in Ireland, apart from either local authority flats, or a few posh blocks in Dublin 4, yet you travelled in Europe and the mainstay of all the cities seemed to be apartment buildings, old and new, and that seemed to work fine.

It seemed to follow that getting people to buy apartments would be the answer to our urban blight and, before you could say ‘shoebox’, along came Liam Carroll’s Zoe Developments. and the rest is history.

Looking back from a vantage point of twenty years, some things have changed, apartment sizes and storage facilities have improved, but it’s clear that what’s happened now is that apartment development has become almost the sole provider of residential accommodation in an urban concext (and many suburban contexts as well) while, if they were asked, most people would still prefer to live in actual houses.

I think there’s a case to be made for looking at the urban house again, perhaps in the context of live/work and see if we can’t develop models that achieve similar levels of density to apartment blocks, but without the ‘shared everything’, perhaps standing on their own plot of ground with their own roof terrace, you know, give the old urban tower house another whirl around the block!

I think architects have to consider that architecture is not just balsa wood and foam board.

Interesting chat here

http://constructireland.ie/vb/showthread.php?t=168&page=2

this is groundbreaking too
http://www.transport.ie/deptoft/deptoft.html

@keating wrote:

I think architects have to consider that architecture is not just balsa wood and foam board.

You should get on to the Institute about that pronto. They’re more than likely up to their oxters in the stuff.

For what it’s worth, I moved from a house (18 yrs+) to an apartment (I prefer ‘flat’) in 2000; it was in a good area in a poorly-regarded town, built in the garden of an old mansion-house itself divided into 4 flats and retained. My block had 5 flats and I had the whole top floor in the roofspace. There were issues, but on the whole it worked and ‘neighbour contact’ was generally excellent; floorspace was c.1000 sq ft, with 2 bedrooms and very adequate storage because of the roofspace and eaves (and it had very mature communal gardens). It cost c.£100,000 9 yrs ago.
In late 2005 I was itchy to get back to the big smoke and bought another flat in Glasgow’s West End (having made a serious ‘profit’ on the other one) for c.£230,000. This one has c.1200 sq ft, 3 beds and is on a high 4th floor with extensive views. There are 78 flats in the development; it’s had its problems, but there is now an active residents’ group dealing with them and we’ve sacked our factor (manager) and got another one. The flat has bags of room but virtually no storage (that’s common here), although we do have a dedicated secure parking space.
So, in the space of the last ten years I’ve done house-with-garden, suburban flat in a small development and now city flat in a larger development. I miss the garden*, I want more storage space and I want some of my neighbours to develop smaller feet and better hearing. But these are universal problems and it’s all a trade-off anyway. Flats are not scary and houses are not superior.
Personally, I’d opt for gunter’s tower-house anytime, but marooned in the middle of a city, of course. (If it’s any consolation, the housing market here’s pish as well.)
* (But I’ve discovered the Botanic Gardens.)

im taking about house design in my dissertation so if everyone was to fill this in it would be really helpfull.

1. WHAT IS A HOUSE? what 3 words would you use to describe a house
2. WHAT DOES YOUR HOUSE MEAN TO YOU?
3. WHAT IS MOST THE IMPORTANT FEATURE OF YOUR HOUSE?
4. IS THE OUTSIDE ENVIROMENT OF YOUR HOUSE IMPORTANT TO YOU AND WHY?
5. DID YOU BUY OR BUILD YOUR HOUSE?
6. DID YOU HAVE STRONG IDEAS OF WHAT YOU WANTED?
7. DID YOU GET WHAT YOU WANTED?
8. HAVE YOUR IDEAS CHANGED SINCE YOU LIVED IN THE HOUSE?
9. WHAT WOULD YOU DEFINITELY CHANGE?
10. DOES IT MATTER TO YOU HOW YOUR HOUSE LOOKS IN THE SURROUNDINGS THAT IT IS SITUATED IN?
11. HAVE YOU EVER USED AN ARCHITECT FOR YOUR HOUSE?
12. DID YOUR ARCHITECT USE YOUR IDEAS OR NOT?
13. WERE YOU STAISFIED WITH HIS/HER INTERPATATION OF YOUR IDEAS?
14. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE OTHER HOUSES AROUND YOUR HOUSE?
15. DO YOU THINK THE HOUSES IN IRELAND SUIT THE AREA IN GENERAL?
16. DOES IT MATTER?