Ireland’s architects have issued a national cry for help. They’re about to paste up their version of an Uncle Sam Needs You flyer, in readiness of a broadcast to go out to the great unwashed Irish public — people they now seem ready to admit they’ve become a little too detached from of late.

The Architectural Association of Ireland, which represents some of the country’s most progressive home designers is about to launch a survey to ask the public what it thinks a home should be.

The AAI promises it will take note. Input is invited from anyone who cares, even local authority planners, and submissions can be drawings, photographs, or models.

The input will be analysed and compiled for an exhibition to be held at the end of March or early April, and a venue will be decided once the level of interest has been determined.

Is the profession now willing to concede that not everyone wants to live in either a semi, or a steel-legged glass cube? People have more possessions to accommodate than just one Le Corbusier chaise longue and an arty dentist’s lamp. And people at the furthest ends of the age spectrum also need to be considered before stairs are designed. Whatever way architects look at it, it is clear that many of the “new wave” of one-off homes are beginning to look the same.

“The way people buy the latest models of cars or go for new fashions in clothes is taken for granted,” says Gary Mongey, AAI president. “But when it comes to their house, more conservative attitudes prevail in Ireland. The idea is to get people to see the advantages that lie in modern approaches to house design.”

The survey will also help the public reconsider what they really need from a home. Through this and similar activities Mongey hopes to show how modern design can improve conventional house types. He says his personal aim is also to take some of the aloofness out of architecture.

With the AAI behind it, the exhibition, and the discussion that it will undoubtedly promote, is bound to centre on non-traditional designs. The architectural body wants to push the boundaries of design, making as much room as possible for creativity and the artistic aspect of architecture. But Mongey is keen to include the public and says the theme of home design — on the AAI agenda until June 2005 — will relate to as many people as possible.

“I’d like to get more people to see what’s possible with architecture rather than just what’s been done,” he says.

Modern architects employ tactics such as the orientation of houses toward the sun, for example, or positioning rooms to allow in light from the south. Mongey says other techniques include opening a house into its garden by widening the patio door or by using big, glass screens.

Two recent projects, both in the running for this year’s AAI Awards, exhibit such practices and indicate the type of house that can emerge when artistic expression, rather than tradition or budget alone, determine how a unique home can accommodate a modern lifestyle.

Dominic Stevens, an architect based in Leitrim, says that the ultimate goal in home design is comfort.

“Where we live, our home, has both a mundane, everyday influence on our lives, and a deep subconscious one. To be comfortable is to have the ability to adapt our situation, to wriggle,” says Stevens. “When something is utilised every day it becomes commonplace, and often we forget to examine it. Taking your house for granted is a missed opportunity — where we live affects us so much in so many little ways all the time, that it must surely warrant some careful thought.”

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