Trained, careful thought is what you pay an architect for during the process of building or reshaping a home, but when you choose a designer who embraces modern ideas you can be sure that the end product will be anything but safe and predictable.

Stevens’s design for the InBetween House in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim was commisioned by a couple who decided to move from cental Dublin to a hillside overlooking a remote lake in County Leitrim. Stevens has allowed his clients, who work from home, to abandon the prescriptions of city life. He has also helped them abandon many of the rooms that make up a traditional home, such as a hallway leading to a lounge room and sitting room. Instead, he suggested “hillside becomes entrance space becomes reading corner becomes gathering space”. He sought to avoid the rooms becoming particular in their use, taking inspiration from “in-between zones” such as a forest clearing or a hilltop plateau.

An unusual house in Howth Head exhibits similar attempts to avoid conventional divisions of a home into rooms. O’Donnell + Tuomey, architects best known for large-scale public and commercial projects, were excited by the opportunity presented by the “more intimate scale”.

The owners of a site next to a 19th-century villa-style house had been living in one of the modern, pitched-roof houses, also next to their land, but found themselves restricted by its old-fashioned arrangement of “dining room and sitting room off a hall”. Their brief for greater open-plan living and an easier relationship with the garden have become, in O’Donnell + Tuomey’s words, “zones of family life” in an “inside-out” house.

The design that O’Donnell + Tuomey came up with for the home was unusual and planners, uncomfortable at how different the house looked to others in the area, denied permission. On appeal to An Bord Pleanala the argument was that the house was designed to be unobtrusive and thoroughly integrated with its steeply-sloping site. The architects maintained that it would be hard to pick out in the landscape, and permission was granted for the construction exactly as designed.

The house “faces” north to get the most of the view of Ireland’s Eye, and the walls even curve toward that focal point as if the house were manoeuvring you toward it. This north-facing orientation is, as it were, lit from behind by glass screens front and back instead of concrete walls and the more usual symmetrical arrangement of windows. Solid walls on the east and west sides ensure that the house doesn’t overlook its neighbours. All internal walls crossing the houses are glazed to some extent to allow the natural light to penetrate the house. Windows and doors swivel open to maximise the “inside-out” feeling.

But how much of an impact are designs such as these having on our built world? Tony Reddy, president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), points out that the proportion of one-off housing designed by architects has only become significant in the past 10 years and is still relatively small.

With the tendency for a more planned built environment, including creating more-compact towns and villages, there has been a greater need for architects to be involved, Reddy says. Activities such as annual awards, run by both the RIAI and the AAI, have promoted a greater awareness of the potential of architecture.

Reddy agrees that planning authorities are also recognising that modern design practices can produce houses that are sympathetic to their surroundings. However, he points out that there are still pockets of conservatism and that the RIAI still receives reports of difficulties experienced by architects in relation to modern design.

Unfortunately, one-off housing — and all the satisfaction it can bring to architects and their clients who see their dream homes turned into reality — may well become a thing of the past, says Reddy. Increased planning restrictions, coupled with the need to protect the landscape and environment, could mean that a greater proportion of our houses will be built within clusters and in urban zones.

Of course, there will always be a demand for one-off houses. The hope is that designs come from enlightened clients briefing well-trained, creative architects, working with like-minded planners.

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