In all likelihood, the end product would have been a flat-roofed, box-style home in the city, with relatively small mews-type dimensions. Perhaps it would win an architectural award the year after its completion. It is quite likely that the resultant glazed extravaganza wouldn’t even be an entire house. Many recent high-profile one-off glazed designs have been extensions to otherwise ordinary residences or secondary buildings.

The architect David McDowell, formerly of the London-based Fosters & Grimshaw practice, recently earned accolades for the glass-fronted two-storey “lightbox” extension he added to his own home, a converted stable complex in Malahide, while cutting-edge firms such as Box Architecture sees almost every one of its heavily glazed domestic extensions splashed across the pages of glossy interiors magazines.

Last year, the film producer David Puttnam caused a stir with the completion of his own outdoor office and birdwatching sanctuary on the grounds of his property in Skibbereen.

Overlooking a tidal river, the largely glass-sheeted take on a timber boathouse frame was designed by the London-based Philip Gumuchdjian and won the Stephen Lawrence prize at a Royal Institute of British Architects function held in Leeds last year.

Puttnam’s 500-sq-ft “bird house” saw off competition from Britain and Spain to take the prize, which was previously awarded to Ian Ritchie, the Spire’s designer, for a cultural centre in France.

The arrival of Davinci Haus, the top-end luxury homebuilder with a turnover of €40m a year in Germany, is highly significant, because it makes glazed designs available to the middle market for the first time.

To an Irish market accustomed to high prices, the top-end German product is the equivalent of an upmarket Ikea for self-builders.

The early indicators are that customers like what they see. The first two clients to commission Davinci homes have both insisted on higher levels of glazing in their designs.

Customers are restricted to linear designs because of the “post and peg” support structure — but because the German product is a kit home, it can be constructed to suit any spatial layout the buyer wants.

On top of this, it is constructed with slow-growing hard Scandinavian pine in colours including black, grey and white. Polished granite floors, top-end kitchens and underfloor heating come as standard — extras for which Irish homeowners have traditonally had to pay heavily.

According to Friese’s market research, the Irish are already besotted with glass, and he adds that the levels of sound and heat insulation in Davinci homes are among the highest achievable. As with Irish block-built homes, they are guaranteed for 10 years.

Internal layouts are open-plan in as much as they can be and bedrooms are generally twice the size of a typical Irish double.

For privacy, blinds are fitted to cover every niche. If you’re not happy with the design you map out, Davinci Haus will come back and move it around again, as panels are detachable and transferable.

Friese says the tiled apex roof protects residents from the “greenhouse effect” — the highest levels of sunshine in summer are deflected — while the highly glazed walls allow optimum passive solar energy in the autumn and winter months when the sun is lowest in the sky, although solar panels are not included. This sort of kit home also demolishes the size barrier for glazed residences. They can run up to ranch proportions if that’s what the customer wants.

However, the need for a good-sized site means that this style of home is likely to make its greatest impression in rural areas, if it takes off.

Perhaps the only problem here is that the rural Irish, unlike the Germans, like to have their homes right up on the road so everybody can see them. However, they don’t necessarily like people to be able to seem them inside — privacy being the obvious weakness of these properties.

“In Germany, the boundary of a hedge or a fence acts as your blinds,” says Friese. “However, the houses do come with blinds to block out all glazed surfaces.”

And what about all the window cleaning? “In Germany, the people who buy our houses pay somebody to do their windows,” adds Friese.

But given that these will be mid-market products in Ireland, it’s quite possible that Davinci’s Irish customers will be doing their own.

Davinci Haus, www.davinci-ireland.com

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