Shingles are icing on the cake

Tommy Barker views a challenging and complex dream house building project being done in the round.

LIFE in the round beckons for the family behind one of the more unusual current Irish house builds.

The professional couple with young children literally thought outside the box when they came across one of the most remarkable sites in and around Cork city.

Planning permission had been vetoed not once, but twice, for an apartment scheme of a few dozen units on the c. two-acre walled plot, practically a secret garden, not even a mile north of the city centre on its south-facing hills.

The elevated site’s setting, size, southerly setting and sheer walled-in charms prompted instead, for its new owners, a bit of a grand plan. This circular house is very much in the mould of Grand Designs, with its head almost in the clouds, if not the McClouds — expect to see its profile picked up in various other media as it comes to fruition, and we hope to revisit later this year when fully finished out.

The man with a plan is architect Steve McClew, Scots-born, married to a Cork woman and working here for the last number of years (www.mcclewarchitecture.com). He had a personal family link to this build, for undisclosed clients.

Working with friends/family on a design and build project could in itself be fraught, and a threat to a relationship if it doesn’t work out. Building a circular house with all its extra challenges could have multiplied those stresses. Very much against the odds, though, and very significantly down to the expertise of builder Brian Malone, it has gone pretty much like clockwork.

Works started last summer, and will be wrapped up by this summer. “If we pushed it, it could have been done in nine months, Brian’s an exceptional builder,” says McClew. Malone, who specialises in timber frame and energy efficient buildings, is a qualified civil engineer, and that training pays off in tackling off-standard builds — and building in circles certainly fits that description.

“The process of creating an individual house of this quality would not have been possible without a proactive and enthusiastic builder with a keen attention to detail. In Brian Malone, we found someone who can think things through, and visualise construction to the level that the particular challenges of a round house were resolved at each stage in advance,” says McClew.

Factored in early on were ‘eco’ measures to ensure a suitable balance between outlay and savings on running costs. This means keeping the heat generated internally inside, via passive measures such as super-insulation and air-tight construction to reduce heat losses. Then, there is heat-recovery ventilation, and geo-thermal heating itself (by Mike Cotter of Alternative Heating and Cooling), provided by ‘sucking’ the latent low level of heat from below the surface of the garden, using a heat pump, to run highly efficient underfloor heating across all three of its levels.

This round house was built from scratch, on site, in contrast perhaps with more standard framing where much of the ‘stick-work’ is done off-site. When pouring the concrete foundations, the builders stuck a reinforcing steel bar in the very middle, and then everything else radiated out from that point, in immaculate joinery, some so fine it was almost a shame to cover its curvaceous wooden skeleton.

“Different clients can have wildly varying and particular desires when it comes to their own homes. But, regardless of external style, the key is to develop and deliver their dreams in a way which can enhance their home life and connect to their surroundings,” says architect McClew as this true one-off on its exceptional site comes to fruition. “I believe that everyone deserves to have the place where they live moulded around their needs and desires, whether traditional or modern. This process can be delivered cost-effectively in a strong working relationship with clients.”

Although this build is edging close to passive house levels of energy efficiency, the owners haven’t themselves been passive: they started clearing the site, grading it, re-planting it and future shaping it ever before the house started to be built on it, and as a consequence know where the views are to be best seized upon and framed, as the site is itself in a landscape protection zone. “It’s positioned to frame long vistas across the garden, to the hills in the distance, and to take advantage of the protective backdrop of mature trees which filters the setting sun,” says its designer.

The size is around 3,100 sq ft (excluding sweeping attic spaces,) accepting the fact that ‘square feet’ is a bit of a misnomer in describing a circular building. Internally, the house will have a comfortable balance between the strong personal idea of the shape of a ‘round’ house, and the needs of a compact and live-able family home by blending human scale rooms and spaces with tactile and ‘friendly’ natural materials, according to McClew.

“The circle was our departure point, with a central helical stair and a domed roof-window above to let light deep into the heart of the house. We carved out an entrance courtyard — like cutting a slice from a cake — with a second cut made on the south to hold three levels of outside space,” he explains of the now discernible ground level covered loggia, a first floor balcony and its culmination in a small viewing deck, set into the conical roof.

All three levels are arrayed around the winding white oak stairs (by Stanley Brown of Design Warehouse), under the crowning ocular window. This allows all rooms to take advantage of light coming from at least two different directions.

Room sizes vary, but none is overwhelmingly huge and shapes are refreshingly novel — though furnishing and shelving will pose certain problems.

Even if rooms aren’t dual aspect, having a window in a curved room means catching the sun’s rays from different directions, and shadow-play should be fascinating.

Adding further individuality, the curving walls are wrapped with natural cedar shingles, contrasting with some vertical cedar on the straight, cut-out ‘slices.’ For contrast, there are warm-coloured Munster Joinery aluminium windows and folding doors.

“The human scale, rough texture, colour and cedar smell tempers the powerful circular shapes. While the smell of cedar will fade, the timber will weather and take on its own character — strengthening the connection between house and site,” says McClew.

And we look forward to calling ’round when it’s done.