Kieran McCarthy: Choose light, choose sunshine, choose good design
When it comes to design, the most important element is orientation. Make sure your kitchen, dining, living areas get access to as much southerly light as possible. So ideally south east in the kitchen for morning light, south in the dining and even south west in the living areas and patios.
Hi Cara,
Thanks for this question. I am not sure what you mean by ‘feel cheap’ but I am thinking it reflects the external look of the house and therefore the design. Assuming this is the case let me pick through your question.
This question in fact reminds me of a time I was walking in the countryside in East Cork with my father. We passed a new house that was being built for a young single lady on her father’s farm. The family would have been known to my father who lived nearby.
As he told me the back story, I was disappointed looking at the house. To be honest, and not wanting to be ageist, it looked like a house that was being built for someone much older. It looked dated already. I think this might be what you are experiencing as you look to some of the houses being built in your locality even today.
I discussed this with my father at the time. I was frustrated at how poor the design was. Not so much for the aesthetic but more so for the orientation. It was all wrong. It was basically a formula design that had been used before and now was just being reproduced on this site regardless of the path of the sun and the need for privacy on the site. This is a massive problem and in some cases cannot be fixed later without huge expense and compromise.
My father felt it must have been the design the lady (who was a good bit younger than me) wanted but I think she should never have been given this option to begin with. Yes it is cheaper than getting an architect or even a good technician to draw your house but these problems don’t go away and when you realise what went wrong, and you definitely will soon after moving in, it will be too late.
It is also true, as you suggested, that even poorly designed houses cost a lot to build nowadays, so you have no real option but to invest a reasonable amount in good design, it lasts forever. When it comes to design, the most important element is orientation.
Make sure your living space (kitchen, dining, living areas) get access to as much southerly light as possible. So ideally south east in the kitchen for morning light, south in the dining and even south west in the living areas and patios.
This allows for evening light in these areas and for barbecues and sitting out in the evenings.
It is true too that you can get a little bit carried away with design and you can certainly spend a lot more when it comes to building if you have architectural features like single storey annexes, cantilevered first-floor projections, and the now infamous corner window, but many of these features are not mission critical for a modest house. Just let the light in. In times gone by houses were just picked from a catalogue and built on site. Planners and indeed builders were accustomed to these designs so no issue there.
The front door logically faced the road and the back of the house had some privacy due to the placement of the house itself. On the back of an envelope this seemed logical but it was a roll of the dice as to whether the sun found its way into your kitchen during the day as no one was thinking this far ahead.
So how can you start on the right foot on your new home site?
Most phones now have a compass app. Just walk your site and look at where south or indeed west are.
This is where your private living space will be. If this is in fact the front of your site near the road then so be it.
You may need to grow hedging or trees to make it more private and perhaps shield it from road noise but access to light will trump all these issues, believe me. Consequently the front door of your house will be on the opposite side of the site. Any reasonable expense and level of design thinking to get this right is worth its weight in gold.
I only wish I’d had a chance to discuss this with that young lady in East Cork before she started building.
- Kieran McCarthy is a building engineer, and director of KMC Homes, who specialise in designing and building luxury homes in Cork. He also presents the RTÉ TV show ’, showcasing deep retrofits in Irish homes; kmchomes.ie
- @kierankmc has more home-building tips, information, and Q&A advice;
- Follow Kieran on the ‘Built Around You’ Youtube channel.
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