Posted by: markstephensarchitect | July 29, 2010

Why most new Irish Houses are crap (Part 2) ~ Airtightness

Following on from the previous rant, this blog post (rant) continues the theme of the problems concerning Building Control in Ireland and focusses this time on airtightness.

The main problem is even though the legislation exists there is no one to adequately enforce it. Ireland is a nation of self-builders, the power to self build is in the blood going back generations when the family homestead was constructed in local stones and timbers salvaged from the sea. There now exists a gulf between how the self-builder constructs and what the Building Regulations require of him/her. This difference is left to be enforced by the supervising architect or engineer as there is effectively no Building Control in Ireland (next rant!). Corners were being cut in the boom time Celtic Tiger Ireland and more corners are being cut now as money has become increasingly difficult to find. It’s only because I’m switched on to airtightness (I’ve done the same course that the contractors would do plus heaps of additional training, passive house courses etc), explain the benefits of airtightness and then insist on the air pressure test being done that it actually happens; my guess is (and remember it’s only a guess) that there’s a lot of self builders who don’t understand the importance of a draught-free house, don’t want the additional expense/hassle and are desperate for the release of funds from the bank that they are trying to get their house signed off without the test.

Don’t forget that you’ll also get a better BER rating when the airtightness test is complete as the result is fed into the DEAP calculation rather than using the default figure of 10.

A minor diversion for a minute: airtightness is the wrong name; a better phrase would be ‘draught-free’. Airtightness conjures the idea of suffocating in your house, stuffy, air-free rooms. A better way to sell the concept is ‘draught-free’ – a house where there’s no freezing cold draughts down the back of your neck in winter. It’s often forgotten that even in the most air-tight house with heat and air recovery; you can still open a window! Opening 2 opposite windows to create an air cross flow will change the entire air in a room in 10 minutes.

The airtightness test is obviously important but the end result requires an air tightness strategy at drawing stage. The way to test your strategy is to place a pencil on a section through the drawing and then draw around the entire envelope and airtight barriers without lifting the pencil once. If you have to lift the pencil (where the airtightness barrier is missing at the junction beteween a window and wall for example) it means you will have an air leak.

My recommendation is to employ an architect that understands airtightness (ahem), a contractor that has done an airtight house previously and has completed a course by one of the airtightness specialists and YOU to go on a contractors course too-you’ll learn a heap and know when the contractor is doing things right (and wrong!)

If you are an airtight membrane specialist such as Ecological Building Systems or Siga, please comment and feel free to plug your wares. As always, comments welcome…

Below are few photographs from recent airtightness test on new, one-off house; first house done by Mayo Contractor that has basic level of airtightness. Current Building Regulations are 10ac/h(which is crap); result after preliminary test (few parts still to fill) was 4.9, still not brilliant, twice as good as building regs but still not low enough (results <3 are forecast in next regulations update).

Notes on photos:

The air test needs to be conducted below a specific wind speed, hence the anemometer.

Door removed and fan blower door installed.

Next rant on Building Control and the lack of it in Ireland, no holding back on this one!

Blog post by iPhone

Posted by: markstephensarchitect | July 26, 2010

Most new Irish houses don’t pass Building Regulations (Part 1)

Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts (mostly rants actually) concerning the appalling non compliance to the Building Regulations of the majority of one-off houses in Ireland.

Here we go then, Part 1. Part L Conservation of Fuel and Energy:

Part L of the Building Regulations requires you to:

“Limit the calculated primary energy consumption and related CO2 emissions… using the Dwelling Energy Assessment Procedure…published by Sustainable Energy Ireland”

The current threshold is a B1/B2 on the scale, More information on BER certificates Therefore, this means:

1. You will need a BER assessment/certificate before the architect can ‘sign off’ your house as compliant with the Building Regulations!

My guess is that obtaining this cert is a rare occurrence for most self builders. The only time it is requested is at the house sale, not when the property is occupied. The banks never ask for it, neither do the solicitors and the architect (as far as I’m concerned is negligent if he/she ‘signs off’ the house without it.

2. To get a good rating means you need to think early about orientation, design, glazing etc… This means that as well as getting a BER cert at the end your architect should be using DEAP during the design process.

3. The Building Regulations also state “…a proportion of the energy consumption…is provided by renewable sources”.

This means that a renewable resource is compulsory on new houses, these include:

a. Solar Panels (evacuated tube or photovoltaic)

b. Geothermal heating

c. Wood pellet heating

d. Wind turbines

e. Air source heat pumps

(Let me know if I’ve missed anything)

Heat recovery systems do not count as they are only extracting existing heat from the building.

My guess (again) is that there is a lot of houses signed off without any renewable resource, let alone meeting the minimum recommendations set in the Building Regs.

I use the DEAP software at an early stage analysing the designs and can make decisions regarding windows etc earlier.

I also insist on a BER certificate as part of the ‘signing off procedure’

Next rant will be on airtightness (photo below from today’s airtightness test). Comments again welcome.

Blog posted direct from iPhone

Posted by: markstephensarchitect | July 20, 2010

Architect as writer of stories in 3D? Architecture meets Stephen King

After just returning from a recent holiday break (2 weeks in Cornwall as you’re asking) and completing a Stephen King ‘Holiday Read’ (The Dead Zone), I chose another (unread) King book on my return from the bookshelf (Cujo). One of the characters from The Dead Zone starts the story off in Cujo (Frank Dodd); Stephen King is well known for mentioning his other books in stories (Carrie is referenced in The Dead Zone) and he even makes an appearance as himself in The Dark Tower.

Where is this ramble leading? Well, King develops a story around characters, these characters are then put in different situations and hence the story develops. Sometimes the story has ‘more to say’ and another book develops either by characters or the story continuing. There’s probably a dozen books that have reference to The Dark Tower, of which The Stand is probably the best known. So what does this have to do with architecture? :

Think of a building as a story in three dimensions, every part of the building from the concept to the door handles should contribute to the ‘plot’ of the building.

The characters are the clients, each seeing their building project as their ‘story’. The benefit a fiction writer has is the ability to invent the characters rather than having to work with ‘real’ people in the ‘real’ world.

Each of the architects projects also contribute to the bigger story being told and if a story isn’t completely told in one project then you may see parts being resolved in the next.

Below are a few site photographs recently taken for house in progress:


So what story are we saying here?:

It was envisaged at the beginning that the three stone elements form a triangle from the road: garage, house porch and renovated cobblers cottage are all in locally sourced sandstone.


So our story is based on traditional values and this is continued in the design of the new house where the narrow depth echoes the traditional Irish cottage.


But balanced with tradition is the sub plot saying that this house is constructed in the 21st century which is shown in the large expanses of sliding glass doors to the south and the contemporary double height glazing to the west. The house is also constructed with 21st century products to increase insulation and reduce draughts.

So what is the next story to be told? I guess that comes with the client and the architects ideal project is where architect and client want to tell the same story.

Comments as always welcome…

Location:Ireland

Posted by: markstephensarchitect | July 14, 2010

5 ideas for successful architectural project ~ The Eden Project

Following a recent Ask The Architect question (an open session on Friday afternoons where anyone can ask the architect a question (for more information visit Ask The Architect Information)); where the question was ‘What are your favourite buildings?’ – one of my answers was the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK. This blog post isn’t going into detail on the project (for this you can visit The Eden Project); instead this article focusses on why I feel this project is such a success architecturally. The key features will also give a guide to what you should look for in your architectural project:

1. Form Follows Function

The biomes are the perfect enclosure for growing an incredibly wide range of plantation. From the lusciousness and heat of the Rainforest Biome to the dry, chaparal heat of the Mediterranean Biome; both are perfect architectural forms that allows the direct penetration of sunlight at all times of the year.

2. Technological

Following in the pioneering footsteps of Buckminster Fuller, the Biomes are the current ancestor of the geodesic domes proposed in the 1960′s. The platonic. spherical form is almost spiritual in it’s simplicity. The 625 hexagons are also clad in a technological material (ETFE) which allows the transmission of ultraviolet rays.

3. Sustainable

In 1998 the Eden Project area would have been a soggy disused, claypit (English China Clay). It shows how a barren area can be tranfsormed and developed into probably the most important tourist attraction in Cornwall

4. A big Idea

Following on from 3. the originators of the project dreamt big and the result is what we can see today – the architectural forms are big in size (the Tower of London could fit inside the Rainforest Biome) and also big in concept – as said earlier the domes are almost spiritual in concept and combined with their size shows how a a big idea can be translated into a built form

5. Organic

The simplicity and organicness of the biomes trigger our native instincts; maybe they symbolise frog spawn where the life form (the tadpole) is inside the bubble as the plants are inside the biome!

Food for thought,comments welcome…

(First blog post entirely done by WordPress app on iPhone – if the images don’t come across switch to standard browser mode and click on the Flickr widget in right hand column)

Posted by: markstephensarchitect | June 28, 2010

How much does an architect cost ?

Well how much does an architect cost ?

I guess this is the 6 million dollar question at the moment considering the never-ending depression we’re currently battling against. In this age of anti-monopoly/price fixing and considering the range of architects that are currently available (from the Starchitects that have seen their practices either go under or had a huge drop in staff numbers to the hungry one-man practices (of which I proudly count myself); you might as well ask yourself how long is a piece of string.

What I can do however is outline the three key ways an architect normally works, this system is included in the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI) Standard Agreement between Client and Architect and the RIBA and AIA (and all the other professional architect bodies) will have something similar. I’ve taken the details below for domestic housing but other agreements and percentages are available for other building types.

Method 1: As a percentage of the Total construction cos

The RIAI can no longer provide architects with recommended fee scales but each year they do produce a graph showing statistics for the previous year of Projected Building Cost against the Percentage charged for different Building Types.

The graphs show scattered graphs with median lines for one-off housing projects, Renovations and House Extensions up to €5M. The percentages then spread from 4-16% dependent on the project/cost.

Therefore for a project costing (excluding VAT): €100,000 the total fee for RIAI Work Stages 1-4 (Initial Design, Developed Design, Detail Design and Construction to completion) for a fee percentage of 10% is €10,000.

I would highly recommend this method of working where the architect is retained for the entire project; his/her code of contact requires them to work to your budget and not to deliberately recommend the most expensive option ! This method of work also allows to include other services that wouldn’t be included in the services below such as wall and tiling designs and layouts, advice on sustainable and lifetime design.

Method 2: On a lump sum basis

This is where a fixed lump sum is agreed between client and architect for some or all of the above stages.
This method may be suitable for a part architectural service; for a few sketch designs, the planning application only for example but it should be emphasised that you may not be utilising your architect in the best way; architects will be more committed to the project when their skills are utilised throughout the ENTIRE course of the design, detailing and construction.

The benefit of working this way is that the client knows exactly how much the architectural fees are going to cost in advance of construction. The disadvantage is that the lump sum fee for an equivalent stage may be higher than the equivalent construction percentage basis.

Method 3: On a time charge basis

This is where the work is charged on a per hour basis; the RIAI agreement allows for a ‘principal’ and ‘technical staff’ rate. Using this method may be ideal for short, easily defined projects where the total architectural fee is reasonably low.

The advantage to the architect is that he/she is getting paid exactly for the amount of work undertaken; the disadvantage to the client is that the hours can quickly mount up and costs can quickly spiral out of control.

The hourly rate price may also be a higher rate than either the equivalent percentage fee basis or the lump sum fee.

Feel free to comment; would love to hear from other architects and related professionals on alternative pricing methods…

This idea was originally propagated by Bob Borson (http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com) where Bob discusses the architects responsibility to the surrounding environment and where one project will have an effect upon its neighbor. The blog post (http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/modern-house-friendly-neighbor/)) discusses a new house within an existing residential neighborhood and raises the great question; “If these [two] houses could talk, what would they say to each other ?…Are these next door neighbors going to get along when everything is completed?”.

Well this is my contribution to this discussion. But first a bit of back story…

The two houses are next to each other in a rural village in County Mayo, Ireland. One of the houses is my own family’s (self built and designed by myself) and the other is a neighbors (Mary’s House) which I also designed. The footprint for the neighbor’s house was already fixed and my contribution was the external aesthetics and interior planning. The good news therefore is that I can say what I like about the houses without offending another architect !

So here goes, the conversation (more of a soliloquy with each house making it’s own case for ‘being’):

Our House:

“I am the fusion of old and new; when approached from the mountain road only the two storey stone and white rendered elements are visible. The stone element is a reference to the two storey granaries that are prevalent throughout the area:

Adjacent Stone Granary

And the white rendered section evokes the traditional Irish Long House which extends the two storey section and references how the original house would have been extended over the years.

Traditional elements seens

Only the traditional elements seen

I am however a house of tricks; the first is that when we continue down the road, the front section of the house appears and immediately we can see that this is modern and contemporary. Although this section is ‘of this time’ it’s references are also in the past with it’s floating roof, glass curtain walling and carefully proportioned structural system referencing such buildings as the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe and the Glass House by Philip Johnson. For more interior shots of the house visit the PROJECTS section of the website.

Our house-summer

The glass is revealed

The trick also continues when you go past the house and the glazed are is hidden within the hill again:

The glass is hidden again

The glass is hidden again

It’s important for me to tell you that the glass isn’t there just for glasses sake; this is my link to the current and the future – the glass is south facing and provides passive solar gain throughout the year (even on the coldest winter’s day) and the insulated, grass roof provides ‘coolth’ as well as warmth throughout the year.

The second trick is that when you enter the hall and go up to the first level ( I also have a usable attic space that my master uses as a studio to design houses like me), when you travel down the hall at this level you are able to exit the building AGAIN AT GROUND LEVEL, neat trick eh !”

View over grass roof towards upper hall and exit

Mary’s House:

“I love all that cleverness but I think that I am just as smart and I’m also based on tradition. My double pitched roof evokes the traditional Irish School Houses as shown below:

Traditional double pitch school house

Traditional double pitch school house

The clever bit is that although I have a double pitched roof as shown below:

My double pitched roof

My double pitched roof

The roof is entirely habitable space, where you can go from one roof to the other by a clever linking bridge between the two roofs:

Linking bridge between the two rooves

You can just about see the linking bridge between the two rooves.

I suppose I am more traditional than the house next door (which is what my owner Mary wanted) but that does not say I do not have modern, eco credentials. The walls are made from insulated concrete formwork; that is two layers of polystyrene with a mass concrete wall; the walls are externally rendered to look traditional but in a modern monocouche render and when the walls are drylined internally the U-value will be 0.4W/mK which is incredibly low considering the Building Regulations in Ireland are 0.27W/mK. I also have triple glazed windows throughout and the entire house is airtight with a heat recovery system.”

Our House:

“So do you think we’re going to get on ?”

Mary’s House:

“Yes, I think we are, we are different but we’re both respecting our environment and both of us draw on the traditional, vernacular, West Ireland and in particular Mayo design principles.”

Feel free to comment or why not start your own conversation between two houses (or any building!))…

Posted by: markstephensarchitect | June 21, 2010

Little Designs – Episode 3

Welcome to Little Designs Episode 3

Each short movie shows a stage on the restoration of a small cobblers cottage (less than 10.5m2) in County Mayo and as well as the construction budget being tight, the production expenditure for the movies is also ‘Little’. The entire movie was filmed and edited on an iPhone – including all the voiceovers, transitions and music !

Posted by: markstephensarchitect | June 14, 2010

What exactly is the difference between an architect and an engineer?…

As you may have seen in previous posts, the transition from working in the UK to Ireland can be described as ‘interesting’ at best; one of the recurring questions I have been asked over the years is to explain the difference between an architect and an engineer. I am not sure whether this a curiously Irish (or even a West of Ireland) problem but here I hope to give guidance on when you need an architect.

The problem arises (now that we’re in the deepest depths of recession) with any job very scarce to find that all professions are liable to grab at any project that comes available; if if they’re not qualified (or more importantly insured) to do it. So here goes, what is the difference ?

The clues really are in the names:

ENGINEER : ENGINE : The root of engineer comes from the Latin ingenium, meaning ENGINE which referred to one’s ability to create things, one’s native genius and it is also the source of ingenious and ingenuity. Its first meaning in English, from about the fourteenth century, was very much this one of mother wit or genius, a skill in devising things. Such devises that would be ‘engineered’ would originally be the stocks, then latterly beer and fire engines !

Obviously the world has moved on since then and the profession of engineers is split into may different areas such as civil engineering, structural engineering etc…

Original text from http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/engine.htm

ARCHITECT : Comes from the Greek ἀρχιτέκτων – arkhitekton, from ἀρχι- “chief” and τέκτων “builder, carpenter”).

Therefore, the root of ‘arch’ therefore is ruler, chief or creator (as in ARCH-Bishop) and the architect therefore is:

ARCHITECT = The creator of a design or plan for a building

So therefore, if you want someone to help you plan your house, or to design the plans of your building then you should employ an architect. And if you want an architect in Ireland then you should contact me !

Next blog post will be on why architects and engineers should work together…

Posted by: markstephensarchitect | June 9, 2010

Tips for survival…

Following my Tweet ‘I refuse to participate in any recession’ I thought I’d give a few tips that may help other architects and designery types claw their way out of the ‘black hole of doom’:

Doing the best you possibly can do and forget about the money

The first thing you need to do is to provide the best service you possibly can – if you don’t your client will go elsewhere.

Bend over backwards to help your client – if you don’t somebody else will.

Don’t constantly think about money. It’s a bit like girlfriends (and boyfriends); you’ll never get one when you’re desperate, relax, don’t think about the money and the jobs will come in – nobody wants someone desperate and constantly looking for money.

Now think about the money !

Batten down the hatches

Work is going to be harder to get – but it is out there! The trick is not spending thousands on trying to get the smaller number of projects that are available. The three expenditures that will cripple your business are:

a. Staff

Pare down and don’t be afraid of letting staff go. I realise that it’s very difficult emotionally to let people go but the alternative is for the business to fail and nobody has got a job. Always remember that you can always rehire when things have picked up.

b. Overheads

The biggest fixed overhead will be your premises. See if you can rent somewhere cheaper or try to renegotiate your rent, or do as I did (even before the recession kicked in) work from home. I bet you’d be surprised how many businesses could effectively work from a home office; you could even set up a showroom in one of the rooms !

You also need to cut back your expenditure on the nice items you once bought pre-recession; do you really need that new laptop (or iPad Mark!), what about that new camera you promised yourself ? Or how about that new car you used to get every year. Things are tough and cut backs will need to be made.; think first about whether the expense is essential, make do with what you have and wait a little longer ?

c. Marketing

In a recession, everybody wants a bit of your money with the promise that it’s essential for your business if you want to survive. FALSE – you need to think very smart about how you spend the money you have. There are a million different ways of spending money on marketing and PR and an equal number of ways of throwing that money away. I’m not saying that you should hide your head in the sand; just be smart about how you spend your money; the days of throwing it away are over.

A bit more on marketing:

You now need to think like a Guerilla when it comes to marketing your business. Think about the money you have and the imaginative, clever and cost-effective ways of getting your name out there without a big-spend. There are million ways of doing this, you just need to think smart and put your marketing hat on.

I’m sorry if all of this financial stuff is getting a bit boring but nows the time to apply your creativity in finding the work that’s out there.

Another boring bit:

In order to survive therefore you need to have a good track on finances. I am lucky to be married to an accountant and each week we have financial meetings to discuss where the business is going, new and old clients, how much money is being spent, where is the money going etc.. (who says romance is dead !). But in order to survive you need to know EXACTLY what you are spending and where it’s going.

This is another topic I’ll be adding to but I welcome all comments on possible ways to survive.

Blatant plug coming up:

If you are looking for an Architect in Ireland (in any county) for any size project (nothing too small or too big) then please CONTACT ME I regularly provide architectural services to UK clients on Ireland projects

Posted by: markstephensarchitect | June 8, 2010

An English architect in Ireland…

So how did I end up as a UK trained architect, now working as a Chartered RIAI architect in the wildness of County Mayo, Ireland? And what lessons have I learnt that can be passed onto others.

The short story is that I wouldn’t have been able to selfbuild a house for the money we had available in the UK; the opportunity and mind-set in Ireland is geared towards self building. It is the tradition here to build your own house rather than the exception. The amount of land and open space and the type of house we bought would have been impossible in England. And that is how I returned to architecture following various other careers as CAD consultant (mostly VectorWorks), Virtual Tour creator, Web designer…and never looked back after self building our house in Foxford. As the writer Stephen King said (his book ‘on Writing’, if god gives you a talent, why on earth wouldn’t you use it).

Following an interview at the RIAI and attending the UCD Part 3 course (thank god I didn’t have to take the exam again!) I became a member of the RIAI (incidentally, I’m still an RIBA member)

So, what’s it been like working here?

I’m used to being self employed but to be honest it has been a baptism of fire, here are the main differences:

1. Effectively there’s no Building Control, you submit your Commencement Notice and that’s it; no passing of Building Regulation Plans, no visits by Building Control or approved inspectors, nothing. The responsibility of complying with Building Regulations effectively rests on the architect; as you can imagine this makes for interesting discussions with self-builders and contractors.

2. I’ve had to really up my game. The standard of work created by Registered Architects in Ireland is incredibly high. This is possibly because of the sheer amount of other professions providing “architect” services; from every class of engineer, BER assessors and even retired wood work teachers! Any work an architect produces needs to set itself apart from the rest. People using architects in Ireland are generally looking for that ‘something different’.

3. The sheer amount of driving that needs to be done. After the schoolruns, I have to do a LOT of driving, getting to sites, attending meetings etc; often trying to find obscure sites in difficult areas.

4. The variety of work has been incredible. My specialty is one-off residential designs and I’ve been lucky in the time working here to work on the great (extending and doubling the size of 6000sqft bungalow) to the restoration of a 10m2 cobblers cottage (as shown in the Little Designs movies).

I’ll definitely be returning to this topic; would love to hear other peoples experiences on working in Ireland…

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