Design guide · Monaghan County Council
Monaghan Design Guide
The council's guidance on siting and designing a house in the countryside.
Monaghan County Council · 2008 · 105 pages
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- 6 EXAMPLES OF INAPPROPRIATE HOUSES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE The examples on these pages illustrate many commonly occurring elements in poorly designed houses in the countryside. They are not definitive and many other combinations and permutations exist. The best way to avoid the pitfalls listed below is to keep things as simple as possible. AVOID THE FOLLOWING Dominant roofs Complex roof shapes Complex house shapes Large scale Awkward form Excessively small scale outshots/extensions relative to the main house form Varying lengths of roof planes Ridge lines that are excessively high relative to the eaves Excessively high eaves lines Raised verges – these do not integrate well viewed from afar Wide gables – these result in poor proportions Mix of gable widths Mix of roof pitches Half hipped gables
- 62 AVOID THE FOLLOWING L shaped plan form Two storey projecting bay windows and porches Dormers at eaves or within the roof – these do not integrate well viewed from afar Too many dormers – these make a house look too fussy Mixture of dormers within roof and at eaves Triangular dormers with no cheeks Overhanging fascias and soffits on verges and eaves Decorative barge boards and fascias Extending main roof plane over bay windows Extending bay window roofs beyond plan line of bay Excessive mixture of bay windows and roof dormers Hipped roofed outshots rising from half hexagonal plan More than one or two rooflights Large rooflights Storey and a half house on a habitable semi-basement plinth Chimney breasts that project from gables Too many materials Synthetic materials (such as concrete brick/stone and PVCu)
- 63 SIZE AND SCALE Size and scale do not always mean the same thing. It is possible for something that is small in size to be small in scale but something that is large in size can also be small in scale. SAME SIZE BUT ONE SMALLER SCALE THAN THE OTHER The floor area of houses A and B are both approximately 2,000 sq ft and in this regard they are the same size. House B has a larger footprint than House A but is a smaller scale than House A. This has been achieved by breaking down the overall linear shape of House A into three smaller shapes that together achieve the same floor area. By joining these three smaller shapes in a way that respects the traditions of Co Monaghan (ie by adding each new shape onto the gable of the previous house shape and also by stepping the floor levels down the hillside) - three things are achieved: 1. House B has a smaller scale. This helps it to blend into the landscape. 2. House B has a more harmonious relationship with the natural slope of the ground. 3. House B strengthens a traditional pattern of rural domestic housing in Co Monaghan. A B Many houses in the countryside can be seen from more than one direction depending on road networks, position of neighbouring houses, or when climbing a nearby hillside. It is important to ensure than their scale is controlled and kept relatively small so that they blend in from any viewpoint. 4.2 size & SCALE Ground level coincides with internal floor level Ground level coincides with internal floor level FRANK O’MAHONY ARCHITECTS
- 64 LARGE SCALE, LARGE HOUSES Houses C and D (opposite) are both 6,000 square feet and are on a sloping site. Viewed from the road House C appears to be single storey but viewed from the rear it is a three storey house. It is large in scale on all sides except the “front” side. Almost half of the entire area of the house is accommodated in a semi basement that gets natural light from one side only. The rooms in the roof space are entirely lit by roof lights and have limited floor space within which to stand up fully. There are three gable projections on the road side and one on the rear side. Natural ground levels have been substantially changed to create a level platform at the rear. Attempts to make this very large house seem small in scale have not succeeded. It is not well integrated into the natural ground levels or the surrounding countryside and in addition many of its internal rooms have poor spatial quality and natural light. Although House D has a larger site footprint than House C its scale is considerably smaller. The shape of each block is simple. Roofs are also simple because there is plenty of scope for windows in walls and no need for dormers or rooflights. This also helps to save money by reducing (or even eliminating) complicated flashings and cutting roof timbers around dormers and rooflights. x C Roadside of house
- 65 SMALL SCALE, LARGE HOUSES Large houses can: be small scale when viewed from every angle have sufficient level ground (even on sloping sites) to allow access and natural light into main rooms and bedrooms without spending a lot of money in constructing expensive platforms on top of existing contours HOW TO MAKE LARGE HOUSES SMALL IN SCALE The clues for how to achieve this lie in the traditional pattern of the small country house or ‘Glebe’. The main house (modest in size) was usually a very simple “cube” with a hipped roof flanked by long outbuildings forming one, two or three sides of a yard to the rear of the main house. Historically these outbuildings usually housed farm machinery or horses but today there is no reason why a similar layout might not house secondary rooms such as garages, games rooms, dens for teenagers, studies, guest bedrooms, work spaces, storage etc. By sinking the enclosing “outbuildings” down into a sloping site it is possible to have a relatively level courtyard and access to all the “outbuildings” from within the courtyard. When viewed from outside the grouping the outbuildings appear to be low lying and hug the natural ground while the main house has considerable presence and is allowed to ‘reign supreme’. This arrangement improves sheltered external spaces both within the courtyard itself and on the two sides of the main house. Shelter can be increased by extensive tree planting of native broadleaf trees (such as oak, beech and ash) around the perimeter of the outbuildings. This is also an essential last step to help blend a significant grouping of buildings into the surrounding countryside. x x D
- 66 Increasingly larger and larger homes are being built in the Co Monaghan countryside. Often efforts to shoehorn very large floor areas such as 3,000 sq ft, 4,000 sq ft or 5,000 sq ft into very compact storey and a half houses with dormer windows results in complex and awkwardly shaped houses. As houses increase in size dormers are also becoming much bigger and more numerous. These can be visually obtrusive when viewed from a distance. Too often the overall result is a house that does not blend in. There is already a historical precedent for large rural houses and we can find lessons in these to guide an approach to designing large houses today so that they are a positive contribution to the natural beauty of the countryside. This does not mean that new houses have to mimic something from the 18th or 19th century. In skilled hands it is quite possible for these lessons to be translated into new houses that are contemporary without losing the simplicity and appropriate scale of their ancestors. The illustrations show two approaches to reworking a typical complex 4,000sq foot 21st Century House by breaking it down into simpler shapes and as result also reducing the scale. Further examples show how the same approaches can be adapted to suit other floor areas. Typical 2st Century House (4,000 sq ft excl. garage) 4,000 sq ft excl. garage Grouping on sloping site draws on the traditional pattern of a simple two storey farmhouse with adjoining simple linear single storey farm sheds and forecourt to front of house 4.3 SIMPLICITY x
- 67 2,000 sq ft L shaped house grouping + freestanding double garage with a lean-to shed 3,000 sq ft + double garage 2,700 sq ft house with a simple flat roofed porch. This allows the windows to run through uninterrupted on the first floor 4,000 sq ft This approach draws on the traditional pattern of small “cube” country house and enclosed sheltered, private courtyard to the rear. The grouping sinks into the sloping site. 5,000 sq ft on sloping site
- 68 Part of the charm of traditional houses lies in their small size, distinctive shapes and their proportions. It can often be difficult to retain these characteristics when accommodating modern space standards and Building Regulations. Roof pitches on traditional houses usually ranged from between 35o to 45 o. This last pitch often resulted from a previous thatched covering which was laid at this steeper pitch to help rainwater run off quickly. Leantos were usually at a shallower pitch. Single storey blocks allow great scope in higher floor to ceiling heights because the ceiling can follow the underside of the roof partially or fully. Where possible keep floor to ceiling heights to 2.4m on both floors. Today eaves heights are often kept very low by relying on dormer windows and rooflights to bring in natural light. But these make roofs look overly complex compared to the traditional. Allowing ceilings to slope within rooms to a minimum height of 2.1m allows for windows in the walls rather than the roof. 4.4 HEIGHT TRADITIONAL HOUSES - TYPICAL GABLE WIDTHS AND FLOOR HEIGHTS
- 69 ACHIEVING AN ACCEPTABLE MARRIAGE BETWEEN THE BEST OF THE OLD AND THE NEW Fixed panes of glass (provided safety glass is used) at low level allows for lower cills at first floor windows while still complying with the Building Regulations. This allows more light into first floor rooms. Skill is required to refine the window proportions. Keep the overall gable width as narrow as possible to minimise ridge heights. Gables should be no wider than 7m (two storey) and 6m (single storey) to avoid two negative effects: excessive ridge heights losing pleasing proportions of vernacular gables In example 3 although the ground floor to ceiling height has been increased to 2.7m (to improve the spatial quality of large rooms) and the first floor rooms are 2.4m high throughout the narrow gable width of 5.7m means the ridge height increases by a mere 0.7m. Compare this to example 2 where the 6.5 wide gable results in an increased ridge height of 1.3 despite the fact that it has lower floor to ceiling heights on both floors. TRADITIONAL HOUSES GABLE WIDTHS COMBINED WITH MODERN FLOOR TO CEILING HEIGHTS 1 2 3
- 70 “Proportion” is an extremely difficult notion to explain. Achieving a well-proportioned building is even more difficult. Good proportion is about achieving visually pleasing relationships between the different parts of a building and the overall whole. This applies to the overall shape as well as its constituent parts – roof, facades, chimneys, windows and doors etc. The composition of these elements relative to each other is also critical to achieving overall success. If the house is well proportioned the composition of window, door and chimney shapes within the overall house shape will look good. KEY CONSIDERATIONS Is there a good visual relationship between the height and the width of a façade? Is there a good visual relationship between the height of the roof compared to the height of the façade? An architect will consider various things when working on proportion. To help explain these the following examples illustrate some typical steps that an architect might go through to refine the proportions of the front façade of the traditional hipped roof ‘Glebe’ or small country house. The sketches illustrated are simplified in terms of the work and judgement involved in arriving 4.5 PROPORTION at a well proportioned façade even for a simple form such as this. Ultimately achieving a successful outcome lies in the architect’s hands and depends very much on his or her innate skill and flair in this area.
Source Monaghan County Council: Monaghan Design Guide (2008) · Licence the publisher's termsText read from the publisher’s PDF; tables, maps and drawings do not survive as text, and page numbers are the PDF’s (its first page is 1). Check the original before relying on a passage.