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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- 8 Even when the topography of the landscape favours a narrow house positioned at right angles to the contours and results in a very short gable façade facing south the Direct Gain method of passive solar gain can still be used to considerable effect. Essentially the principles described above still apply even though it is not possible to give all the most used rooms a south facing external wall. Position the most used rooms to take advantage of whatever south facing wall frontage you have. An open plan kitchen/dining/living area can be arranged to have windows on south, west and east facades thus benefiting from solar gain throughout the day. A separate living room is likely to be used most in the early evening. If this is the case then it is best to position this room so that it benefits from solar gain when it is being used. Often a west facing position is best for this room. Secondary rooms such as stores, utility rooms, bathrooms, corridors etc can be positioned on the north and perhaps the east side of the house to act as a heat loss buffer. Conservatories or sunspaces can add to the passive solar gain provided they are positioned on the south or southwest sides of the house. A conservatory on the north side of a house will be less attractive to use because it won’t have good solar gain. Position most used rooms to benefit from south facing walls Position living rooms/bedrooms rooms to benefit from early evening sun
- 82 4.7 sloping SITES Sloping sites present particular design challenges and require a sensitive approach to siting and building design. Work with the natural undulations of the site as much as possible to limit excavation and under building If the house is sited parallel to the contours keep it as narrow as possible to minimise large scale excavation or extensive cut and fill. Site the house so that it is well down the hillside Do not allow the roof to break the skyline when the house and site are viewed from a long distance away or from any approach roads. Where possible allow the natural ground levels to wrap around the house Very large houses (greater than 2000 square feet) should be broken down into smaller blocks Low lying sites or hollows can present drainage and flooding problems Avoid sloping sites that face north
- 83 HOW DOES THIS EXAMPLE BLEND IN? Its scale has been made smaller by subdividing the accommodation into one simple central block with the rest of the living space accommodated in adjoining linear buildings deliberately grouped to create a courtyard. Sinking the grouping into a shallow excavation in the hillside a sheltered, enclosed and private courtyard is created that can hide clothes lines, trampolines etc, bins etc. Allowing the natural ground levels to wrap around the perimeter buildings makes the groupying seem to hug the landscape. Planting of indigenous broadleaf trees along the boundaries is an essential ingredient in enhancing the harmonisation with the countryside. A large 6,000 sqft house that blends in well
- 84 Badly sited 6,000 square foot houseBACK AND FRONT In the countryside it is often possible to see a house from a variety of vantage points and the urban notion of a house having a front and back side is often irrelevant. Site houses in the countryside so that they blend in on all sides. This also means taking care to locate oil tanks, clothes lines, barbeques, trampolines, bins storage, car parking etc so that they do not detract from an otherwise well sited and well designed house. Consideration should be given to dropping soil vent pipes and foul waste drainage pipes internally. The 6,000 sq. foot house illustrated on right has been sited and designed without concern for its impact from the “back”. What appears to be a single storey house from the front sits on a large flat roofed base that provides almost half the floor area. The so-called “single storey” house is disconnected from the natural ground levels and the relationship between the main kitchen/living/dining rooms and the garden spaces is remote. Outside patio areas are disconnected from gardens and lack shelter and privacy on the “front” side of the house and have a poor orientation on the “back” terrace. The overall shape and massing of the house viewed from the back is bulky. x This approach tries to make large houses seem small in a way that fails to integrate into the landscape. This 6,000 sq foot house has been designed to look as if it is single storey when viewed from the road but is effectively 3 storey from the other side.
- 85 AVOID: Slicing off the top of the hill and using fill to achieve a level platform Positioning houses (especially large ones) on the tops of hills is to be avoided at all costs.Remember that very large bulky houses cast deeper shadows on the surrounding garden areas making it harder to find sunny places to sit outside and also taking longer for new gardens to mature. AVOID: Locating house half way up a hillside and then relying on extensive cut and fill to form level site AVOID: Filling in hollows on the site to make it level Siting the house on the top of a hill x x x
- 86 4.8 houses adjacent to other DWELLINGS When considering how best to site an additional dwelling with other houses in the countryside there are lessons to be learnt from existing historic traditional groupings of farmhouses and other buildings. These include: Farm clusters with a farmhouse fronting onto a farm lane with adjacent farm outbuildings medium-small sized country houses with enclosing stable blocks and farm barns small ad hoc groupings of individual farmhouses each side of a lane rising up a drumlin small farmhouses along a winding farm lane. To achieve successful groupings that blend into the landscape several key factors should be present: 1. The group should have an overall visual unity 2. Houses should have relatively simple and be comprised of similar shapes 3. Houses should be small scale 4. The scale of houses should be similar relative to each other 5. Use of features typical of suburban housing (dormer windows, bay windows, porticos, pediments) should be eliminated 6. A limited range of materials and colours should be used on all houses that form part of the grouping
- 87 7. Materials should be characteristic of rural Co Monaghan 8. Create or utilise an existing country laneway as an access road (ideally this should be remote from the County Road) 9. Eliminate urban and suburban type access roads/ landscape treatments such as: houses grouped around car turning circles or hammer heads concrete kerbs tarmac blockwork walls timber fences pre-cast concrete fencing ornate gates, fountains etc, urban lamp standards 10. Maximise rural landscape treatment such as: grass verges indigenous deciduous hedges – hawthorn, blackthorn etc interplanted with native deciduous trees (ash, alder, birch, beech oak etc) gravelled access laneways, turning areas natural local stone paving (where budgets permit) car turning areas and visitor parking spaces should be tucked away and well integrated into the overall development
- 88 MAINTAIN ISOLATION OF GROUPINGS Groupings also depend for their success on being relatively isolated from any other groups of houses and one-off houses. A second or third grouping in the next field or two or three large single houses close by will significantly detract from a successful grouping. Further development in close proximity to a group of buildings may detract from the visual presence of the group. x
- 89 CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES It is possible to rework the key ingredients of traditional groupings in an innovative way to insert a new contemporary house into these groupings in a way that respects the tradtional but also expresses and meets the needs of the 21st century. Such schemes will be encouraged provided they achieve a harmonious relationship with the surrounding countryside.
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