Rooms with views and wind-fighting walls
Holiday homeowners want their retreats to have a different spirit to their normal homes and that comes out in the brief to architects. “It is all about the views, as well as capturing the sun and integrating the landscape,” says Máire Henry of DHB Architects in Waterford who is also head of the school of architecture at WIT (Waterford Institute of Technology). “In a holiday home they will spend a lot of time relaxing and entertaining friends; it is not going to be a home where you come and go from work each day and are worried about where to park the car.” Her practice designed a home for a woman, in Dunmore East, overlooking the harbour that was reversed from the conventional form. It has three bedrooms downstairs and the open-plan living area on the upper floor opens out onto a deck, to make the most of the sea views. Cork-based Carr Cotter and Naessens Architects designed a house in Kerry with big sliding doors to make the most of the views but there are also more closed-in parts.
