Living Architecture Centre

STUDENT FEEDBACK

VIDEO FEEDBACK AVAILABLE HERE

‘An empowering Course’

‘Peter is a foundation of information’

‘Living architecture has helped me experience a beautiful approach to building’

‘I came to learn about building a healthy home, learnt to build with love and everything became healthy’

‘Peter is a guru – his Course challenges your raison d’etre and rightly forces people to question their core beliefs on everything pertaining to the essence of what is life-promoting. He’s got some great ideas on sheltermaking also!’

‘If you are thinking outside of the box this Course will prove you are not crazy!

‘Participating in this Course with Peter was like being involved in a piece of performance art’

‘The most alive Course I ever took’

‘I came alive with Living Architecture’

How does it feel to live in a house designed around your personal needs?

‘Wonderful.’

‘I often stop and wonder at it and appreciate it.’

‘I am walking around my ‘plan’ and it works extremely well.’

‘It feels great.’

‘I had perceived need for light after living in an old house. I got light and I am over the moon with it.’

‘So far there is nothing in the plan I wish I had done differently.’

‘Great!’

‘Far surpasses my expectations.’

‘On completing the Analysis Sheets I was unsure where all the questions led to, but having lived in the house for almost 10 months now, I appreciate that the sun is in the right place in each room at the right time of the day for me. It’s a very bright and, I think, cheerful home.’

How has this changed your life?

‘I love my home and coming home.’

‘I feel more rested at home, love to/prefer to work at home.’

‘I am able to put boundaries in place to ‘protect’ areas in the house e.g. for privacy.’

‘I have more personal space and I can accommodate visitors easily.’

‘Desired and fulfiled desire to rid clutter from life’!

‘I find more people drop in to see me.’

‘It is a welcoming, relaxing, busy, house.’

‘I can sit in a space, look at the view and feel contentment for hours on end.’

‘More fun with my friends. More private space.’

‘The deck – because I have a place to skateboard.’

‘More confidence!’

‘It has given me great independence because the house was designed to meet my special needs.’

Was it worth the time and energy involved?

‘Yes, definitely. I found it exciting for a short while and really hard work from there on, needing lots of encouragement to do half-hour on it per day to huge reward.’

‘Yes!’

‘Yes it was worth it because I was so committed to it.’

‘Its only worth building a house if you really want to.’

‘I believe that there is not another way’

‘To give over control to someone else is asking for trouble.’

‘Yes. Now I can say it was worth it, though there were times that I certainly wondered what I had taken on. A bit like giving birth I would imagine. You forget the aches and pain when you have he finished product.’

Did the involvement fulfil or surpass your expectations?

‘I had low expectations, as I had never been involved in such before, and, as a woman I expected to be ignored or ridiculed or only listened to for the ‘kitchen’. So, I was surprised by the fulfilment.’

‘Very fulfiling. Hard work but very fulfiling.’

’My level of involvement was about right.’

‘I found a builder I trusted and in most aspects he did what I expected. I could discuss any aspect with him at any time very easily.’

‘I was allowed to spray paint my room with whatever I liked.’

‘This was something I entered into almost on the spur of the moment. I had no idea how involved it would be. I learned more in the first few months about drainage, plumbing, etc. than I ever thought I would need to know.’

Was it possible to successfully incorporate your own ideas and aspirations into the project?

‘Yes – and very exciting and lots of feelgood factor.’

‘I wanted an open plan which ‘flowed’ and also some separate rooms which doubled as activity rooms and guest spaces.’

‘The ‘relationships’ between the rooms work very well.’

‘Very much so.’

‘Yes.’

‘Internally, more or less, yes. Externally, we had to make many changes to comply with Planner.’

‘Absolutely, though having discussed what I wanted from the house and completed the questionnaire, there was very little to change in the initial plan.’

‘Yes, I pretty much got what I wanted.’

Did you find the technical and design issues easy to understand?

‘I can’t remember having difficulties.’

‘Not always, to be honest!’

‘Yes. Some challenges but a bit of communication solved all problems.’

‘Yes, very easy.’

Would you encourage people to try this for themselves and, if so, why?

‘Because I can’t imagine building a house and not making it personal/making it your own/putting the effort and energy into the place or allowing someone else to tell you what your needs and wants must be! ‘

‘Living space’ is just that and is part of who you are and how you feel. Planning in detail gets you in touch with this and relieves potential problems/headaches!’

‘It is worth the time and effort.’

‘I feel I grew along with the process.’

‘It is a very empowering experience.’

‘Yes, because it has been a great experience for me.’

‘Yes, though I’ve have to say a certain kind of person, willing and ready to be patient and put in the time.’

‘Absolutely. It’s wonderful to have a home that has been specially designed to meet your needs and lifestyle though if you had asked the same question when I was in the middle of building I probably would have given a very different answer.’

Did your involvement in the process of designing and building your home produce benefits in other aspects of your life?

‘I loved the design process and found that I was good at it’!

‘Made me more aware of the space I am in.’

‘The Course encouraged me to join a local art class and it was through the class that I met my builder’!

‘Yes, shook up lots of assumptions.’

‘Job satisfaction for myself working at home.’

‘Yes, the trapdoor is great for going from my room to the TV Room’!

‘Coping with teenagers and toddlers in the same house.’

‘Made me aware of the importance of how a room ‘feels’ aiding my teaching.’

‘It has made me more critical of design generally.’

‘I feel that quality of my life has increased.’

‘Yes, it taught me patience. Nothing ever gets done as quickly as one would like but it is challenging and fulfiling.’

Did you feel empowered by the experience and, if so, why?

‘Very empowered.’

‘Building my design was a big undertaking. By succeeding I feel a great sense of achievement and satisfaction.’

‘Increasingly I felt that my opinion counted.’

‘I realised nobody else can live our life.’

‘Yes, the thought of doing this (planning our home) always seemed so daunting.’

‘I’m not sure about being empowered, but it’s certainly given me a great sense of achievement.’

‘I feel I would be fit to face almost any challenge in the future.’

‘Yes, I increasingly felt it was the right thing to do.’

THE ACTUAL HOUSE

The Actual House concept grew out of the original Be Your Own Architect Course, first staged in 1989. Many people were inspired in these Courses by the idea of the different kind of house that I spoke of. Because they could not ‘actually see’ one of these houses they felt a little at a loss. Things were still at an early stage. No designs had yet been constructed.

I decided to design an ‘actual’ house that people could see and experience. I saw this as a versatile framework which could be adpated to individual circumstance and need. I followed the strategy developed in the Courses for the the initial design development. This was quite difficult as this strategy was geared to the creation of totally individual design solutions — the shaping of the architecture specifically to suit the lives of those who would live within. The Actual House concept somewhat contradicted this idea of a totally individual design solution for each Course participant. I seemed to be embarking on the creation of a standard box into which anyone could fit! This contradiction seemed worth exploring however as many other issues were arising in the Courses which needed to be addressed — the time people had available to develop totally individual designs; the preparation of the necessary drawings; questions of building economics and planning issues – to name but a few.

In resolving these issues The Actual House Design began to evolve into a standard framework that could support a complete range of individual needs from common necessities such as Bathrooms, Entrance Lobbies, Bedrooms and Kitchen/Dining/Living Areas, to more specialised requirements such as Offices, Workshops, Sunspaces and so on. Coupled with the evolving versatility in providing for a complete range of individual accommodation needs, the design began to embrace wider issues such as economy of construction; healthiness; buildability; passive solar energy usage; planning ; interior flexibility and expandability.

Two versions of the Actual House evolved from this – a single storey 100sm/1000sqft version and a ‘loft’ version capable of providing up to 150sqm/1500sqft of versatile floorspace. With both versions utilising a similar ground floor ‘footprint’ this granted immense flexibility in the creation of individual plans and further allowed for these plans, once built, to be changed with a minimum of disruption. Featuring highly insulated suspended timber ground floors and passive solar capability, the timber frame structures could be married to a variety of insulating and finishing materials and the entire building could be self-built with a minimum of previous experience.

During the Summer of 1994 the project was on display at the Be Your Own Architect Studio in Ballydehob, West Cork. This allowed for a free exchange of ideas with those interested in the concept and promoted the refinement and simplification of the design. Soon, the focus of attention began to turn to the creation of a full size version of the Actual House. Naively, I thought it possible to access some of the European Structural Funds flowing about to construct the initial prototype! The extent of my naivety only manifest itself after a series of rebuttals. The inevitable analysis that I had to bring to bear on these blockages yielded some interesting truths – there is no support for solutions that promote lower expenditure in the housing field; the construction industry is a law onto itself; modern economics are based on borrowings using Bricks & Mortar as security; the politics of growth depend on the creation of bigger and more expensive houses and constantly increasing consumerism; alternative housing solutions are a threat to established property values; fear is the primary tool used in maintaining this status quo. Within this web, the frustration that many people feel about mortgages and dreary houses abounds.

In terms of the development of the Actual House Design, once these blockages were identified they could be circumvented. Creative energy was therefore lavished on realising the goal of building the first one. This began by developing a set of technical drawings, securing the rights to the design and then subjecting several different versions of the Actual House the rigours of the Planning System — which it passed with flying colours! 3 Actual Houses have now been completed with a total of 5 Planning Permissions granted.

Individual versions of the Actual House can be developed as part of the Living Architecture Course

© Peter Cowman 2006