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Architects are for everyone

The Sunday Times (Ireland Home Section - Cover Story), November 3, 2002

The Irish traditionally shun bespoke homes, but three of the winning projects in this year's Plan Opus building awards show good design does not have to cost the earth, writes Niall Toner

Creative architecture for private homes is beyond the financial league of the average punter: discuss. Certainly that's the widely held view. But the award winners at this year's architectural Oscars, the Plan Expo awards, beg to differ with this thesis. In fact, they positively trounce it.

When it comes to building houses or making improvements to existing ones, we are traditionally a nation of off-the-peg buyers. We shun bespoke homes for fear of builders talking telephone numbers. However, an increasing number of simple building projects these days incorporate bold plans by imaginative architects.

Who would expect a rural one-off bungalow in Co. Clare, an extension to a suburban semi in Milltown, Dublin, and the renovation of an old forge in Co. Laois to come top of the class when awards were being handed out? In the Plan Expo Opus building awards for 2002, all three were in the "under €375,000" category, and two of them came in well under that.

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