Category: General (Page 26 of 28)

The Dream Home…??…

November 5, 2010 / aoife / 2 Comments

A must read if you are thinking to hire any professional other than an Architect to design your house.

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Dear Potential Client,

I was delighted to get your call saying that I was highly recommended by a contact of yours. You said you wanted to build a house.

I arranged to meet you and I showed you my portfolio and we talked about the different stages involved in designing and building a house. You said to be delighted with my work and asked for my fees. I said I would have to look at the complexity of the project and I would then send you a fee proposal.

Site and brief

Your site was very challenging, with a big slope and fantastic views. I was excited with this project. Your requirements were not unusual and your likes/tastes would certainly help to make this a great project – a dream home!

Image: Evgeni Dinev / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fee proposal and the waiting game

I sent you my fee proposal and I waited. And waited. And waited. I rang you and you didn’t answer the phone. I rang you again and I left a message. And I waited.

Surely, these decisions are not easy and I totally understand that. So, I waited. Eventually you replied saying that you have decided to give the job to someone else.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Disappointment

I was disappointed but deep inside me I thought that you had appointed the other architect that you had mentioned to me and I felt that you would be in good hands anyway because he is a good professional.

Shock

Last week I was flickering my notes and came across our meeting. I decided to kill my curiosity and have a look at the County Council website to see what fantastic project my colleague had designed for you (so I thought!).

I was shocked to find out that you end up hiring an engineer to design your dream home. An engineer?! To me it was like seeing a Paediatrician performing a Heart Surgery. What a shock!

I had a look at your house drawings and I was perplexed to find out that your dream home looked like a bunch of terraced houses in a suburban setting. …So disappointing!

I could not identify any of the likes/tastes you shared with me on our meeting, your house looks massive, bulky and out of context. The volumes are boring and lack originality. The house does not sit well on the site and completely disrespects the site topography and landscape.

At this stage, I wanted to know if the planners had approved your project. I kept browsing the file and came across some letters from TDs in support of your application.

I never quite understood why these letters are needed in a planning application but this is not the 1st time that I’ve seen projects with these type of letters being granted (I’m also aware, at least in one case, that this support is paid).

Honestly, I was hoping to see a refusal at the end of the file but that didn’t happen. Your project, surprisingly, got planning permission granted with some minor comments to its scale and bulk.

My social role as an Architect

My first reaction following this ‘discovery’ was to talk to you and tell you that that is not your dream home, it’s a badly designed house and not good architecture.

Image:Scott Liddell / morgueFile.com

You are probably blind to see this and I would look like a pretentious Architect if I was to make you aware of the above.

So I stayed quite and I decided to write this letter hoping to help someone in a similar position.

I thought for a while if there was a quick fix for your problem, but I couldn’t find any… I feel repelled to help you but the only solution I see is to redesign the all house, and I doubt you would do that now.

I’m sure that you will soon realise that saving a few €€€€ was not worth. After all you are building a house for life, it should be right, beautiful, in harmony, functional and fit your requirements, while blending with the landscape (if not improving it). It should be a piece of art, something to be proud of, something special, something UNIQUE! I feel sorry you didn’t get that.

Image: jdurham / morgueFile.com

Check out the 10 reasons why you should hire an Architect.

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Simon Open Door 2010

March 30, 2010 / aoife / 0 Comments

28.04.2010 Update:

The Simon Open Door event has been extended for two more weeks. Please contact RIAI to find out who are the Architects participating in your area.

To book a consultation with Isabel Barros Architects in Wexford just ring our office 053 91 789 57.

We are delighted to announce our participation in this year’s “Simon Open Door 2010”.

The Simon Communities of Ireland work with people who experience homelessness and housing exclusion in Ireland. Simon has a vision of society where no one is homeless. All people who are homeless, or at risk of facing homelessness, are given every opportunity to realise their potential to live fulfilled lives in appropriate homes of their own. Simon is recognised for providing innovative solutions to ending homelessness and for influencing government policy and public opinion.

This year will be the sixth year that the Simon Communities of Ireland has been in partnership with the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland. Over the course of this wonderful partnership almost €200,000 has been raised for the Simon Communities of Ireland through the R.I.A.I. Simon Open Door initiative.

Anyone hoping to build, renovate or extend their home may be interested in this initiative. Isabel Barros Architects will offer an hour long consultation in return for a donation of €50 to charity. All of the money raised goes towards the work of the Simon Communities of Ireland.

You can sign up for an appointment with Isabel Barros Architects on either Saturday 24th April or Sunday 25th April, just log in at www.simonopendoor.ie.

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Why You Should Check Your Site or House for Geopathic Stress Lines

October 21, 2009 / aoife / 1 Comment

If you are planning to build a new home or finding your sleep and health disturbed in your current house (or office) you may want to consider having your property checked for Geopathic Stress Lines.

Geopathic Stress is said to be the result of spending long periods working or sleeping above any building or place where the Earth’s natural energy is disturbed by weak electromagnetic fields created by underground streams, certain mineral concentrations, fault lines and cavities.

Some classical symptoms often experienced are related to restless sleep, headaches, insomnia and fatigue.

Geopathic Stress Lines

While we are asleep our body should be resting so it can repair body cells, fight infections and absorb nutrients from food. However, it is believed that if we sleep in an area affected by Geopathic Stress, our body has to use all its energy just to keep its vital organs going. As a result our immune system becomes weakened, which means it has difficulty in absorbing nutrients or fighting off infections as efficiently as it should. Then in the long term the stresses on our bodies will emerge as more serious conditions. Cancer is the most notorious of these, and tumours are known to develop almost always at exactly the spot where two or more GS lines cross a person’s body as they lie asleep in their bed. Other diseases often associated with GS lines are: leukaemia, lymphomas, multiple sclerosis, infertility, miscarriage, cot death, etc.

Read this article for a good insight on Geopathic stress lines with many case studies and examples. Click here.

On the other side, Geopathic Stress has been described as a pseudoscience by those skeptical of the concept. Many argue that it has no basis in legitimate science and that a variety of modern devices cause the same problems. I let you decide what to do but as they say in Portugal : “I don’t believe in witches, but that they exist, they exist ”.

If you need someone with good experience in GS lines in the Wexford area give a look at Brendan Murphy’s website.

There is also a quite interesting discussion with some testimonials here.

For me, as an Architect, it’s important to know about my client’s concerns regarding this issue so I can address them at an early stage when sitting the building on the site or when re-styling their house or office.

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