Search the Community

Greetings all, I am assuming that everyone who gets involved in renovation, extensions, self design, custom design and self builds wants to to build-in character and therefore add value. Estate agents, property journalists, design magazine editors often pepper their writings with descriptions such as 'oodles, bags, loads of character' etc. Mind you the description is oft applied to holiday cottages Cornish villages, Tuscan streets and squares. So it's maybe so overused that it's meaningless except as a polite substitute for old, rambling, near collapse (hang on that's me)! But I bet you won't say to your architect 'oh, while you're at it I don't want the development to have any character'. However, It does go hand in hand with the adding of value. you'll notice that the adverts, or more properly 'We are delighted to offer...' displays in Country Life, and the quality end of estate agent world, pepper their descriptions with charming, unique, stunning, exceptional and full of character descriptions. Interestingly in a recent copy of CL they were 'featuring' a modern country house (for modern read newly built, with a flat roof and seemingly office-style windows) which offered no such glowing descriptions...I wonder why. Still over a million quid though! My trusty Chambers dictionary describes character as 'the aggregate of peculiar qualities which constitutes personal individuality': it seems to me that peculiar in this context means specific to yourselves, not weird! Mind you, one person's weird can be another's delight (that word again)...sorry Ferdinand. I leave you to ponder this one.

I have always tried to design in Bay and even oriel windows in my house designs. Bay windows can often add a quite 'slot' to do the home work, read, write or draw, use a laptop, have breakfast and even admire, relatively undisturbed a sunrise or set-set, or admire your efforts in the garden. In a busy kitchen, where more people gather round these days to await or help with supper, a bay can provide the social spot, but still with work etc...more like the trad farmhouse kitchen many which seem to admire...(perhaps another blog). As Arthur Martin says in his 1909 book on house design 'The Small house', " Bay windows are convenient architectural devices for gaining extra space beyond the main walls of the house, being in themselves interesting features in the rooms. They not infrequently in small houses (Mr Martin describing in Edwardian Times houses more akin in area to executive homes now!) form the only comfortable corner for an easy chair or writing table..." Chris Alexander et al. in 'A Pattern Language' make a plea for care in built in seat design for hardness and back height. A Pattern Language is indeed a wonderful guide to jolting a memory or spending time considering decision making, especially at design and detail level. Anyone considering designing and building should invest in a copy...wonderful and unique piece of work. Obviously another advantage of a bay window is that it captures sunlight and garden activity from three or more windows...so if your wondering whose car is pulling up or what the kids are up to! Oriels are harder to make work, structurally and thermally. Plainly as a cantilever the structure will penetrate the building so will require ingenious insulation solutions...Theses are not impossible, but need careful exploration. Of course a solution is to build one on top of a ground floor bay or support from the garden...all to taste I guess (and the budget). A favourite device of mine is to extend outwards an oriel from a standard landing to create a hobby or work place which is very much part of the home's activities. There's more in bays and oriels in my book...cargocollective.com/selfbuildhome for details