People who commission architects to design their holiday homes are taking the opportunity to rethink the space they have at home as well as optimising views and light, writes Emma Cullinan.

While holiday homes in Ireland are traditionally thought of as basic period cottages, or hacienda style new builds, perhaps on an estate, there is evidence that more people are choosing architects to design something special for them.

This is a trend that the editor of Architecture Ireland and House magazines, Sandra Andrea O'Connell has witnessed of late. "Architect-designed holiday homes have featured strongly in our magazines and seem to be evidence of both the increasing wealth in Irish society and of a greater awareness of the expertise and vision that an architect can bring to a project, no matter how modest or extravagant the holiday home is," she says.

One that has featured widely in recent years is the house on Dirk Cove in west Cork by Niall McLaughlin, which sits out over a cliff. Indeed, the architect now says that this - and a house he designed on an Oxfordshire hillside - has given him a reputation for cliff-top homes and he has had requests to design more in this country.

Other projects have involved adding extensions to existing cottages such as architect Eileen Fitzgerald's sensitive addition to a two-up, two-down in Kerry where a thin glass room marks the link between old and new.

Paul Keogh Architects have built contemporary houses, with vernacular styling, in Mayo that sit happily in their setting, an example of a home, says O'Connell, that "displays a great respect for local materials, simplicity of form and an awareness of placing one-off houses sensitively in the landscape". She cites David Murphy's simple timber-frame house on the Wexford coast as another good example.

One architect who has developed a track record in holiday homes is John Dorman, of Dorman Architects, who designed an award-winning house in Connemara in 2001 and has since converted a cottage on Clare Island, added an extension to a house on Coney Island, Co Sligo, built a Zig Zag holiday home in Meath that created separate areas of outdoor space for a keen gardener and, most recently, a house on the Mayo coastline (pictured). There is now another in the pipeline.

He has found that his clients have taken the opportunity to create something completely different from their own home - a break from everyday life in design terms too, then.

"Our clients for the Mayo house live in a suburban house in Co Kildare which has the usual poor interaction between the inside and outside, little natural flow between spaces and it was designed with little consideration for natural light," says Dorman. "They wanted to change that with their holiday home and decided to approach an architect to see what was possible."

The possibilities, with considered design, are to enrich all the ingredients of a good holiday: connection with the landscape through making the most of views; capturing as much sun and light as possible (something, let's face it, that is crucial with our weather); protection from prevailing winds; the creation of a relaxed flexible environment and building something that respects the landscape.

Dorman has combined all of these ingredients in the Mayo house. "Here was an opportunity to build on a really beautiful part of the Mayo coastline. But it is a very vulnerable area: something that is evident along the Irish coastline with its inappropriate development," says the architect who is appalled that the entrances to many Irish towns are littered with light industrial buildings.

In order to maximise the views - of mountains, sea, fields and close-ups of banks of wild flowers - and the amount of natural light, the house has taken on a loose cruciform plan. This means that most of the upstairs bedrooms have multidirectional views. "Wherever you are in the house, there is something outside the window," says Dorman.

Downstairs the south-west facing combined kitchen, living and dining area has an injection of sun through the roof to compensate for the fact that it doesn't get direct sun until late-morning. "It is often forgotten that if you bring sun into room it can make it beautiful whether you have views or not," says Dorman.

Yet while the sun is beautiful, it is also useful, and this home has been orientated to maximise solar gain and minimise heat loss. That is good for the planet but also for windswept Irish coastal dwellers. The house has high-performance windows - in timber and aluminium - with relatively low-U-values. There are high levels of insulation, geothermal underfloor heating and a heat recovery vent system that reutilises heat from cooking and bathing. "This is an airtight building that has minimum heat loss through its fabric," says Dorman.

Despite its complex plan the five-bedroom house has the overall feel of a traditional cottage, with its white render exterior with pitched, natural-slate roofs. The single-storey entrance, with its timber and copper roof, offers a reference to a contemporary design from the outset. What this house has created - for a client who grew up in the area and may want to move here permanently one day - is an escape from a suburban multi-roomed house. Here things are more relaxed than in the family's usual home - to allow for friends and family of all ages to pile in too (although an outdoor shower stops the house getting too mucky from kids returning home with bits of countryside on them).

This house crucially makes the most of views and weather and respects the landscape.

Dorman has had the opportunity to see how previous clients have lived with the holiday home he designed for them in Connemara six years ago. Again, they wanted something different from their Galway city house. "They have a 1980s house that comprises a series of box rooms and they wanted something bright, and modern, and a complete change from where they are living. They wanted a whole other life in Connemara and it has worked really well for them."

So people are realising that a holiday home can offer the chance for a complete change - not only of scenery and day-to-day living- but of house design.