The UK’s ongoing shortage of fully accessible homes is well known – but have you ever thought about designing and building your own? Paul F Cockburn looks at how one couple were able to create a distinctive abode for all the family…
Following the birth of their younger daughter Greta, Thea and Ian McMillan realised that–sooner rather than later–they would need a more accessible home to accommodate her particular needs. However, their then-current home in Portobello, “Edinburgh’s Seaside”, had been built during the reign of Queen Victoria. “There was no way we could extend and adapt it for Greta,” explains Ian, “but we didn’t want to move out of Portobello.”
“We’d moved here four weeks before Greta was born,” adds Thea. “When the kids were young it just felt like a really good place to be; we’d started to get to know people and people had started to get to know Greta from a baby. We liked the people here, we liked the fact that we can walk to school along the Promenade. Beatrice, who’s now 12, had friends here. It just kind of made sense for us to stay here.”
The couple were also determined that Greta would follow her sister into the local primary. “I’d got to know the head teacher, and all the other teachers saw Greta coming in and out when we went to summer fairs, or whatever,” Thea adds. “That kind of relationship with a mainstream primary was key; I’ve heard from friends that it’s quite difficult to break into mainstream education if you’re also having specialist education, but that was absolutely never a problem here.”
SELF BUILD
Their first thought was to find a more suitable home which could be adapted to Greta’s needs, but the couple–who are both architects–quickly realised that, even if they could afford the size of house needed, it would still end up a compromise. “So we thought; well, we’re architects, why don’t we design exactly what we need as a family?” explains Thea. And that, long-story short, is exactly what they did!
The result is the award-winning Ramp House, a two-storey wheelchair-accessible family home based around an unfolding 28 metre long ramp. After more than a year of calling it home the McMillan family, including Greta, are still “delighted” with it. “It just makes everything so much easier,” says Thea, “and it’s really an enjoyable house to be in. It works really well.”
Self build housing is, essentially, housing built by individuals or groups of individuals for their own use, although in reality most people delegate the actual construction work to professional builders, contractors and others. According to the National Self Build Association (NASBA), around 15,000 self build homes are erected in the UK every year. This is a small proportion of new housing in comparison with many European countries, but it’s one the UK Government is determined to increase.
MONEY MATTERS
Back in 2011, when Minister of State for Housing and Local Government, Conservative MP Grant Shapps admitted that self build had previously “only been an easy option for the rich and privileged,” dependent upon you having not just the right contacts but also enough money to buy the land and pay for the services of the best architects, consultants and expert project managers.
The McMillans, at least, were spared the task of explaining their needs to an architect, but creating their ideal family home was far from simple, even for them. “Getting the finances sorted out, that was the most stressful bit for me,” admits Thea. “We’re now working with lots of clients who are in similar situations where they need to do something to the house to adapt it or new build, and the most difficult bit is the finance.”
Sorting out the money took the best part of the year, time also spent honing the design. “The key idea was that Greta should be able to move around the spaces in the same way as us, and that the spaces should be connected, so if she was sitting in that chair not able to come after us, she could still know exactly where we were and be able call on us,” says Thea.
ACCESSIBLE DESIGN
While encouraged by seeing significant ramps in homes in Holland and Germany, Ian’s own experience proved invaluable. “I’ve worked on museums and galleries, where it was all about ‘architectural promenade’, leading people through the gallery so they saw every single room and every single painting,” he says. “This house is a bit like that, in that the ramp takes you through every single space.
“The spatial planning of it was quite tricky because the ‘circulation’ is 30%–almost a third–of the house,” he adds. “So it was about breaking it down, making sure it never felt like a corridor; so, it’s a third of the house you kind of use all the time. Getting that to work was the trickiest thing, but once we’d cracked that…”
That said, the internal layout continued to change during the planning application, in part thanks to feedback from their daughters. “Nothing different on the outside, but we changed where the stair was, where the wet room was, and the kitchen changed as a result of shifting the stairs,” says Thea. “You can get get away with more things when you have a bigger space; smaller things, you really have to make them work.”
GRAND DESIGNS?
Self build programmes such as Channel 4’s Grand Designs rely for much of their human interest on the arguments, conflicts and crises between owners, architects and builders. But is such stress inevitable? “We got a main contractor; so, although we were doing the drawings and things, we were not managing sub-contractors on site,” says Ian. “Being architects, we knew that’s where the skill lies, and that’s where all the problems are as well!”
“A friend who is also an architect did all the contract administration, because that put a distance between us and them,” Thea adds, “though we lived just along the road, so we were on site pretty much every day!” The ‘distance’ was important, however. “I don’t have memories of it being particularly difficult, except for the very last week when they were trying to finish and we were trying to move in!”
The couple also had in place a Bill of Quantities (listing materials and labour costs) and “a proper contract” on the work. “It just makes it so much easier,” says Ian. “Every new build needs a contingency fund, as you just don’t know what problems you’ll encounter. Overall, we were 3% over our budget. I think looking back it was the right thing to do; just to plan it properly.”
MORE:
CHAMBERSMCMILLAN
0131 669 5766; www.cmcmarchitects.com
THE SELF BUILD GUIDE
www.the-self-build-guide.co.uk
NATIONAL SELF BUILD ASSOCIATION
http://www.nasba.org.uk
BOX OUT:
While Thea and Ian McMillan faced relatively few problems with Edinburgh’s planning authority, some members of the local community council had other ideas. To their relief, letters of support far outnumbered any complaints about a new building in a local conservation area. “That was great, because it made us feel that people did want us to stay in the community. It is a little unsettling, though, when you see that what you need to survive as a family can be easily threatened by other people’s attitudes.”
First published by Access (#14, April 2014); read it online here.
