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Manx Planning Policy (8.11.2) states:
“It is important that replacement dwellings should relate
closely to the buildings they replace in terms of siting and size that the resulting visual impact
is appropriate for the countryside, and that existing stone and slate are re-used.”
And 3/91
(p2) included the following policy paragraph:
“the removal or replacement of traditional
elements including materials, windows or external works will generally not be acceptable.
Works to buildings that date before 1920 should as far as practicable retain the original
materials and form of the building.”
Petitt said that people liked to build bungalows and there was a fear of the island becoming
like Ireland where rural areas were dominated by bland modern bungalows. 3/91 sought to
address this issue and protect the vernacular. He explained that 3/91 was written by Melville
Dumbar Associates. Dumbar was co-author of the Essex Design Guide. 3/91 addresses
design, siting, form and materials: including stone work with materials imported from Ireland
– and taste – including recommended proportions for doors and windows.
Petitt said that the problem with 3/91 was that it only recognised two housing types: the
‘normal size’ type with a 5 window front elevation and another type (referred to as a rare
extended version) with a 9 window front elevation. This had led to: “misplaced enthusiasm”,
poor location and detail and issues of scale and monotony. What was needed was the
freedom to develop new architectural styles.
Eastwood then talked about how she had looked at the Isle of Skye, which had a similar
climate and landscape to the Isle of Man (IOM). In Skye different styles of contemporary
architecture were evident whereas the IOM experience was just the 5 window and 9 window
variations and both were essentially examples of pastiche.
Sheep had been introduced in Skye, since people had been removed from the landscape. The
vernacular Skye house was a longhouse known as a black-house: a thatched house with stone
walls, since trees were rare in the landscape.
Eastwood introduced the Hebridean Typologies, which included the Hebridean black-house,
the white-house and the kit-house. In the Hebridean approach the whole house was
preferred - since it provided better circulation. By contrast the kit-house did not fit into the
landscape and it was not ‘tucked-away from the wind’ like the black-house’.
In Skye designers looked back at the black-house and also the black-shed and were developing
contemporary interpretations. Eastwood underlined this by showing photographs of
contemporary houses in Skye. She explained that with today’s lifestyle
local
covered a larger
geographical area and in locations like Skye employment was no longer largely agricultural.
The cotemporary houses featured large glazed windows and their siting was more prominent:
they stood out in the landscape rather than being tucker-in. They had less external
detail/features; they were robust to avoid failure; and they had ‘feature interiors’.
Eastwood finished by making reference to the design guide
Rural Design Future Landscapes
,
which was created in 2011 by Alan Dickson from Rural Design Architects from Skye, in
conjunction with multiple architects and kit-house firms (including Dualchas). The guide