The clients both grew up near the site and were concerned that the house respond to the lush countryside of the Golden Vale. The site itself is quite particular, sitting on top of a muted escarpment, looking south over the floodplain of the Morningstar river towrd a series of low hills in the middle distance and the Ballyhoura mountains on the horizon. These low hills are each capped with previous layers of buidlings - tower houses, iron age ring forts and so on. The house takes some of its cues from older built forms. There is a nod toward a Palladian model, with a centre block flanked by two wings at a smaller scale, with the roof profiles reflecting traditional ways of making a roof, whether barrell vaulted, mono pitch or pitched. The response to the site conditions generated the more austere, defensive treatment of the north elevation facing the road, with a much more open loose glazed elevation to the south. This south elevation opens its arms to the sun and the landscape with all the rooms on the ground floor accessing the courtyard space to the rear.