What the Vellan Coast asks of a house

Every brief we receive for this coast describes light. Very few describe wind, and none has ever described chloride. That is understandable — nobody falls in love with a place in February — but it means the first conversation we have with most clients is about the things the site will insist on regardless of what anyone wants.

Salt is a material decision, not a maintenance one

Airborne chloride on an exposed western elevation here is high enough that standard stainless fixings will bleed within four winters. We specify marine-grade fixings throughout, not only where they are visible, because the ones that fail first are always the ones nobody can reach. It adds a little under two per cent to the cost of a house and removes an entire category of future work.

The same logic applies to timber. Larch and Douglas fir silver honestly and can be left alone. Painted softwood on a western elevation is a commitment to repaint every third year for as long as the building stands, and we will say so before anyone signs a drawing.

Wind decides the plan before the architect does

The prevailing south-westerly here is not remarkable in speed. What matters is that it is constant, and that it carries water horizontally for weeks at a time. A house that puts its main opening on the south-west will be shut for a third of the year. A house that puts a wall there and opens west or south-east instead can be used in every month.

• Shelter first, view second: a courtyard or a spine wall bought before the glass
• Roof overhangs kept short, because long ones become sails
• Openings that shutter rather than openings that are simply large
• Drainage designed for horizontal rain, not vertical rain

Light is the reward, and it is worth the constraints

What this coast gives back is an evening light from March to October that is genuinely difficult to find elsewhere in the country, and a winter light that is low, long and quite unlike summer. A house designed for one and not the other is only half built. We ask clients to visit a site at least twice, in different seasons, before we draw anything.