Most new houses in Ireland borrow poorly from the Georgian model. But there are plenty of 'Modern architects' out there, says Emma Cullinan

Bungalows and housing developments that borrow heavily, and generally very poorly, from the Georgian model are Ireland's predominant new house types. In a parallel universe, Ireland also has individually-designed homes that have kept up with global architectural trends.

Irish architects have kept their pencils on the pulse for a number of centuries: keeping pace with the world during the classic revival, and doing Georgian to perfection. When the International Style and Modernism was changing the face of architecture worldwide, there were Irish players.

Australian architect Raymond McGrath came to Ireland in the early 1940s via the UK, and was involved with the Modern movement here. Architects Jack O'Hare and Andy Devane visited Frank Lloyd Wright at his Taliesin complex in America. Devane built a house in Howth in 1962 which bears FLW hallmarks, such as use of natural stone, and a circular form. In the 1950s, architects Peter Doyle, Cathal O'Neill and Robin Walker all went to study with Mies van der Rohe in Chicago. Ireland was to benefit from their knowledge when they returned to work here. Walker's O'Flaherty House in Cork, built in 1967, uses concrete, much glass and stands on stilts. Architects here also embraced the 1990s rethink of Modern, which is now sliding into a new style.

As house architecture worldwide moves on, certain Irish architects are there. While being a global trend, the new architectural style allows for local individualism. Architecture loves labels, and this movement is known as "regional modernism".

"The modern house is a finely calibrated indicator of a society's mindset," says Dung Ngo, author of World House Now. "Perhaps more than any other building type, the house illustrates our preoccupation with technology, environment, global culture and identity."

There are a few key considerations in local design which include showing a respect for the surrounding landscape. Rather than bulldozing the site, toppling trees, and planting a standard building on it, the design works with the available landscape, which can inform the house's form.

The design also takes account of the environment, making sure that the prevailing wind doesn't howl through the back door, while windowless southern walls prevent the sun from entering. While architects in the southern hemisphere are perfecting designs for cooling ventilation, Irish architects are becoming experts on sustainable insulation and materials that can retain heat.

The new style also seeks to combine new technology with traditional building techniques and materials, which, due to the previous lack of global-roaming container trucks, means local. So new architecture includes buildings that look fairly rustic but actually incorporate incredible technology.

Many of the 29 houses in the World House Now book (none, sadly, from Ireland) adapt to their surroundings spectacularly. A cantilevered house by architect Marcos Acayaba in Sao Paolo, Brazil, built at the edge of the expanding city, copes with the steep site by gradually growing out in width from two single modules, stacked on top of each other, that act as a "leg" on which the structure stands.

The penultimate floor is three modules wide with the top storey expanding to five modules that meet a courtyard with a swimming-pool embedded into the hilltop. This house is reminiscent of John Lautner's Chemisphere house in California, which looks like a spaceship standing on a central column - a house also designed on a steep site in land-poor Los Angeles.

Another house in Sao Paolo, by architect Andrade Morettin, combines new materials (polycarbonate panels) and traditional (timber) in a structure that was carefully designed to retain the mature trees on the site.

Among the houses that have borrowed from traditional architecture are Australian architect Glenn Murcutt's Kangaroo Valley House. The corrugated metal roof uses farm buildings rather than traditional homes as a reference point. Australia has parallels with Ireland in that its common house style has evolved from a colonial past, rather than from the countries' indigenous architecture: hence Georgian Dublin and Victorian Melbourne. Ireland's building heritage, farming as well as domestic (the two often being interlinked on the one smallholding), should provide some interesting design ideas. The idea is to interpret rather than copy. Murcutt's corrugated roofs are light, sculptural features supported on slender timber members with cleverly detailed joints. Slapping corrugated iron on top of standard house just doesn't have the same effect .

We've rather lost touch with our indigenous buildings, and have turned to Classical Greece and Spanish hacienda, as well as Georgian England, for inspiration. Yet there's a lot of fun to be had from looking at those inherently Irish buildings that form a rich heritage.

How about a home based on a stone beehive hut, tower house, or a round tower, either of the Martello or early Christian variety? What about the ancient churches whose walls curved up into the roof structure almost turning the whole building into one large roof?

Other classic Irish building types include curved ring forts and, of course, the thatched cottages which have largely been rejected - except by Bord fáilte Architect Richard Murphy looked back to traditional rural designs when creating a seaside home near Galway city. The result is a traditionally shaped cottage with a dry stone outer wall above which a curved aluminium roof hovers, a version of traditional Irish farm buildings in a design he readily admits was inspired by Glenn Murcutt.

In a house she designed near Drogheda, Fionnuala Hayes has created a semi-circular home that speaks of traditional ring forts. This contemporary house also takes account of the local climate, with its glass facade facing south and its block work back protecting from northern weather.

In Carlow, architect Will Dimond created a timber and glass home that embraces the surrounding land, while Grafton Architects took heed of a dense urban environment by designing a slatted wooden screen to the front of a Dublin home that mirrored the garages beside it in its back lane location.

Eileen Fitzgerald specified local Valentia slate for a bathroom in a Kerry home she designed. Both architect and client had to be committed to such an idea, because it was an expensive and complicated option. Architects who want to specify local materials are often finding that they have to import cheaper alternatives from abroad - Chinese granite costs less than Wicklow granite, for instance.

Many houses in World House Now seem to have been chosen because they address the landscape and local tradition, which is something that many Irish architects have ably done. While standard homes are erected apace, many architects in Ireland have the capability to produce world-class buildings, clients willing.

World House Now is published by Thames & Hudson